ABSTRACT
We discuss how city government can use local policies as a mechanism to improve housing unit quality and reduce unwanted city owned housing. This is a continuously relevant given the fluctuating economic cycles in which there are peaks and ebbs of landlords (investors) walking away and abandoning their properties. This is the first paper to apply both an abandonment and renovation framework to support housing policy of preventing city ownership. Thereby, the model discusses the optimal time in which a landlord should choose to abandon or renovate a housing unit. Overall, the framework in this paper provides a robust discussion of the landlord's irreversibility, uncertainty, and timing issues which pertain to housing renovation and abandonment decision-making.
Keywords
New York City's Local Law 37; abandon; renovate; suburbanization; housing policy; decision-making