IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v16y1979i1p19-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Habitability Laws and the Shrinkage of Substandard Rental Housing Stock

Author

Listed:
  • Werner Z. Hirsch

    (University of California at Los Angeles)

  • Cheung-Kwok Law

    (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Abstract

Recent years have seen a great upsurge in the number and types of laws that control the relationship between landlords and tenants. Particularly important among such laws are those which extend the warranty of habitability, often referred to as habitability laws. They award tenants new powers by substituting for the doctrine of caveat emptor the doctrine of caveat venditor. This paper examines the effects which habitability laws have had on the stock of substandard rental housing. Substandard housing is defined in four different ways, and for each a separate equation is estimated for the period 1960 to 1974-75. The most stringent of such laws - receivership laws - are found to have a statistically significant effect on the reduction of substandard housing in SMSAs. Specifically, between 1960 and 1974-75 in the presence of receivership laws the stock of substandard rental housing was found to have decreased on the average between 1.4 and 4.6 per cent, depending on how substandard is defined.

Suggested Citation

  • Werner Z. Hirsch & Cheung-Kwok Law, 1979. "Habitability Laws and the Shrinkage of Substandard Rental Housing Stock," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 16(1), pages 19-28, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:16:y:1979:i:1:p:19-28
    DOI: 10.1080/713702457
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/713702457
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/713702457?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gregory K. Ingram, 1977. "Residential Location and Urban Housing Markets," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number ingr77-1.
    2. Werner Z. Hirsch & Stephen Margolis, 1977. "Habitability Laws and Low-Cost Rental Housing," NBER Chapters, in: Residential Location and Urban Housing Markets, pages 181-228, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Donald F. Vitaliano, 1986. "Measuring the Efficiency Cost of Rent Control," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 14(1), pages 61-71, March.
    2. James R. Follain JR & Stephen Malpezzi, 1981. "Another Look at Racial Differences in Housing Prices," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 18(2), pages 195-203, June.
    3. Clarke, Dylan R. & Gold, Daniel E., 2024. "The effects of residential landlord–tenant laws: New evidence from Canadian reforms using census data," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    4. Isaac F. Megbolugbe, 1989. "A Hedonic Index Model: The Housing Market of Jos, Nigeria," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 26(5), pages 486-494, October.
    5. Alan M. Hay, 1981. "The Economic Basis of Spontaneous Home Improvement: a Graphical Analysis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 18(3), pages 359-364, October.
    6. Kyu Sik Lee, 1985. "Decentralization Trends of Employment Location and Spatial Policies in LDC Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 22(2), pages 151-162, April.
    7. Holland Hunter, 1980. "EUGENE ZALESKI. Stalinist Planning for Economic Growth, 1933-1952. Pp. xxxiv, 788. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1980. $50.00," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 451(1), pages 209-216, September.
    8. Brian A. Cromwell, 1990. "Prointegrative subsidies and their effect on housing markets: do race- based loans work?," Working Papers (Old Series) 9018, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    9. Donald F. Vitaliano, 1985. "The Short-Run Supply of Housing Services Under Rent Control," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 22(6), pages 535-542, December.
    10. John M. Quigley, 1984. "Residential Energy Standards and the Housing Market: A Regional Analysis," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 9(3), pages 201-216, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:16:y:1979:i:1:p:19-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.