Housing finance reform in Mexico: the impact of housing vacancy on property crime

Since 2000, the numbers of vacant housing units have increased dramatically in many parts of Mexico. Much of this has been tied to the liberalisation of the housing market where private homebuilders play an important role in the production of housing and the role of public sector is limited to the support of housing finance. Public debates concerning the regulation of private sector homebuilders as well as the practices and policies of government lending agencies have hinged on housing overproduction and vacancy rates in recent years, with the latter associated with social problems in many cities. This paper explicitly examines the relationship between vacancy rate and levels of property crime (burglaries) in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Along with data from the Population and Housing Census, the State Public Security Office data for the 2008–2009 period on property crimes (burglary), were geocoded, mapped and aggregated to the census-tract level. The ordinary least square regression results show that there are significant local variations in the relationships between the risk of property crimes and the percentage of vacant housing units, commercial and service land use and residents who are male aged 15–24. The findings strongly link housing overproduction with vacancy rates and crime, and suggest that private sector homebuilders and the mortgage allocation system should be more strongly regulated in Mexico.