Are Rents Excessive in the Central City?: A Geospatial Analysis

In many U.S. central cities, property values are relatively low, while rents are closer to those in better-off neighborhoods. This gap can lead to relatively large profits for landlords, and has been referred to as "exploitaton" for renters. While much of this gap might be explained by risk, factors such as income and race might play important roles as well. This study calculates Census tract-level measures of the rent-to-property-value (RPV) ratio for 30 large cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas. After examining the spatial distribution of this ratio and relationships with other socioeconomic variables for Milwaukee and three other cities, Z-scores and quantiles are used to identify "extreme" RPV values nationwide. "Rust Belt" cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee are shown to have higher median and 95% values than do West Coast cities such as Seattle and San Francisco. A spatial lag regression estimation shows that, controlling for income, property values, and vacancy rates, racial characteristics often have the "opposite" signs from what might be expected and that there is little evidence of purely race-based "exploitation" of renters. A significantly negative coefficient for the percentage of Black residents, for example, might suggest that the RPV ratio is lower in a given tract, all else equal. While this study shows where RPV values are highest within as well as between cities, further investigation might uncover the drivers of these spatial differences more fully.