Research interests

The foreclosure crisis

As a separate research agenda, I am also interested in concepts of urban sociology with particular respect to discrimination and assets within the U.S. home ownership market during the foreclosure crisis. Previous research suggested that the distribution of foreclosure during the foreclosure crisis in the United States was racially biased against Blacks and Black neighborhoods. However, the evidence was largely circumstantial, often relying on aggregate level data, not borrower level data. Using data from a matched sample with both loan performance and borrower demographic characteristics and a competing risks hazard model, the primary positive effect is the degree to which a borrower's home is worth less than the loan (i.e. underwater) and not race or segregation. This paper was published in the journal, City and Community and is available here.

The finding illuminates an alternative interpretation to our understanding about the relationship between race, segregation, and foreclosure. Perceptions of inequality are not wrong, they are misplaced. The issue is not that there are differences in foreclosure by race. Instead, the issue is that Blacks are also more likely to be current on a home loan where the home is "underwater," i.e. the home is worth less than the value of the loan. By definition, this means that Blacks are `better' borrowers than Whites in the sense that as home values decline they are less likely to default on a home loan. At the same time, given the importance of home ownership as a component of wealth, racial differences in loan status for homes that are underwater could exacerbate the current inequality of wealth by race. The relationship between race, home equity, and foreclosure is the subject of current research.