Does Affordable Housing Detrimentally Affect Property Values? A Review of the Literature

Abstract

Opposition to affordable housing is often motivated by home-owners’fear that their property values will decline. Responding to these fears, affordable housing advocates have claimed that there is little evidence from studies that have examined this topic to suggest that affordable housing detrimentally affects property values. Is this true? Does affordable housing have no effect on lowering property values? This review examines seventeen studies that have attempted to measure the effect of affordable housing on property values to try to answer this question. An analysis of these studies reveals that the extent to which property values are lowered depends on a variety of factors: design and management of affordable housing, compatibility between affordable housing and host neighborhood, and concentration of affordable housing.