Start Page: 431
End Page: 462
Volume: 25
Issue Number: 04
Year: 2003
Publication: Journal of Real Estate Research

Abstract: This research focuses on if housing rehabilitation by community development corporations pays its own way. The recent experience of ten local housing organizations in the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation network is examined. These organizations assist homeowners in rehabbing existing units and acquire, rehab and transfer units to new occupants. The findings indicate that rehabbed housing units provide substantial benefits to the local economy. The rehabbed units return $0.55, on average, for every local government dollar invested. In addition, economic benefits such as increased property values and tax base, and construction jobs and permanent jobs were created and sustained.