Finance and the Supply of Housing Quality

Abstract

I show how financial intermediaries affect rental housing quality and affordability by supplying real estate investors with financing for quality improvement projects (i.e., renovations). First, I document a historic surge in improvement activity since the Great Recession. Then, using exogenous variation generated by a 2015 change in regulatory capital requirements, I find that a reallocation of bank credit toward improvement projects accounts for 24% of quality improvements since 2015. The shock increases the supply of high-quality apartments and lowers their rent. However, it raises the average apartment's rent and accounts for 32% of historically high rent growth over 2015-16.