Konhee Chang

About
Notes

I am a PhD candidate at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

In my job market paper, I study how expanding rental supply in American suburbs affects spatial inequality, using the entry of corporate landlords as an empirical setting.

I am on the 2024-25 job market.

Portrait
Job market paper
Notes

Diversifying the suburbs: Rental supply and spatial inequality

Abstract

Insufficient rental supply in American suburbs limits mobility for financially constrained households unable to afford homeownership. I find that reallocating suburban single-family homes to rentals reduces spatial inequality by increasing access to desirable neighborhoods for non-White and younger households. In my reduced-form analyses, I exploit the entry of large-scale corporate landlords and leverage property-level data on home prices, rents, and tenant characteristics. Due to increasing returns to local scale, landlords pay a 9% premium to acquire owner-occupied homes, increasing rental supply in suburbs where it is scarce and expensive. This expansion of rental supply lowers rents but raises home prices. To assess the distributional consequences, I develop a quantitative spatial equilibrium model with segmented housing markets. Converting ownership homes to rentals benefits down payment-constrained households by reducing barriers to high-amenity neighborhoods. However, the estimated non-pecuniary benefits of homeownership suggest that households who can marginally afford a home lose out.

Presentations

2025 SFS Cavalcade; UEA Europe; 2024 ASSA/AREUEA Poster; Berkeley Law CLSC; Berkeley Public Finance and Labor Mini-Symposium; UEA North America; 2023 RUSH Brownbag; 2022- Berkeley Trade, Real Estate, Finance, and Public Finance Seminars

Awards

John Clapp Best Poster Award, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association

Works in progress
Notes
Hacked: Misuse of mortgages by landlords

with Grace Choi

Abstract

To promote homeownership, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) provides high-leverage mortgages to first-time homebuyers. Using a dataset on the portfolio of the near universe of property owners in nine Californian counties that we obtain through partnerships with city officials and journalists, we find that a large number of local mom-and-pop landlords misuse FHA mortgages to finance rental investment. Leveraging property-level panel data on mortgage performance and a unit-level rent registry panel, we study whether FHA mortgaged-landlords are financially riskier and whether they target a specific segment of the rental market (e.g., Section 8 Voucher tenants) compared to other landlords.

Spatially targeted leverage regulation and rental housing

with Jaeyeon Lee

Abstract

We study a macroprudential policy that reduced the loan-to-value ratio down to 0% in "hot" housing markets. The drastic reduction in credit supply had negligible effects on house price growth in the affected neighborhoods. Instead of depressing housing demand, the policy induced households to turn to the rental market in the targeted neighborhoods. We propose a spatial equilibrium model with mobility frictions and show that tightening credit stimulates local rental markets. Renters provide liquidity to landlords who acquire properties that financially constrained households cannot afford. House price effects are muted and housing wealth is redistributed from households to deep-pocketed landlords.

Presentation

Berkeley Real Estate Graduate Seminar

The impacts of refugee influxes: Evidence from administrative and cellphone data in Jordan

with Michael Gechter, Nick Tsivanidis, and Nathaniel Young

Abstract

What does a migrant influx imply for the welfare of both urban incumbents and the migrants themselves, and what policies are most effective for relieving the associated problem of congestion? Using administrative data, call detail records (CDR) for the universe of cellphone transactions made on one of Jordan’s largest operator’s network from mid-2015 until the present and a linked survey we conducted, we document patterns of migration into Amman at high spatial and temporal frequency and examine the effects of the migrant influx given city structure.

Presentations

ASSA Econometric Society