Faculty Publications

Does Home Ownership Vary By Sexual Orientation?

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Home ownership, Housing demand, Marriage, Same-sex couples

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Regional Science and Urban Economics

Volume

39

Issue

3

First Page

307

Last Page

315

Abstract

The housing literature considers whether the probability of owning a home is different for ethnic and racial minorities than for native whites. Most studies find that minorities are less likely to own a home than their white counterparts. A logical extension of this line of research is to consider whether home-ownership rates differ based on sexual orientation. We use data on couples from the 2000 Census and find that same-sex couples are less likely to own a home than are married couples. The average value of houses owned by same-sex male couples is statistically similar to the average value of houses owned by married couples, but houses owned by same-sex female and cohabiting couples have lower average values than those owned by married couples. Conditional on owning, same-sex couples are slightly less likely to have a mortgage compared to married couples. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Department

Department of Economics

Original Publication Date

5-1-2009

DOI of published version

10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2008.11.002

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