SGER: The Regional Real Estate Database and Project: Implications for Public Policies in the U.S. Housing Market

美国正处于房地产市场大幅调整和随之而来的金融市场危机的阵痛之中。几乎在一夜之间，政策制定者们意识到，造成危机的很大一部分原因是公共政策失误的结果：对金融业的过度放松管制和对抵押贷款发起行业的监管不足。在国家努力克服过去错误的后果的同时，它也必须开始重组政府。美国在这两个行业中的作用。问题在于，很少有人认真分析政策失误的深度和复杂性，正是这些政策失误导致了止赎率飙升，以及房价暴跌造成的滚雪球效应。当政策制定者考虑新的法规和指导方针时，他们将不得不权衡将住房所有权扩大到美国家庭的目标，以及建立一个更安全、更稳定的住房市场的需求，在这个市场中，住房所有权是可持续的。这需要分析可负担性和抵押贷款资格，以及导致数百万房主承担超出其能力的抵押贷款义务的误导性创新。然而，如果没有更好的数据库来进行严肃的学术研究，这种分析就无法进行。由于缺乏数据，学者和政策制定者不得不仅使用轶事信息或粗略的汇总数据来讨论过去及其对未来政策的影响。本研究项目通过系统地收集和组织来自多个来源的面板住房市场数据，使研究人员能够解决各种各样的住房市场问题，从而纠正了这一问题。

The nation is in the throes of a major housing market correction and an accompanying financial market crisis. Almost overnight, policy makers have come to the realization that a large part of the cause was the result of public policy gone wrong: excessive deregulation of the financial industry and insufficient oversight of the mortgage origination industry. While the nation struggles to overcome the consequences of past mistakes, it must also start to restructure government?s role in both industries. The problem is that there are few serious analyses of the depth and complexities of the policy mistakes that led to soaring foreclosures and the snowball effect created by plummeting home values. As policy makers contemplate new sets of regulations and guidelines, they will have to weigh the sometimes conflicting objectives of expanding homeownership to American households and the need to have a more secure and stable housing market in which homeownership is sustainable. This requires analyses of affordability and mortgage qualifications and of the misguided innovations which led millions of homeowners to take upon themselves mortgage obligations beyond their means.Such analyses, however, cannot proceed without better databases with which serious academic studies can be conducted. The lack of data has forced both academics and policy markers to discuss the past and its implications for future policy using only anecdotal information or crude aggregate data. This research project corrects this problem by systematically collecting and organizing panel housing market data from multiple sources that enables researchers to address a wide variety of housing market issues.