of the Equal Rights Center, who also made contributions to the design of the project.A panel of expert advisers made valuable contributions to the understanding of the housing issues faced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community and of the e-mail testing approach. We express special thanks to Gregory M. Herek, Jim McCarthy, Robert Schwemm, and Gregory D. Squires; as well as Lee Badgett, Roger Doughty, Kate Kendall, Jerry Malitz, Justin Nelson, Terry Stone, and Laura Young.We also thank Jennifer A. Stoloff, the project's Government Technical Representative from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, for providing significant guidance and support at all stages.We offer special thanks to Louisa Elfman of M. Davis and Company, Inc., for managing the packaging of the report.The contents of this report are the views of the contractor and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the U.S. government. List of Tables List of Figures Executive SummaryThis is the first large-scale, paired-testing study to assess housing discrimination against same-sex couples in metropolitan rental markets via advertisements on the Internet. The research is based on 6,833 e-mail correspondence tests conducted in 50 metropolitan markets across the United States from June through October 2011. For each correspondence test, two e-mails were sent to the housing provider, each inquiring about the availability of the unit advertised on the Internet. The only difference between the two e-mails was the sexual orientation of the couple making the inquiry. Two sets of correspondence tests were conducted, one assessing the treatment of gay male couples relative to heterosexual couples and one assessing the treatment of lesbian couples relative to heterosexual couples. This methodology provides the first direct evidence of discriminatory treatment of same-sex couples compared with the treatment of heterosexual couples when searching for rental housing advertised on the Internet in the United States.The study finds that same-sex couples experience less favorable treatment than heterosexual couples in the online rental housing market. The primary form of adverse treatment is that same-sex couples receive significantly fewer responses to e-mail inquiries about advertised units than heterosexual couples. Study results in jurisdictions with state-level protections against housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation unexpectedly show slightly more adverse treatment of same-sex couples than results in jurisdictions without such protections. This study provides an important initial observation of discrimination based on sexual orientation at the threshold stage of the rental transaction and is a point of departure for future research on housing discrimination against same-sex couples. BackgroundFederal fair housing laws, seeking to ensure equal access to housing, prohibit housing discrimination based on race...

This research explores the occupancy status and tenure transitions of single-family homes from which elderly homeowners recently moved. First, we compare the housing and neighborhood characteristics of homes vacated by nonelderly and elderly homeowners. Then, we use a multinomial logit model to test the extent to which these characteristics are associated with the home's subsequent vacancy and tenure status. The results indicate that a lack of recent updates and modern amenities may hinder subsequent owner occupancy of homes vacated by the oldest homeowners.