Building the Eviction Economy: Speculation, Precarity, and Eviction in Detroit

Abstract

Evictions have recently gained attention as a problem affecting millions of households worldwide. This study contributes to knowledge on the conditions leading to housing insecurity and evictions by examining the role of foreclosure markets in feeding portfolios of slum landlords and contract sellers in Detroit’s single-family residential neighborhoods. Leveraging data from tax foreclosure auctions and eviction filings from 2005 to 2017, we link foreclosure sales to subsequent eviction cases and estimate the neighborhood-level impact of prior year tax sales on current year evictions. We separately examine the acquisition size and eviction rate of major individual auction buyers. These findings shed light on the contemporary construction of eviction economies in distressed cities through foreclosure markets and investors’ methods for profiting from the constrained housing options of low-income and credit-impaired households.

Working With Them: Small-Scale Landlord Strategies for Avoiding Evictions

“…The differences in scale and organizational structure between small-scale landlords and corporate real estate companies are important for understanding the likelihood that landlords will work with tenants. If small-scale landlords often find it practical to work with tenants, as our research suggests, large rental real estate companies do not generally practice these approaches and thus are far more likely to evict struggling tenants (Garboden & Rosen, 2019;Immergluck et al, 2019;Raymond et al, 2016Raymond et al, , 2018Seymour & Akers, 2019;Sternlieb, 1966). Numerous studies have focused on the differences between small-scale landlords and large rental real estate companies.…”

Gentrification-Induced Displacement in Detroit, Michigan: An Analysis of Evictions

“…The limitation of these data is that, whereas they may indicate whether a Writ of Restitution 2 has been issued, they may not indicate whether the writ has been executed by a bailiff, so it is difficult to determine what "ultimately happened" (Interview with a housing legal professional in Detroit, Sept. 2, 2016). However, considering that formal evictions represent a severe undercount of involuntary displacement (Desmond, 2016;Desmond, Gershenson, & Kiviat, 2015;Hartman & Robinson, 2003;Seymour & Akers, 2019), these data may still be a good indicator of dislocation, as "these records offer an understanding of the prevalence of these actions but not their full volume" (Akers & Seymour, 2018, p. 138) and can be a good indicator of landlord behavior and intent (Sims, 2016). Some tenants move before cases make it to court, and some may be forced to move through informal evictions (Hartman & Robinson, 2003).…”

“…However, this approach does not consider the process of tenure de-conversion-from rental to ownership-because the opposite trend has been occurring in Detroit. As a result of the mortgage and tax foreclosure crises, which removed large numbers of low-income homeowners from their homes (Seymour & Akers, 2019), a significant tenurial change has taken place in the city. For the first time in decades, there are more renters than owners in Detroit.…”

“…Moreover, a study by Akers & Seymour (2018) shows the ways in which bulk tax foreclosure buying is connected to rising evictions in Detroit and is part of predatory property relations. These foreclosure investors-who purchase single-family rental properties in bulk from tax auctions in nongentrifying areas outside of Detroit's greater downtownextract profit through serial eviction and new land contract sales (Seymour & Akers, 2019). There are "three waves of dispossession and displacement," Akers and Seymour (2018, p. 129) argue: the first wave consists of mortgage foreclosures, the second involves tax foreclosures, and the last entails evictions.…”

UQ eSpace

“…This inelastic supply combined with higher demand from the increasing number of low-income households puts upwards pressure on rents. This may explain why several studies have noted that rent distributions in some US cities are highly compressed, with only around $50 per month separating rents in highly disadvantaged areas from the city median (Desmond & Shollenberger, 2015;Seymour & Akers, 2019). There is also some evidence that the rise of institutional investors in the rental market post-GFC increased rents, though whether this has had any effect on eviction outcomes is contested (Garboden & Rosen, 2019;Lambie-Hanson, Li, & Slonkosky, 2019;Raymond et al, 2016).…”