Linking Landlords to Uncover Ownership Obscurity
Forrest Hangen
"GENERATION RENT"
"GENERATION RENT"
"GENERATION LANDLORD"
"GENERATION LANDLORD"
1. Identifying "Who Owns What"
"Who Owns What?"
Why is this a hard question to answer?
"Who Owns What?"
Why is this a hard question to answer?
"Who Owns What?"
Why is this a hard question to answer?
Messy Data
DEUSTCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY
DEUTCH BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY
DEUTCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY
DEUTCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY TRUST
DEUTCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS
DEUTSCH BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY
DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL
DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST
DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY
DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST TRUST
DEUTSCHE BANK NATN L TRUST COMPANY
DEUTSCHE BANK NATNL TRUST COMPANY
DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST
DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY
DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS
DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY TRUST
DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST NATIONAL
DEUTSCHE NATIONAL BANK TRUST COMPANY TRUST
"Who Owns What?"
Why is this a hard question to answer?
Messy Data
&
Ownership Obscurity
LLC
LLC
LLC
Ownership Obscurity
Financialization of Housing
Legal Boundaries of Property Ownership
2 Shifts
Financialization of Housing
Post 2008
Appreciating Asset
Risk
Rent
Income Stream
Financialization of Housing
Ownership Obscurity
Financialization of Housing
Ownership Obscurity
Legal Boundaries of Property Ownership
Legal Boundaries of Property Ownership
pre 1970 - caveat lessee -- "as is" housing
implied warrant of habitability
Landlords are now legally liable for *some* conditions
Legal Boundaries of Property Ownership
Landlords are now legally liable for *some* conditions
Limit Liability
1988 - LLCs become cheap
AIMS
Accurately link landlords to their properties to Uncover and Quantify the effects of Ownership Obscurity
Data
Property Tax Assessment Records
- Owner's Name
- Owner's Mailing Address
Boston, MA
2004-2019
Corporation Filing Records
- LLC Name
- Individuals' Names
- Individuals' Addresses
Challenges
Messy Data
Ownership Obscurity
Elmer G Gill
Elmr G Gill
Greystone LLC
Eagle LLC
Challenges
Messy Data
Ownership Obscurity
2 Different Solutions
Challenges
Messy Data
Ownership Obscurity
Deliberate Strategy
Limiting Liability
Messy Data
Solution:
1. Text Cleaning and Standardization
L.L.C., Lmtd liability co,llc LLC
Fifty-eight Green Street L.L.C.
58 Green st llc
Fifty-eight Green Street L.L.C.
58 Green st llc
Solution:
1. Text Cleaning and Standardization
L.L.C., Lmtd liability co,llc LLC
Fifty-eight Green Street L.L.C.
58 Green st llc
58 GREEN ST LLC
58 GREEN ST LLC
Messy Data
Solution:
2. Fuzzy Matching
Elmer G Gill Elmr G Gill
Glynn Realty Assoc IV LLC Glynn Realty Association I LLC
1. Text Cleaning and Standardization
L.L.C., Lmtd liability co,llc LLC
Messy Data
Fuzzy Matching
Glynn Realty Assoc IV LLC Glynn Realty Association II LLC
(Probabilistic Matching)
By Hand
( small-scale)
Out-of-the-Box
( Dedupe, OpenRefine, matchit, etc.)
Custom Probabilistic Matching
651,612 owners
[' Gl','Gly','lyn','ynn','nn ','n R',' Re','Rea','eal','alt','lty','ty ' ...]
3-gram
| " A" | " Ad" | " Al" | " As" | "El " | "Bar" | "Llc" | . . . | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glynn Realty Assoc IV LLC | 0 | 0 | 0 | .178 | 0 | 0 | .199 | . . . |
| . . . | . . . | . . . | . . . | . . . | . . . | . . . | . . . | . . . |
tf-idf
Custom Probabilistic Matching
Glynn Realty Assoc IV LLC Glynn Realty Association II LLC
Custom Probabilistic Matching
Glynn Realty Assoc IV LLC Glynn Realty Association II LLC
Cosine Similarity
cos(\theta) = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^{n}{A_{i}B_{i}}}{\sqrt{\sum_{i=1}^{n}{A_{i}^{2}}}\sqrt{\sum_{i=1}^{n}{B_{i}^{2}}}}
measures similarity between two entities using the cosine of the angle between their two vectors in a multidimensional space
Greystone LLC
Eagle LLC
Not done yet...
Ownership Obscurity
Greystone LLC
Eagle LLC
Greystone LLC
Eagle LLC
Corporation Filing Records
Ownership Obscurity
Greystone LLC
Eagle LLC
Greystone LLC
Eagle LLC
Corporation Filing Records
Fuzzy Matching
Ownership Obscurity
Ownership Obscurity
Ownership Obscurity
Ownership Obscurity
Ownership Obscurity
Ownership Obscurity
55 GREYSTONE LLC
EAGLE LLC
12 GREEN ST LLC
Tax Assessment
55 GREYSTONE LLC
EAGLE LLC
12 GREEN ST LLC
Corporation Records
Tax Assessment
55 GREYSTONE LLC
EAGLE LLC
12 GREEN ST LLC
Greystone Realty Corporation
Unique ID
Tax Assessment
55 GREYSTONE LLC
EAGLE LLC
12 GREEN ST LLC
Unique ID
-
Landlord Size
-
Corporate Status
-
Obscurity
-
Geographic Scope
-
Property Types
-
Property-level Outcomes
Tax Assessment
Owners
Raw Tax Assessment
4.8%
Fuzzy-Matching
12.3%
+11.9%
Corporate Data
16.7%
Raw Tax Assessment
24.5%
Units
Fuzzy-Matching
33.7%
+17.5%
Corporate Data
42.0%
Ownership Obscurity
Ownership Obscurity
Ownership Obscurity
Ownership Obscurity
Consolidation
Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI)
HHI = \sum_{i=1}^{N}{S_i^{2}}
where S = a landlord's share of an outcome
Units
Eviction Filings
Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI)
HHI = .16^{2}+.16^{2}+.16^{2}+.16^{2}+.16^{2}+.16^{2}
HHI =0.166
HHI = .5^{2}+.33^{2}+.16^{2}
HHI =0.388
Consolidation of Units
0-No consolidation to 1-One owner for all properties
Consolidation of Units
Consolidation of Evictions
Consolidation of Evictions
Largest Owners of 10% of Units
All other owners
506
Evictions
3,092
Evictions
/ 16k units
/ 151k units
Takeaways
- Difficulty in revealing ownership has shifted from messy data to ownership obscurity
- Using Corporate Data reveals ownership obscurity
- Ownership Obscurity hides new scales of consolidation and responsibility for evictions & property conditions
Preprint @ SocArXiv
https://github.com/forrest-h/linking-landlords
Thank You
Forrest Hangen
hangen.f@northeastern.edu
Linking Landlords Hangen - UAA 2023
By Forrest Hangen
