Colorado’s Housing Data Dupe

I have accumulated several research projects as a doctoral student in Educational Leadership, Research, & Policy. The common thread in all of my projects is the erosion of public services using neoliberal economic theory starting with education in the 1970s, continuing through the social safety net including housing stability since the early 1990s. All of these efforts converge on the use of biased data, opaque quantitative methodologies, and outright lies.

As a strategic thinker and lifelong learner, I do not focus on any single topic of interest. I embrace the complexity of being human and acknowledge the systemic nature of our institutions. I am a humanist and a progressive--a real progressive, as in Bernie Sanders progressive, not a neoliberal/Libertarian democrat who hijacks the word progressive and weaves it into their disinformation campaign. I am a first-generation college student, hence the overkill of pursuing a PhD. I am a Cold War veteran, a renter, and a social justice advocate, aka. pain in the ass. The aka moniker is born of an epic story I’ll have to share with you someday. That struggle marked the beginning of my fight for renter’s rights.

Predictably, I do not fit into the neoliberal/Libertarian framework at my institution, UCCS. Yes, I live in Colorado Springs where the presumption is that of a deep red political majority, but I saw who we really are in 2016 when I ran the caucus location in Fountain, CO. I know Progressives are the real majority. Sadly, that brief opportunity when progressives ran the local El Paso County Democratic party died on the vine due to poor planning and lack of organization. I think they failed to see that we are at war. War is not a time for cooperation and goodwill. It’s a fight. If you fail to fight, you lose.

The first project I want to share involves Colorado state government agencies, real estate and apartment associations, and a real estate professor at DU colluding to produce BIASED housing vacancy rate data with the outcome of raising housing prices and increasing profits. I found this discrepancy during my investigation of housing financialization in Colorado Springs. I was looking for evidence concerning supply and demand and other narratives driving the priority to build luxury apartments. What I found was a much bigger story, a big data dupe. As you can see in the table below, there is a sharp contrast between what the DU professor produced for the study’s supporters, Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) and Colorado Housing Finance Authority (CHFA), and what is transparently and reliably produced by the U.S. Census.

Housing Vacancy Rate Data: Comparing DOLA/CHFA & Census

QUARTER	DOLA*	CHFA	CENSUS
2/2018	5.9%	-	2.4%
4/2018	5.6%	-	3.1%
2/2019	4.9%	-	3.9%
4/2019	5.2%	-	4.4%
2/2020	4.9%	-	2.6%
1/2022	-	4.8%	3.4%
2/2022	-	4.7%	4.0%
3/2022	-	5.1%	5.0%
4/2022	-	5.5%	3.9%
1/2023	-	6.2%	3.8%
2/2023	-	6.2%	5.0%
3/2023	-	6.0%	5.4%
4/2023	-	6.3%	5.8%

*DOLA ended funding for the housing vacancy surveys during the pandemic, 2/2020 was their

final report. After COVID CHFA was awarded the survey contract.

 

Yikes, right? There’s a big difference between the state and the Census. So, what does it mean? Well, the vacancy rate tells you how tight the market is, the lower the percentage the tighter the market. The tighter the market the higher the rent because scarcity favors the landlords while tenants compete for housing. When vacancy rates are higher, we see the reverse. Renters can shop around and be more selective because landlords compete for renters with lower rents, extra amenities, or other perks. In short, the vacancy rate tracks with whether rents are increasing or decreasing.

Notice the U.S. Census data consistently shows a tight market, far more so when DOLA contracted the survey reports and through 1/2023 under CHFAs contract. The tight market reported by the Census is consistent with the ever-rising rents we have experienced throughout Colorado. The loose market indicated by DOLA/CHFA suggests housing is plentiful which influences decisions about the need to build more housing. The data matters therefore it is critical that the right people are asked the right questions in the right way to result in data that is trustworthy. Yes, trustworthiness is the whole point.

DOLA and CHFA have funded third-parties to produce data that is not trustworthy. Who the potential pool of survey participants is matters. Who the survey participants are matters. Whether they respond for one or several different properties matters. What questions are asked and how they are asked matters. The data matters because it determines what gets built, where, and when and that also influences the amount we pay in rent.

The difference between the Census and the state’s data demonstrates the control of the apartment associations and the realtors’ associations over our state housing policy and their ability to manipulate their version of data to benefit themselves and their stakeholders. The Census does not have a dog in the fight. Their process is publicly disclosed and fully explained, including how they select survey participants and what they ask them, who’s included who’s not and why. DOLA and CHFA are not transparent, and their reports hint that they only survey their members. That’s a problem because not all rental properties pay the dues to be part of the insiders club. How many rental properties are there and how many of those are responding to the survey? Well, that’s confidential, apparently. But not so confidential that apartment association and realtor’s lobbyists don’t use their untrustworthy reports to block housing legislation designed to keep us housed.

While those that profit from the hellscape they created sell us an oversimplified version of supply and demand and something about the need for market equilibrium, we are increasingly priced out of a home.

#Housing #Housingdata #Housingcrisis