MAPC Rental Listings Consortium Inner Core Committee May 15, 2019 Meeting Jessie Partridge Guerrero Research Manager

Objective: form a consortium to support rental listings database maintenance and improvements

Background: why do we need a rental listings database?

Greater Boston Rents are Among the Highest in the Nation MEDIAN RENT, 2-BEDROOM APARTMENT, SEPTEMBER 2017 Source: Zumper.com

Existing Sources of Rent Data are Insufficient American Community Survey Rent average for long-term and new residents Data is aggregated to 5-year intervals and has time lag Data only available aggregated to Census geographies Private sources Opaque about their methods of collection To get record-level rental listings is expensive and often cost prohibitive Bias in sources of rental unit information

Timeline 2013-14: First use of Padmapper data for research report 2015: Technology and capacity to scrape rental listings from online platforms 2017: Development project with municipal partners to clean and improve collected data 2018: Quarterly data reports to municipal partners 2019: Rental Listings Consortium recruiting and Phase 2 work Figure source: Dimensions of Displacement, MAPC, 2014

Pressing Research Questions How many units are naturally affordable? Where are rents going up? What is the effect of amenities on rent? How does development impact rent?

Methods: Collecting, Cleaning, and categorizing

Automated Data Processing Steps Scrape data from online sources Clean, deduplicate, assess, and annotate Geolocate to parcels Report summary information quarterly

Limitations Bias in data sources Geocoding constraints Vast online rental ecosystem API Instability Gaps in data colleciton

Findings: Price Distributions and Affordability

Asking Price Distributions 2017 Q4 asking price distributions by bedroom count Data inputs Parcels Zoning Station areas Growth areas MassBuilds developments Constraints Protected open space Flood plains and wetlands New buildings Already dense areas Assumptions FAR Area per unit Minimum lot size Residential share of floor area

Affordability What share of units are affordable? 6.8% meet Fair Market Rent (0 to 4 bedroom units) Affordable to Low Income household of 4 (2 or more bedrooms): 0.3% Extremely Low (30% AMI) 1.7% Very Low (50% AMI) 14.4% Low Income (80% AMI)

Affordability Over Time Share of units at or below fair market rent up slightly overall; down slightly for 0-bedroom units DRAFT RESULTS, DO NOT CIITE

Affordability Over Time Slight increase for Low-Income household of 4 since 2015, otherwise very little change DRAFT RESULTS, DO NOT CIITE

Consortium Framework

Membership Benefits First access to quarterly data including: Record-level listing data for your municipality Summary statistics at the municipality and neighborhood level, by bedroom count and age of unit Shapefile of all listings in your municipality Decision-making input The consortium will work with MAPC to decide how annual funds are invested, whether in making improvements to the database, adding new features, or purchasing additional data

Proposed Consortium Scope of Work Core deliverables and activities ($25,000) Quarterly consortium meetings Quarterly data reporting to consortium members Digital infrastructure maintenance and improvements Optional features and activities for consideration ($5,000 to $22,000) Produce digital interface for data reporting Collect rental listings data from additional data sources Improvements to geocoding process

Proposed Membership Fee Structure Population Threshold Annual Membership Cost 150,000 or more $6,000 70,000 to 149,999 $4,000 40,000 to 69,999 $2,000 Under 40,000 $1,000

Inner Core Committee Municipal Fees Municipality Population 2010 Proposed Fee Arlington 42,844 $ 2,000 Belmont 24,729 $ 1,000 Boston 617,594 $ 6,000 Brookline 58,732 Cambridge 105,162 $ 4,000 Chelsea 35,177 Everett 41,667 Lynn 90,329 Malden 59,450 Medford 56,173 Melrose 26,983 Milton 27,003 Newton 85,146 Quincy 92,271 Revere 51,755 Saugus 26,628 Somerville 75,754 Waltham 60,632 Watertown 31,915 Winthrop 17,497

Discussion

Contact: Jessie Partridge Guerrero Research Manager jpartridge@mapc Contact: Jessie Partridge Guerrero Research Manager jpartridge@mapc.org 617-933-0726