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Prof. Albert Saiz
Daniel Rose Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning
Primary DLC
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
MIT Room:
9-343
(617) 253-0249
saiz@mit.edu
https://cre.mit.edu/people/albert-saiz/
Areas of Interest and Expertise
Local Public Finance
Real Estate Economics
Urban Economic Development
Immigration and Immigrant Location Choices
Research Summary
Professor Saiz's focus is primarily on housing markets, with a particular view on understanding the demographic influences impacting their growth, and has done path-breaking work on the impact of immigrant inflows on housing prices in urban areas. ‘Immigration explains 50 percent of the differences in growth between metropolitan areas in the United States,’ he says. ‘If you want to understand real estate markets or housing markets, construction values, etc., you have to understand immigration and immigration trends.’
Saiz also studies several other key drivers of city growth and demand for housing and real estate assets, including tax rates, education levels and more lifestyle-oriented influences. ‘As recently as 20 years ago,’ he says, ‘we tended to believe that people followed jobs. It is still the case that productive areas are becoming more attractive for housing demand, but it is also true that jobs are following people. And people are moving more for lifestyle and amenities.’ Today, Saiz’s students are more likely to indicate they want to work in a particular city than for a particular company. That means firms that want to attract young professionals have to locate in these more highly desirable areas.
Using big data to understand the dynamics of real estate, Saiz creates and studies intensely detailed information about housing markets and how urban growth impacts real estate markets. One of his particular strengths is the measurement of market features that are difficult to quantify. ‘I have come up with indexes to measure local regulations, zoning regulations, land availability, the quality of land, access to transport, etc.,’ he says, ‘so that at this point we have huge data sets for most census blocks in the United States.’ Using that data, he and his team are able to forecast variables critical for real estate developers, investors, portfolio investors and investors in mortgage markets.
Recent Work
Projects
September 23, 2015
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
The Supply of Housing and Real Estate in China: Land Allocation and Building Densities
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
September 3, 2014
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Urban Economics Lab
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
September 3, 2014
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Women and Politics
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
September 3, 2014
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Crowd-Sourcing Data in Social Sciences
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
September 3, 2014
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Amenities and City Growth: City Beautiful -- Revealed Preferences for Amenities and Urban Growth
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
September 3, 2014
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Economics of Urban Form
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
September 3, 2014
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Home Values and Financial Markets
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
September 3, 2014
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Immigration and Hispanic Growth in the US
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
September 3, 2014
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Immigrant Locations and Native Residential Preferences in Spain
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
September 3, 2014
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Spatial Data
Principal Investigator
Albert Saiz
Related Faculty
Mary Anne Ocampo
Lecturer
Prof. Siqi Zheng
Samuel Tak Lee Professor of Real Estate Development and Entrepreneurship
Ezra Haber Glenn
Lecturer