Publication Date
2025
Document Type
Forthcoming Work
Abstract
The United States is grappling with a severe housing affordability crisis, often attributed to restrictive zoning laws, speculative private equity investments, and policy deficiencies. While each of these factors contributes to a shortage in housing, addressing any one in isolation is insufficient to resolve the underlying issue. A holistic solution requires increasing housing availability across the entire affordability spectrum through both the production of new units and the preservation of existing affordable housing.
This article argues the misalignment of interests among key local stakeholders—residents, community organizations, and investors is the fundamental cause of the above symptoms. Curing the symptoms requires a transformation of adversarial relationships into cooperative relationships, it is essential that all parties share in both the risks and rewards of housing development and preservation. Corporate law, with its expertise in structuring complex deals, offers a viable mechanism for achieving this alignment. This is different from the consensus approach, which would center public policy as the mechanism for enforcing housing policy.
Instead, this article proposes an innovative application of a familiar structure: the Social Purpose Real Estate Investment Trust (SPREIT). Altering the traditional REIT still affords attraction of commercially motivated investors while enforcing public good such as affordability and broad-based ownership. This model presents unprecedented opportunities for wealth creation and localized control. Through private ordering, this proposal offers an immediately scalable solution to the housing affordability crisis. Over 20 years, the SPREIT model proposed here could create and preserve 164,000 units of housing, 51,000 of which would be affordable, and provide up to $254 million in wealth for residents in a single city.
Recommended Citation
Evan Absher,
Social Purpose REIT,
(2025).
Available at:
https://irlaw.umkc.edu/faculty_works/1002
SPREIT Fund Proforma
Included in
Business Organizations Law Commons, Estates and Trusts Commons, Housing Law Commons, Property Law and Real Estate Commons