Cityscape: Volume 19 Number 3 | Real Estate Analysis as a Tool for Program Evaluation

Real Estate Analysis as a Tool for Program Evaluation

Jaime Bordenave
The Communities Group

Dennis Stout
Econometrica, Inc.

Evaluation Tradecraft

Evaluation Tradecraft presents short articles about the art of evaluation in housing and urban research. Through this department of Cityscape, the Office of Policy Development and Research presents developments in the art of evaluation that might not be described in detail in published evaluations. Researchers often describe what they did and what their results were, but they might not give readers a step-by-step guide for implementing their methods. This department pulls back the curtain and shows readers exactly how program evaluation is done. If you have an idea for an article of about 3,000 words on a particular evaluation method or an interesting development in the art of evaluation, please send a one-paragraph abstract to marina.l.myhre@hud.gov.

This article describes the use of standard techniques of financial analysis—sources and uses statements and pro forma models—in the evaluation of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) new Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. Sources and uses statements provide a convenient framework for analyzing how a real estate development project is financed. Pro forma models are cashflow estimates of the performance of a real estate project over time under a set of assumptions. Lenders, developers, appraisers, brokers, and others involved in real estate transactions commonly use both tools to determine feasibility, structure financial transactions, establish property valuations, estimate investment returns, analyze risks, and make financial decisions. The RAD program expands financing options available to public housing authorities for making capital investments in affordable housing projects. A recent evaluation of RAD, funded and directed by HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, used the models described in this article.