Locked in Place or Wheels Greased? Temporary Property Tax Savings and Household Mobility

This article considers the effect of a temporary property tax savings program on homeownership duration, a value-added to a literature that disproportionately focuses on permanent tax savings, which create more obvious disincentives to move. The effect of temporary savings on mobility decisions is theoretically ambiguous, conditional on homeowner rationality and policy design considerations. Using data for condos in New York City, this study evaluates ownership length for condos receiving a 10-year property tax exemption. Based on an accelerated failure time model, the analysis shows that condos with the exemption have shorter ownership periods than their fully taxable counterparts. The direction of the effect is robust to model specification, including a two-stage residual inclusion to account for the endogeneity of beneficiary condo location.