Dr. Zhenguo (Len) Lin is a Professor and Hollo Research Fellow at Florida International University. He received his Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research is mainly focused on pricing illiquidity of private assets, mortgage markets, and housing market dynamics. His work has been cited by Federal Reserve, Department of the Treasury, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and National Affairs. His work has also appeared on several financial media outlets, including MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal-Smart Money, Yahoo Finance, Fox Business News, and the South Florida Business Journal.
Dr. Lin was ranked 2nd globally for the period of 2015-2019 based on the recent ranking in real estate research (Saginor 2019, Journal of Real Estate Literature). In 2020, he received the Graaskamp Award, which recognizes extraordinary iconoclastic thought/action throughout a person’s career in the development of a multi-disciplinary philosophy of real estate. He also received the William N. Kinnard Young Scholar Award in 2013, an international recognition for making significant contributions in his field. His studies include housing, immigrants and mortgage delinquency as well as racial discrimination in mortgage costs. His work “Spillover Effects of Foreclosures on Neighborhood Property Values”, which appeared in the 2009 Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, has proven invaluable in predicting the recent housing crisis. The paper has been heavily cited by over 380 academic studies. It has also garnered much recognition outside of the academic community - the paper was cited by former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in his speech at the Global Financial Literacy Summit on June 17, 2009 in Washington, DC.
Prior to joining the faculty of Florida International University, Dr. Lin was a Professor and Associate Director of Real Estate and Land Use Institute at California State University, Fullerton. He also taught at Mississippi State University and worked as Sr. Economist at Fannie Mae.
research interests
Real Estate Liquidity; Portfolio Risk of Thinly-traded Assets; Housing Market Dynamics; Racial and Gender Discrimination in Mortgage Markets; Immigrants and Mortgage Delinquency