Michael Neal is a senior fellow in the Housing Finance Policy Center and a former equity scholar at the Urban Institute. Previously, he worked at Fannie Mae, where he was a director of economics in the Economics and Strategic Research Group. Before joining Fannie Mae, Neal was the assistant vice president at the National Association of Home Builders’ Economic and Housing Policy department. As a housing economist, Neal has an in-depth knowledge of housing market trends and has provided expert analysis and commentary on housing to media outlets around the country. Previously, he worked at Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve System, the Congressional Budget Office, and Goldman Sachs.
Through grant funding, Neal is a 2024 JPMorgan Chase Fellow and member of the National Bureau of Economic Research Race and Stratification Working Group. He is also a member of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Homeownership Working Group for Project REACh and serves on the technical data advisory committee for the Black Wealth Data Center. Additionally, Neal is an independent consultant for AlphaSights.
Neal has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Morehouse College and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Pennsylvania. He also studied economics at St. Catherine’s College of the University of Oxford (through the State University of New York Brockport) and finance in the Graduate School at Princeton University.
Urban experts are permitted and empowered to work and affiliate with outside organizations, whether serving on boards, volunteering their time, or providing advice and counsel. And Urban welcomes visiting scholars, nonresident or affiliated fellows who work for other organizations. These outside affiliations enrich our perspectives and our learning environment. We also require all paid and unpaid experts to disclose their affiliations to Urban leadership and follow rules governing their engagement to ensure transparency for audiences and independence of experts.