Affordable housing in the U.S.
Housing affordability has emerged as a key issue in this year’s U.S. presidential election. Both Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump have talked about what they would do to increase the supply of...
Amazon gets FAA approval for new delivery drone in Arizona
Amazon said in October it received regulatory approval to begin flying a smaller, quieter version of its delivery drone, the latest step in its long-running efforts to get the futuristic program off the ground. The...
Sign of the times: Squatters insurance
Landlord insurance typically doesn’t cover costs accrued in a squatter situation. Property insurance, which offers short-term rental insurance, created a unique type of coverage coming out of the COVID pandemic, that is specifically designated...
The U.S. does not have a housing shortage
The word “shortage” has a very specific meaning. It refers to the inability to purchase a good at the current market price (or at any price). Rent control, which restricts the legal price of...
Inflation is the most destructive disease known to modern societies —Milton Friedman
Here’s how. 1 Shoe leather The resources and energy people use to convert deteriorating currency into stable assets are costly. Economists call this shoe leather costs, alluding to how people destroy their shoes in the metaphorical...
Candidates move focus to housing
In the 2024 race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency, housing is a major issue for the first time since the 1990s. One thing is certain, the...
New metrics make Midwest investment attractive
Recently, the Midwest has shown surprising growth and economic resilience, making this region an attractive candidate for multifamily development, investment and general interest. Often considered the slowest growing region in the U.S., the Midwest has...
Mod, mod world
Some of the busiest apartment developers in the U.S. are still trying to use three-dimensional “modules” created in factories to reduce the cost of construction. For more than a decade, modular construction companies promised they...
Why housing costs remain a major hurdle for lowering inflation
Housing inflation continues to be a stubborn impediment to the consumer price index (CPI) falling back to the Federal Reserve’s target. Despite broader economic inflation cooling significantly from pandemic peaks, the shelter inflation index has...
Market set for recovery
The multifamily housing market is showing promising signs of recovery, with recent data from CoStar Group revealing a significant increase in demand and stabilization of vacancy rates. Absorption rates have notably risen from 118,000 units...
The housing theory of childless cat ladies
Would a YIMBY building boom rejuvenate urban family life or produce sterile, megacity hellscapes? Housing Boom = Baby Bust? America’s low birth rate is in the news again, thanks largely to Vice Presidential candidate Sen. J.D....
Is land-use regulation holding back construction productivity?
Ed Glaeser is perhaps the pre-eminent urban economist working today, and I’ve cited his work repeatedly when looking at land-use restrictions and burdens on new development. So I was very interested to see he’s coauthored...
Office to apartments
download pdf Hybrid work is likely here to stay. This shift isn’t just changing lifestyles—it’s also affecting commercial spaces. Office vacancy rates post-COVID shot up almost overnight, and they remain near 20 percent nationwide, the...
Economics and the hidden order
The “real world” is calling. But the real world is a real mess. So how do we clean up the mess? That’s a massive task: too big for any one person. This looks like...
Why Johnny can’t build
We were once a nation of builders—from the toll roads and canals of the early nineteenth century and the railroads of the second half of that busy century, to the construction of power, energy,...
