Why is California behind Texas and other states in curbing homelessness?
Homelessness is surging nationwide. Homelessness rates rose an astonishing 15 percent on average in major cities last year. It seems like the rest of the U.S. is waking up to what California has been...
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...
The incredible disappearing Starwood CRE investor
The $10 billion fund from Starwood Capital Group has been trying to preserve its available cash and credit by limiting investor redemptions. In the first quarter, the fund was hit with $1.3 billion in...
Post fires, California policymakers commit to dysfunctional insurance regulations
Things are going from bad to worse in California’s property insurance market, raising the specter of a public bailout of the state’s insurer of last resort and more private insurance companies fleeing the state.
On...
Opportunity Zones: A path forward
Opportunity Zones (OZs) have emerged as a significant tool in driving investment into underdeveloped areas, offering a compelling case for their continuation and expansion. Since their inception in 2017, OZs have attracted nearly $100...
Rent control still the wrong solution to housing woes
Restricting the price of housing kills incentives to supply places to live.
Rent control is having something of a moment: In Los Angeles, tenants are invoking a law that imposes limits on apartments built on...
Major U.S. Supreme Court decisions coming down the track MAJOR UPDATE
June 28, 2024 Update: The Supreme Court in an unprecedented victory for multifamily and other businesses, has today reversed its 40-year-old decision in Chevron v. Natural Resource Defense Council. This law governed how courts...
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...
The state of affordable housing
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...
Vitruvius: The Roman architect who laid the foundation of western architecture
In 2007, a survey by The Harris Poll found that 72 percent of Americans prefer classical federal buildings to modernist ones. A smaller 2020 study reached a similar conclusion.
Besides a general dislike of their...
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...
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...
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...
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....
