Tag: housing markets

Blaming Redlining Is Too Easy

Expanding access to the housing market is unlikely to do much to close the racial wealth gap. Here’s why.

Tenant Organizing When Rising Rent Isn’t the (Main) Issue

Tenant organizing has been re-energized in coastal cities where housing costs are soaring. But tenants need a voice in the rest of the country too—and they are organizing to get one.

We Need State Law that Allows Multifamily Housing

The New Jersey Legislature should seriously consider adopting a statewide law that defines “single family” zoning as permitting one or two units on one lot.

When Affordable Housing Meets Free-Market Fantasy

Because affordable housing doesn’t yield acceptable profits to real estate investors, the only way a substantial amount of it is going to get built is if it’s publicly funded.

Trickle Up Housing: Filtering Does Go Both Ways

Here's something we don't talk about enough: developing affordable housing in a tight, high-cost market also increases overall affordability through filtering! Just in the other direction—it trickles up.

The Real Reasons Affordable Housing Isn’t Being Built in California

The meager supply of affordable housing is a major contributor to housing's high cost, yet the policy tools to address the shortfall often seem to worsen the problem. But this is because they ignore the underlying infrastructure and financing to support growth.

Q: Do inclusionary housing requirements make housing prices go up for...

A: No, they do not. Market-rate developers are business people. They charge as much as the market will bear. When housing prices go up . . .

How to Prevent the Next Mortgage Crisis

Yes, we need to finally achieve certainty in our housing finance system. But not the way most people are suggesting.

Q: Do inclusionary zoning requirements halt development?

A: No! Research shows that hasn't been the case. And here's what local officials in places that have implemented it had to say . . .

Interview with Wayne Meyer, President of New Jersey Community Capital

New Jersey Community Capital shakes up our ideas of how nonprofit housers can and should approach neighborhood stabilization

Q: Why doesn’t the market produce enough affordable housing where people...

A: The market is supposed to meet demand, but the importance of location, location, location, plus other factors, keep this from working for affordable housing.

Community Development Corporations at a Crossroads

For nearly half a century, community development corporations (CDCs) have been a tool of choice for organizing and implementing grassroots economic development programs. Emerging...

Q: What’s the Point of Shared-Equity Homeownership in Weak Market Areas?

Shared-equity homeownership is best known as a tool to fight displacement in hot-market areas. But in fact, it has many advantages in weak-market areas too.

Deeper Thinking, Programming Needed for Weak Residential Markets

Over the past couple of weeks John Muller at the Greater Greater Washington blog has written some truly provocative pieces, including “Ward 8 development...

Strong Centers Make Healthier Regions

The signs continue to mount that the housing market continues to move in favor of central locations, and away from sprawl. It’s all a...

The Housing Change We Need

The foreclosure crisis has pushed the envelope so far, it's left an opening where we can start building a real national housing policy.

Riding the Storm Out

The $3.92 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program can spur recycling of the stock of abandoned and foreclosed homes produced by the mortgage crisis.

Expanding the Scope of Community Development

More than four decades of suburban growth have moved demographic, political, and economic power from central cities toward their suburban counties. The change can...