News
Quick note on housing and family formation
3+ mon, 2+ week ago (743+ words) It seems clear that there has been a significant drop in homeownership among young adults, relative to baseline expectations, related to marriage trends unrelated to housing supply or home affordability. I also think that some smaller number of 25 to 34 year-olds…...
Micro versus Macro thinking and affordability
3+ mon, 2+ week ago (1084+ words) We all are born into a micro world. Everything we need to do to survive or thrive on a personal level requires understanding and acting on micro-level truths. Micro thinking accepts the world as it is and asks, "How do…...
Is Canada Mending the Housing Market?
4+ mon, 5+ day ago (778+ words) In Canada, condo developers don't have so many legal problems and they can fund their construction with deposits from the condo buyers. Apartments, on the other hand, have a more difficult time getting funding and they run into many of…...
What the Case-Shiller Home Price Chart Really Tells Us
5+ mon, 4+ day ago (980+ words) There is a subtle yet important point that I should reiterate. The Case-Shiller home price index actually helps make this point, though most citations of Case-Shiller are confused about it. The point is this: The "shortage" I am tracking and…...
Follow Up to "With prawns like these..."
5+ mon, 3+ week ago (443+ words) Two more charts that might be enlightening. (Previous post) All three measures in Figure 1 are indexed to 1990. There's a sort of circular logic that happens when people don't think about housing costs thoroughly this way. If they only think of…...
Long-Term Trends in Homes and Households
8+ mon, 4+ day ago (833+ words) I want to discuss the last chart from yesterday's post a little more. To review, the trends of rented, owned, and vacant homes all follow remarkably linear paths in the last half of the 20th century, before each breaks down, in…...
Cranmer, Charles on Erdmann Housing Tracker
8+ mon, 1+ week ago (174+ words) Everyone in NYC says they want affordable housing. But, as you point out, and as most people do not seem to understand, land costs make it impossible to build NEW affordable housing. " Great piece. Two questions Do you understand what…...
Supply has to be ridiculously low to create our peculiar affordability problem.
8+ mon, 1+ week ago (735+ words) Maybe this is a repeat of some things I have written recently, but I think it can serve as a sort of summary statement of our problem. Commonly, I see some combination of claims that builders purposefully limit construction to…...