Affordable Housing Institute : US

Does an active home market imply a healthy one?
 
 
When you’re this adorable, who needs to think?
 
This question is fun because one can readily marshal common-sense arguments pointing both ways:
 
 
Both make sense, don’t they?
 
·         Yes, active is healthy.  Lots of sales mean people are buying and moving in, so the neighborhood must be desirable.
·         No, stable […]

 
In the two years since Sherlock Holmes opened his pro bono cyber-consultancy on housing finance, he has commented prolifically on topics ranging from World Bank pipelines to the dangers inherent in excessive zoning.  So forthcoming has Holmes been, in fact, that Watson as his humble biographer has at times despaired of organizing the Great […]

Elsewhere I’ve written about the increasing innovation taking place at the local level, as economic growth, immigration and emigration, restrictive development policies, exclusionary zoning, and state/ local property tax and incentive structures.   A recent Baltimore Sun article, focusing on Howard County, Maryland,
 

 
provides a handy menu of the initiatives that local government may use:
 

“I say, […]

Can’t tell the referenda without a scorecard!
 
Evidently the storm of publicity following Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court’s controversial 5-4 affirmation of established jurisprudence on eminent domain for economic development (ED4ED), has had a meaningful effect, with 10 of the 12 eminent-domain-restrictive ballot questions passing, as outlined in this handy scorecard from the National […]

In a country with multiple levels of government, which one should tackle particular housing problems?
Last week, I posted about the three levels, and their natural affinity for one of the three principal actors in affordable housing:
 
·         National = capital (efficiency, scale, incentives)
·         Regional = people (consumer demand)
·         Local = property (use, density, taxation)
 
Most programs — […]