Affordable Housing Institute : US

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]

What do you do if you own assets that you think are worth much more than Treasury is willing to pay for them, but Treasury is the only buyer and you’re a bank under enormous capital pressure?
What do you do?
You jump.

I didn’t make millions at Goldman Sachs by […]

Is the Treasury asset recapitalization program (TARP) a bailout for Wall Street, or a bonanza for taxpayers?
 

Wanna make a bet about it?
 
That depends on a critical question: Will Treasury pay too much or too little for the assets?
 

What, you think I know?  I just work here.
 
With the inevitability effect [Blog post on this subject […]

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
 
[For more on my views of public housing, see Public housing: the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (June, 2006), Public housing’s Gordian’s knot (December, 2006), and The essential housing authority (September, 2007).]
 
In our multi-part history of public housing [If this isn’t your cup of tea, see you next week! – […]

Columbia Point, Boston, 1960
 
With the public housing inventory failing apart, with it falls the public housing system – the next President, whoever he may be, cannot avoid dismantling it.  As the nation figures out how to do so, we need to appreciate how we got here, why housing authorities are the way they are, and […]

What do you do when you’ve got a lovely, empty condo?
 

Ready for immediate occupancy!
 
The worst thing the condos can do is sit vacant for a protracted interval.  Not only does this cost you operating money, an unoccupied property feels unloved, and people shy away from moving in there.  So, as illustrated by this recent […]