Affordable Housing Institute : US

“But the pension fund was just sitting there!” protested Doonesbury’s Uncle Duke, when confronted with what lesser minds would unsympathetically describe as embezzlement.   

“That’s really narrow thinking!”
 
But that’s the problem with excess capital, isn’t it?  Somebody always finds a use for it.
 

Look, the jar’s overfull anyway!
 
Such a problem is illustrated, unfortunately, by the expenditure creativity being displayed […]

[Previous Months In Review available here: Jan 2008]

[A complete set of 2007 Months In Review available here:
Dec 07, Nov 07, Oct 07, Sep 07, Aug 07, Jul 07, Jun 07, May 07,  Apr 07, Mar 07, Feb 07, Jan 07.]
 

We’re just trying to sell!
 
During February, the world realized that what we have is not […]

Back in the good old days,
 

“Yesterday — all my troubles seemed so far away.”
 
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aggressively managed their earnings, keeping unrealized gains and losses in reserve so they could turbocharge the balance sheet and deliver earnings that matched estimates with heartwarming accuracy, and maximizing their seven- and eight-figure executive bonuses.
 

We must be […]

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
 
Yesterday we explored the first three phases: Conceptualization, Enactment, and Chaos.  Now the program starts maturing.
 

You’re more successful if you’re Mature
 
4.         Codification.  After a program has been running for a while — measured by time, number of properties, or range of circumstances — the rule-writers take over.  This is regulation and […]

Even as the rest of the world is urbanizing, so is the United States — and in America’s case, our urbanization is striking: it’s coastal, as revealed in this remarkable graphic from the USDA’s Economic Research Service:
 

 
Set aside the gray-blue areas, which are already urbanized.  What’s the trend?  Where are people moving?
 
The red sectors are […]