General News
Fewer Players, Fewer Homes: Concentration and The New Dynamics of Housing Supply
A new working paper from Jacob Cosman and Luis Quintero of the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University cites concentration of developers as a reason for the dearth of affordable housing. From 2006 to 2015, the number of builders who controlled 90 percent of a typical market dropped by a quarter, which has cost the country approximately 150,000 additional homes a year and decreased the annual value of housing production nationwide by $106 billion — all else being equal.
Can Medicaid Expansion Prevent Housing Evictions?
A new report in Health Affairs examines whether expansions of Medicaid can prevent evictions from occurring. Early Medicaid expansion in California was associated with a reduction in the number of evictions, with 24.5 fewer evictions per month in each county from a pre-expansion average of 224.7.
EEFA Releases Two New Reports on Healthy Building Materials
Energy Efficiency for All (EEFA) released two new reports to provide industry experts and contractors the information needed to help make healthier building materials the easier choice. The first study by Elevate Energy provides a case study on the Energy Performance of Chicago Properties Retrofit With Fiberglass Insulation. The second study by Three3 examines Drivers, Adoptability and Performance of Healthier Energy-Efficiency Retrofit Materials in Affordable Multifamily Housing.
Examining Inequality in Housing for Older Adults
The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University released a new report, Housing America’s Older Adults 2019, as a supplement to its State of Nation’s Housing Report. The report finds housing inequality is becoming increasingly evident among older Americans as the number of older households climbs to unprecedented levels.
Rep. Beto O’Rourke Releases Presidential Housing Plan
Former Representative Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) released his presidential housing plan, which calls for creating 3 million new homes through the National Housing Trust Fund; creating 3 million new homes through a $60 billion investment in the Capital Magnet Fund and investing $50 billion to rehab public housing; fully fund Housing Choice Vouchers. If elected president, […]
Sen. Michael Bennet Releases Presidential Housing Plan
2020 Democratic Presidential hopeful, Senator Michael Bennet (CO) released a plan to Tackle America’s Housing Affordability Crisis. The three tenants of his plan are Build More Affordable Housing Near Good Jobs, Help Middle-Class and Working Families Afford A Home and Reform Federal Housing Tax Incentives. Sen. Bennet calls for expanding the LIHTC by 50 percent, […]
The U.S. Needs a National Vision for Housing Policy
In a new Issue Brief Vincent Reina, PhD with the University of Pennsylvania argues for a national housing policy in the face of unprecedented housing challenges. This Issue Brief lays out several policy prescriptions for improving housing affordability and fairness, both for renters and owners: modifying the federal Housing Choice Voucher program, as well as […]
The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children
New research from Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren and Lawrence Katz examines the effect of the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment on children’s long-term outcomes. Their estimates imply that moving a child out of public housing to a low-poverty area when young (at age eight on average) using a subsidized voucher like the MTO experimental voucher […]
Report Suggests ‘Internet Rating’ for Updated CRA Assessment Areas
In a new paper, Mark Willis with the Furman Center, suggests including an ‘Internet Rating’ in a modernized Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) framework since the current assessment areas used to delineate the primary geographies within a bank’s CRA test do not adequately account for the rise of internet banking. Under his proposal, banks would be […]
NCSHA Releases Updated Model LIHTC Compliance Forms
NCSHA released revamped model forms for LIHTC compliance monitoring, developed in collaboration with its members and stakeholders. NCSHA’s Recommended Practices in LIHTC Administration encourage housing finance agencies to adopt model forms, which help standardize compliance monitoring practices across states and create efficiencies for development owners and other LIHTC industry professionals.
California Rent Control – What Investors Need to Know
Marcus & Millichap will host a webinar on October 10 at 1:00 pm EDT to discuss the recently-passed California Tenant Protection Act of 2019, also known as CA Assembly Bill 1482. The panelists (John Sebree, Marcus & Millichap; Jim Lapides,National Multifamily Housing Council; Damon Conklin,Federation of California Builders Exchanges; and John Chang, Marcus & Millichap) […]
Quicken Loans, City of Detroit Release Sustainable Financing for Healthy Housing RFP
The Quicken Loans Community Fund, the City of Detroit Housing and Revitalization Department and Quantified Ventures are seeking applications from local organizations that holistically tackle housing challenges affecting the health and well-being of the Detroit community – either by eliminating systemic barriers to housing, or by securing safe, quality housing for low-income and typically underserved […]