"As one mortgage broker I recently spoke with observed, “The whole idea of buying with resale value in mind is gone. All the countertops, the backyards, all those things are meaningless.”" People are finally buying homes to live in and not for resale. [Link to Home for Life]
"Right now, there are millions and millions of people who want to “employ” our “unemployed” housing stock: immigrants. Simply let more of them in and they will buy, rent, and live in these empty homes." Could it be really that simple? Nah! We lack the political will to do it. [Link to An unemployment problem [...]
I am prone to write stinging rebukes to poorly written garbage on the web, but when I call someone out, I will devote the post to building a factual argument as to why they are wrong. I never ask anyone to just take my word for it because I am some kind of expert. Authority [...]
An excellent interactive map of New York City with income levels for various neighborhoods in reference to affordable housing. Don’t even click on the Upper East Side. [Source: Envisioning Development: What is Affordable Housing?]
The nation’s sprawling suburbs may have been a good place to grow up, but they’re a tough place to grow old. Here’s how towns are beginning to ‘retrofit’ their neighborhoods—and what your community might look like in the future [source]. Interesting on how changing demographics are making retrofitting suburbia almost necessary. However, this could also [...]
In a future where limited natural resources will force us to find better solutions for density and efficiency, what will become of the cul-de-sacs, cookie-cutter tract houses and generic strip malls that have long upheld the diffuse infrastructure of suburbia? How can we redirect these existing spaces to promote sustainability, walkability, and community? It’s a [...]
Researchers discovered homeowners, on average, outweighed renters by 12 pounds. In addition to excess weight, female homeowners were also carrying around more aggravation, making less time for leisure, and were less likely to spend time with friends. via Journal of Urban Economics (under review) .
“Neighbors can hear the alarm so they call us, but when we get up to the home, it's vacant, locked up and we're unable to access them,” Such calls are distracting firefighters from other more important calls in inhabited homes and putting a strain on the public emergency system. via ABC15 News.
If you took out a mortgage in 2007, there's an over 20 percent chance you'll default on it. via NPR: Your Odds Of Defaulting.
As the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most-populous state, Lucknow has attracted hundreds of thousands of migrants from rural areas, swelling the city’s population. Yet the city hasn’t completed any major new sewage infrastructure since before the country won independence in 1947. As much as 70% of residents don’t have sewage service, leaving much of [...]
This first-of-its-kind learning conference will help you identify policies that have been successful in other communities and could work in yours. National Housing Conference (NHC) and its research affiliate, the Center for Housing Policy is hosting the “Solutions for Working Families” Learning Conference from June 28th to 30th.
In Camden, N.J., perhaps the poorest American city I regularly visit, I photograph what I call paired houses: two dwellings, side by side, one occupied, the other empty. Those living in the occupied home often have their lives made more difficult by what happens on the other side of a shared wall. The effect of [...]
Research by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that since 1995 federal funding for low-income housing assistance has dropped by over 20 percent, both as a share of GDP and non-military discretionary spending. Meanwhile, the number of low-income renters spending more than half of their income on housing costs has increased by over [...]
“Foreclosure rates aren’t really that high unless you live in Arizona, California, Florida or Nevada” [source]. William Lucy and Jeff Herlitz at the University of Virginia find that nearly 62 percent of the foreclosures in 2008 were in the above mentioned four states.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.One of the best explanations of the current credit crisis. It shows how ordinary homeowners defaulting aren’t solely to blame and the problems are systemic tracing back to the lowering of the Fed rate and repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 that allowed creation of [...]
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