Housing

As anyone who has tried to buy a home in the past year knows all too well, California’s housing costs are soaring. The primary reason is basic economics – there is a strong demand for housing and a limited supply because not enough homes have been built over the past two decades to meet that demand.

The state is pressuring California’s cities to adopt pro-housing policies, including quotas on zoning residential land. However, some cities are trying to find ways to undermine he quotas. When state officials issued markedly higher regional quotas for zoning land for new housing a few years ago, and regional agencies imposed specific numbers on cities, the reaction among local officials was sharp and negative.

California’s chronic housing shortage shows no signs of abating with construction scarcely half of the 180,000 new units the state says are needed each year to close the demand/supply deficit. There is no single reason, but rather a toxic mélange of high costs, regulatory overkill and stubborn resistance from local government officials catering to the not-in-my-backyard sentiments of their constituents.

Governor Gavin Newsom today signed bipartisan legislation to expand housing production in California, streamline housing permitting, and increase density to create more inclusive and vibrant neighborhoods across the state.

California is poised to invest $10 billion to accelerate housing production and $12 billion to tackle homelessness. California has often been criticized for lacking a comprehensive, holistic approach to housing and homelessness.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature reached a deal that will provide $500 million toward affordable student housing this year and possibly up to $2 billion in future years. Experts say it’s “a drop in the bucket” compared to what’s needed.

Senate bills 9 and 10 correct exclusionary zoning issues that prevent affordable housing and put Black and Latino Californians out of the running for homeownership.

Before a homebuilder puts a backhoe to work, he or she has permit fees to pay, and other costs that can amount to more than $100,000 per house, not including land cost. Housing won’t be affordable in California until legislators address the permit and fee structure and the high cost of land.

The sudden demise of the year’s most controversial state housing bill was celebrated by some and bemoaned by others. But very few—supporters, opponents, and even the author himself—can claim to have seen this coming.

Again and again, Californians name housing affordability and homelessness as the biggest issues facing the state.

On a few of the vast, verdant lawns in East Sacramento, one of the capital city’s most popular and expensive neighborhoods, yellow-and-black yard signs urge passersby to “save neighborhoods” and keep Sacramento “livable and diverse.”

Prior to 2018, the HAA did not account for situations where a general plan's standards conflict with zoning requirements with respect to allowable density

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic on 11 March, severe lockdown measures have been adopted by the Italian Government. For over two months of stay-at-home orders, houses became the only place where people slept, ate, worked, practiced sports, and socialized.

Poor housing conditions have been linked with worse health outcomes and infectious disease spread. Since the relationship of poor housing conditions with incidence and mortality of COVID-19 is unknown, we investigated the association between poor housing condition and COVID-19 incidence and mortality in US counties.

Using zip code-level data and nonparametric estimation, I present eight stylized facts on the US housing market in the COVID-19 era.

This paper uses the discontinuity in house size generated by Chinese housing policies to identify the effect of housing wealth on labor supply. The analysis finds a substantial deterrent effect of housing wealth on labor supply.

We provide new time-varying estimates of the housing wealth effect back to the 1980s. We use three identification strategies: ordinary least squares with a rich set of controls, the Saiz housing supply elasticity instrument, and a new instrument that exploits systematic differences in city-level exposure to regional house price cycles.

Urban economics and branches of mainstream economics – what we call the ‘housing as opportunity’ school of thought – have been arguing that shortages of affordable housing in dense agglomerations represent a fundamental barrier to economic development.

Housing issues, including affordability, instability, and the search for available units, present ongoing challenges for urban inhabitants. Supporters claim information and communication technology (ICT) can solve housing problems through increased efficiency, transparency, and the creation of smart cities.

Many housing policies aim to increase supply and reduce prices through rezoning, relying on the assumption that increasing allowable densities automatically accelerates the rate of housing supply.

This paper estimates housing choice differences between households with and without remote workers. Prior to the pandemic, the expenditure share on housing was more than seven percent higher for remote households compared to similar non-remote households in the same commuting zone.

A globally connected, locally centred housing justice movement calls for comprehensive reforms of policies that influence the distribution and affordability of housing.

California’s Civil Rights Department recently filed a lawsuit to crackdown on housing voucher discrimination, which could inspire other states to do the same and help their most vulnerable tenants keep a roof over their heads.

Los Angeles’ housing conundrum – not enough land and not enough money — is a microcosm of California’s housing crisis

Mayor London Breed’s office announced new legislation Monday aimed at building more housing in San Francisco’s outer neighborhoods

SB 4, as amended, Wiener. Planning and zoning: housing development: higher education institutions and religious institutions.

California’s chronic shortage of housing manifests itself in sky-high housing costs, the nation’s worst poverty and its highest level of homelessness. Everyone in California knows, or should know, that the state has an immense shortage of housing that persists despite efforts by its politicians to jump-start construction.

Two California community colleges built housing in the last couple of years, with very different approaches. The projects give a peek at the future of student housing as the state rolls out $500 million in grants to build or expand dorms and apartments on a dozen community college campuses.

Houses with better street design are found to relate to a price premium. Prior studies mainly present the street quality using objective indicators like tree counts and distance to parks with land use data, or most recently using the greenery view index extracted from street view imagery (SVI).

What explains record U.S. house price growth since late 2019? We show that the shift to remote work explains over one half of the 23.8 percent national house price increase over this period. Using variation in remote work exposure across U.S. metropolitan areas we estimate that an additional percentage point of remote work causes a 0.93 percent increase in house prices after controlling for negative spillovers from migration.

The most significant episode in the assetisation of housing (underpinning its financialisation) is often understood to be the economic restructuring that took place during the 1980s – particularly eregulation of the banking sector and credit liberalisation.

The annual economic burden of chronic homelessness in the U.S. is estimated to be as high as $3.4 billion. The Permanent Supportive Housing with Housing First (Housing First) program, implemented to address the problem, has been shown to be effective.

For northern California housing politics, judgment day has come. Cities across the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area had until Wednesday to show state regulators how they plan to approve a sufficient quantity of housing over the next decade.

What is the role of migration in regional evolutions? I document that within-US migration causes a reduction in the unemployment rate of the receiving city over several years.

Court records and public housing data are linked to estimate eviction filings. Public housing authorities file a higher share of eviction cases than units managed. Public housing filing rates are associated with local non-public rental filing rates. Higher shares of Black residents are associated with higher filing rates. These associations are retained independent of tenant socioeconomic characteristics.

We review the recent literature on the determinants and effects of housing market expectations. We begin by providing an overview of existing surveys that elicit housing market expectations, and discuss how those surveys may be expanded in the future.

Drawing from his own extensive ethnographic and quantitative research, Desmond outlines the trends that led to the current situation: rising housing costs, stagnant or falling incomes among the poor, and a shortfall of federal housing assistance.

Access to affordable housing is a rising concern, and social housing is one approach to support low-income, older renters. A scoping review was undertaken to understand the characteristics of older tenants and social housing services to identify strategies to promote aging in place.

With a majority of housing plans out of compliance with state housing law, developers could theoretically use a little-known law to kick building into high gear. On this week’s podcast, a housing law expert breaks down the untested “builder’s remedy.”

Some seniors have been homeless for years and are now growing older. But the increasing numbers also reflect another trend: those experiencing homelessness for the first time after age 50.

With pressure mounting and the clock ticking, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Friday to dramatically expand protections for renters, heading off what advocates had feared could become a wave of evictions.

A new state law unravels decades of parking rules in California cities. On this episode of “Gimme Shelter: The California Housing Crisis Podcast” CalMatters’ Manuela Tobias and The Los Angeles’ Times’ Liam Dillon explain how that could trim housing costs.

One big reason for the chronic housing shortage in America’s most prosperous regions is that state governments have ceded control to local governments that behave like private clubs.

In Fix the City, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that conflicts between qualifying Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) Guidelines and specific plan requirements should be resolved in favor of a specific plan.

In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, the County must strengthen its commitment to sustainability, equity, and resilience in order to create a pathway for investment in a safe, healthy, and inclusive future.

Covid-19 has further exposed how social determinants of health, such as housing, are crucial in shaping access to health care – and how housing insecurity can leave large portions of the population vulnerable to the disease.

Federal protections that have prevented millions of renters across the country from being evicted are about to expire and could leave them at risk of losing their homes if Congress does not act by Saturday.

After a bit of last-minute legislative maneuvering, the list of propositions that California voters will be asked to weigh in on has been — more or less — finalized.

With his latest proposal, Governor Newsom has placed the leverage of the state budget behind many priorities of the California Economic Summit and its regional, interconnected approach to solving the state’s complex challenges.

Three landlords across the state are suing to stop the Judicial Council of California’s eviction moratorium, arguing the council has exceeded its powers and should allow some delinquent renters to be removed from their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On July 2, 2020, the Departments of Public Health and Cal/Osha revised their “Industry Guidance: Real Estate Transactions” (“Industry Guidance”). This guidance implements the state Stage 2 expansion for real estate transactions and contains a host of rules detailing how properties must be shown during COVID-19.

It’s the worst economy since the Great Depression. Nearly 1 in every 6 California workers is out of a job, and those lucky enough to remain employed confront reduced hours, slimmed wages and mounting uncertainty over what the next few months will bring.

Help is on the way for households struggling to pay rent and mom-and-pop property owners struggling to pay mortgage amid the economic devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This checklist is intended to help people involved in real estate transactions implement their plan to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace and is supplemental to the Guidance for Real Estate Transactions.

This document provides guidance for businesses operating in the real estate industry including sales and rentals of single-family, multi-family, apartment, commercial, and industrial properties to support a safe, clean environment for workers.

How do we build affordable homes? The state can begin by fixing zoning, curbing the abuses of legacy environmental laws and lowering mandatory fees.

Cities are currently undergoing vast changes, which have very significant implications for the functioning of the housing market. In particular, it should be stated that the traditional residential market, in imitation of the smart city concept, is becoming increasingly smarter.

Housing is central in the reproduction of social inequalities. Beyond divides across populations, trends point to increasingly unequal housing‐market dynamics across space.

We build a model of the US economy with multiple aggregate shocks that generate fluctuations in equilibrium house prices. Through counterfactual experiments, we study the housing boom-bust around the Great Recession, with three main results.

We study housing markets with multiple segments searched by heterogeneous clienteles. In the San Francisco Bay Area, search activity and inventory covary negatively across cities, but positively across market segments within cities.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic on 11 March, severe lockdown measures have been adopted by the Italian Government.

In this article, we conceptualize housing as an infrastructure of care. Drawing on the recent infrastructural turn in social sciences we understand infrastructures as dynamic patterns that are the foundation of social organization.

Housing financialization, or the increased dominance of financial markets in the housing sector, has not stopped in the wake of the crisis. Rather, it has reinforced and rescaled itself, expanding into new market segments and urban territories.

Housing scholars, housing policy and our homes have a pivotal role in this health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic incorporates a suite of health, economic and political challenges; housing is emerging as one of them.

Recent research has pointed to increasingly divided housing access across advanced economies. This reflects growing labor market inequality and rising intergenerational divides amplifying the importance of parental resources.

We show that cross-country comparisons of corporate labor shares are affected by differences in the delineation of corporate sectors. While the United States excludes all self-employed and most dwellings from the corporate sector, other countries include large amounts of both—biasing labor shares downward.

Urbanites worldwide fight for their right to housing and the city in ways that encompass what Westernized and masculine takes on ‘radical politics’ make of them. This intervention proposes a decolonial, grounded and feminist approach to investigate how resistance to housing precarity emerges from uncanny places, uninhabitable ‘homes’ and marginal propositions.

For decades, Richmond residents have demonstrated their heartfelt compassion for those
in a housing crisis. Our city and our region have well established nonprofits, ministries,
agencies and a continuum of care that have a mission to provide housing and supportive
services to those who find themselves in the crisis of homelessness.

The pace and scope of digital innovation targeting the real estate industry has intensified over the past decade. This article is therefore concerned with the digitization of the residential real estate industry, and how critical housing scholars might shape a research agenda on this transformation.

The efficiency of monetary policy substantially depends on the phase of the housing cycle since house prices are important determinants of banks’ willingness to lend. This paper presents evidence on 31 countries which shows that over the pandemic Covid-19 period, in a regime of a strong housing market, the effects of a monetary expansion are smaller than in a regime of low house prices.

State lawmakers have just five weeks to come up with solutions to massive pandemic-related problems and prevent Californians of all stripes — tenants, landlords, small-business owners, essential workers — from falling off the edge of a cliff.

Sub-topics: New Revenues Without Raising Taxes; Support for Small Business; Protections for Working Families; Investments in our Green Economy

With a series of temporary protections that helped Californians get through the first few months of the pandemic set to expire soon, Gov. Gavin Newsom hinted he will today extend some programs in another flex of executive power.

California lawmakers are returning to work Monday for a furious five-week sprint that will include contentious debates about police brutality, unemployment benefits, hospital mergers and a moratorium on evictions during the coronavirus pandemic.