Urban Housing Policy and Its Implications

America's rental housing is older than ever. The median rental housing unit was built 44 years ago. That means most U.S. rental housing units were built prior to the end of the Cold War. Nearly 4 million renter households "live in physically inadequate units," according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimated it'd cost $51.5 billion to address those physical deficiencies, but that estimate is probably woefully conservative. New York City estimated it'd cost $78 billion just to fix the city's own eroding public housing stock. Implications? 1) From a policy standpoint: This is why it's critical to focus on preservation of BOTH the affordability -- and -- physical integrity of America's aging apartments and single-family rental homes. If you only focus on one of the two, it's at the expense of the other. 2) From an investor standpoint: There are very real value-add opportunities out there, but not all will make sense without subsidies of some type. Location, building condition and current rent roll are, of course, massive variables. 3) From a developer standpoint: There's a real case for new supply EVEN WHERE/WHEN POPULATION GROWTH IS STAGNANT. Some cities lose more units to obsolescence than they build in a given year. And sometimes the older units aging poorly are located in neighborhoods that time left behind, requiring new housing in the neighborhoods where people want to live. This impacts all price points -- from affordable housing to Class A+ apartments. What are other implications I missed?

Recommended Reading: Supply Constraints and Housing Market Dynamics A recent working paper by Schuyler Louie, John Mondragon, and Johannes Wieland titled "Supply Constraints do not Explain House Price and Quantity Growth Across U.S. Cities" challenges conventional housing policy assumptions. The research analysed US cities between 1980-2020 and found that commonly measured "supply constraints" are quantitatively unimportant in explaining differences in housing costs and supply growth between cities. Cities with fewer constraints showed lower price growth between 2000-2020, but contrary to theory, this did not translate into higher construction output. The study reveals "missing homes" - the absence of expected higher quantity growth in less constrained cities despite lower price growth. This pattern held even during demand shocks like increased remote working (2019-2023). These findings suggest deregulation may not lead to expected increases in construction output and price reductions, challenging fundamental housing policy assumptions. Since supply constraints don't explain price differences through quantity effects, other factors drive higher prices: * Spatial equilibrium: Price differences reflecting quality of life variations * Reverse causality: Wealthier areas choosing stricter regulation * Amenity effects: Constraints directly influencing quality of life * Asset pricing effects: Taxation and risk differences between cities The findings suggest viewing housing production as flow determined by equilibrium ratios influenced by asset returns, rather than static supply curves. This shifts focus from how many homes are built to where and what type. Original paper: https://lnkd.in/eHw-dcMt Accessible explanation by Cameron Murray and Tim Helm: https://lnkd.in/eKWF45j6 This research demands that urban and housing professionals reconsider fundamental assumptions about housing markets and explore alternative explanations beyond traditional supply constraint narratives. #UrbanPlanning #HousingPolicy #UrbanEconomics #RealEstate #CityPlanning #HousingDevelopment

Housing policy is like a Swiss Army knife. Everyone’s focused on the bottle opener....while the actual tools go untouched. What if “housing policy” was really your health, jobs and net-zero strategy in disguise? Spoiler: it often is. Here are the crossover wins that jumped out at me from a new evidence review by PlaceShapers (and why people far beyond housing should care): 👉 Regeneration multiplies value: several schemes returned £2.50–£4.00 in social value for every £1 invested, with neighbourhood safety, employability and wellbeing all moving the right way. 👉 Retrofit = climate + careers: projects reported up to 60% carbon savings and created around 1,200 low-carbon jobs. That’s a green skills pipeline, not just warmer homes. 👉 Proof that prevention pays: a rare randomised controlled trial in housing found £935 per person annual NHS savings from housing-led health support. Another partnership logged £1.5m NHS savings in two years. 👉 Supply changes systems: modelling suggests 90,000 new social homes/year could generate £86.5bn in social & economic value, including big wins for health and homelessness. 👉 Homelessness solutions that stick: Housing First pilots sustained 84–92% of tenancies and saved c.£15,880 per person per year. That’s dignity and fiscal sense. Two lines I loved: “Funding needs to fit the local problem, not the other way around.” “Place means different things to different people… it has to be shaped by the people who live there.” Why this matters beyond housing: If you’re in the NHS, local government, finance, construction, climate or skills, these numbers are your business case for place-based investment that blends housing, health, jobs and decarbonisation. Done locally, with trusted partners, it compounds. So: 👉 If you control budgets: where could you pool funds across housing, health and skills to buy outcomes, not outputs? 👉 If you build or retrofit: how will you bake in local apprenticeships and asthma-safe homes from day one? 👉 If you lead on health: are housing partners inside your ICS governance and discharge plans yet.... or still at the door? What’s one barrier you’d remove tomorrow to let place-based partnerships fly? Please comment below. ♻️ Repost to help your network 👉 Follow Jenny Danson for more on Healthy Homes The brilliant report from PlaceShapers is in the link below

Zohran Mamdani might become NYC’s most influential housing developer. Not through REBNY. Not through private equity. By winning the mayor’s race. Here’s what that means for real estate: A $100B commitment to build 200,000 new affordable homes. → Triple the city’s current pace → 100% rent-stabilized → Publicly financed and union-built A four-year citywide rent freeze. → Stabilized tenants (over 2.4M people) would see 0% increases → Mayor appoints 9 Rent Guidelines Board members, enough to make it happen A NYCHA overhaul. → Double NYC’s capital spend on public housing repairs → $40B+ backlog in heating, plumbing, elevators, and roofs → New social housing on NYCHA land—without selling it off Major zoning reform. → Citywide plan to upzone low-density neighborhoods → Eliminate parking minimums → Fast-track 100% affordable projects Aggressive tenant protections. → Centralize enforcement of housing code violations → Name-and-shame negligent landlords → Push for Good Cause eviction to cover unregulated tenants And for homeowners? → A new Office of Deed Theft Prevention → Investigate fraud, stop equity theft in BIPOC neighborhoods → Push to abolish the tax lien sale The throughline: Mamdani sees housing as a public good, not a commodity. If he wins, NYC housing policy shifts from private incentives to public production. From market-led planning to mission-led development. From landlord-first governance to tenant-first protection. What this means for sponsors, developers, and investors: • Public competition for land and capital will increase • Rent-stabilization could expand to new buildings • “Affordable” won’t just be a checkbox—it will be the project • The 421a replacement fight gets more complicated • Tenant organizing will have institutional support This is the biggest philosophical pivot in NYC housing since 1968. We’ve seen mayors influence real estate before. But never like this. 👇 Curious: If Mamdani wins, how would this affect your strategy in NYC?

Housing Strategy Belongs in Economic Development Plans For too long, housing and economic development have been treated as parallel pursuits, handled by different departments, funded through separate mechanisms, and evaluated with distinct outcomes. But the realities of today’s economy demand a paradigm shift. Affordable and accessible housing is essential to regional competitiveness, labor market stability, and long-term fiscal health. Here’s what the research and policy frameworks consistently show: 🔹 Housing access is foundational to workforce participation and economic growth. A 2023 Freddie Mac study found that the lack of affordable housing near employment centers is now a top barrier to workforce entry, especially in healthcare, education, and logistics sectors. This dynamic is not hypothetical, counties like Harris have experienced direct impacts on recruiting frontline personnel due to housing cost burdens. 🔹 Housing construction generates robust economic returns. Per the National Association of Home Builders, building 100 single-family homes creates nearly 300 full-time jobs and $11 million in local tax revenue within the first year. Investments in housing create ripple effects across local economies. 🔹 Lack of housing constrains regional competitiveness. The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard reports that housing underproduction cost the U.S. economy approximately $2 trillion in lost GDP between 2000 and 2020, stemming from reduced labor mobility, lower productivity, and constrained business expansion. Federal policy frameworks have long recognized housing as an economic lever. 🔹The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program mandates that local governments address housing, infrastructure, and economic revitalization in an integrated manner. 🔹The Economic Development Administration (EDA) requires that regional Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) include housing considerations where affordability and workforce stability intersect. 🔹The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) continues to drive billions in private investment toward affordable rental housing, much of it aligned with economic development zones. It’s time to move beyond siloed strategies. Economic developers, planners, and housing professionals must collaborate to: 🔹Align zoning and land use with housing production goals. 🔹Integrate housing into regional CEDS and workforce strategies. 🔹Leverage public-private capital for mixed-income and workforce housing. 🔹Use data to evaluate housing’s role in fiscal performance and job creation. My work across sectors has taught me that treating housing as infrastructure is not just conceptually correct. It’s operationally necessary. Let’s plan, invest, and lead accordingly. #EconomicDevelopment #HousingPolicy #CommunityDevelopment

Big fan of Brad Hargreaves Thesis Driven Newlsetter, and the “Reclaiming Affordable Housing" is his best one yet. The piece argues that reducing housing costs is crucial, but government efforts often confuse “affordable housing” (subsidized, income-restricted) with true affordability (abundant, inexpensive housing). Inclusionary zoning policies, which require a percentage of units to be below-market, actually raise market-rate rents to offset costs, discouraging development and limiting supply. This creates a regressive system that inflates rents and perpetuates housing crises instead of solving them. Here were the most compelling snippets: Bringing down the price of housing would be the single most significant lever to reduce the overall cost of living. Housing affordability is a winning issue. Unfortunately—and even with the most well-intentioned elected officials—promises to bring down the cost of housing often end in a sleight of hand. “Housing affordability” becomes “affordable housing.” “Make housing more affordable” becomes “build more affordable housing.” In other words, there’s a substantial disconnect between affordable housing and Affordable Housing. Inclusionary Zoning - Analyzing a multifamily development from a financial perspective makes this painfully clear. For a 200 unit apartment building with a 30% opex ratio, that’s an average rent of about $4,200 per month. But if 25% of units are required to be kept at below-market rates—say, $1,500 per month—the rest of the units at the building would need to rise by about $450 per month (to $4,650) to make up for the difference. The developer or its investors do not “take this on the chin,” economically speaking. The yield that the project needs to generate is more or less fixed. If a given multifamily project can’t hit a 7% yield-on-cost, capital will go fund something with a better risk/reward balance: treasuries, industrial deals, corporate debt, or single-family sprawl projects in suburban Phoenix. The urban multifamily site subject to a 25% IZ requirement will sit unbuilt until market rents rise enough to reach the $4,650 number—effectively creating a circuitous subsidy from market-rate renters to below-market renters. Inclusionary zoning appears to be the worst of all worlds. By putting the burden of subsidizing below-market units on renters specifically—rather than the tax base as a whole—IZ effectively acts as a regressive tax. IZ programs maximize market distortion by discouraging housing development, artificially inflating market-rate rents beyond where they’d be without IZ. Strict IZ programs like New York Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning effectively make it impossible for cities to ever escape their housing crises; if market rates began dropping due to increased supply, projects would simply stop making financial sense until rents rose yet again. In other words, IZ programs don’t solve housing crises; they complement them.

Affordable Housing: The Paradox of Policy and Ground Reality Despite favourable policy signals, rate cuts, income tax relief, and the extension of PMAY, India’s affordable housing segment remains under strain. Land costs are soaring, construction expenses are rising, and developer margins are thinning. The result? A steep 71% drop in affordable housing supply across key cities in Q2 2025. As someone deeply invested in housing as a catalyst for inclusive growth, this disconnect is concerning. We must ask: Are incentives reaching the supply side effectively? Is the ₹45 lakh cap still realistic in today’s inflationary environment? Affordable housing isn't just about units under a price tag; it’s about enabling access, sustaining viability, and ensuring scale. We need bold, structural rethinking of land reforms, streamlined approvals, and redefined affordability metrics to truly deliver "Housing for All." #AffordableHousing #RealEstateIndia #UrbanPolicy #HousingForAll #InclusiveGrowth #InfrastructureDevelopment #PMAY #CREDAI #NAREDCO

Dubai’s 17,000-Unit Housing Push: What Happens When A City Grows Faster Than its Housing? You get rent inflation, talent drain, and economic friction. But in Dubai you always get solutions. In a bold step toward shaping the future of urban living, HH Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, has launched a transformative housing initiative through a strategic agreement between Roads and Transport Authority, Dubai Municipality & Wasl Group. What’s being delivered: • 17,000+ residential units • Spread across 6 districts • Total area: 1.46 million square meters • Targeted at skilled professionals across government and private sectors • Directly aligned with the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan Dubai’s Urban and Demographic Realities • Dubai population (April 2025): 3.93 million • Projected by 2040: 5.8 million → +2.15M over 16 years • Growth rate: 2.7% per year • Units needed by 2040: 800,000 Current pace of delivery (2024): • Only 30,200 new units handed over 11% below forecast • 30% drop compared to 2023 handovers Housing Affordability: A Workforce Risk Factor • 35–40% of income goes to rent for many residents • +21.1% YoY rent increase (CBRE, May 2024): • Apartments: +22.2% • Villas: +13.1% • Mid-income renters (AED 4K–9K/month) are most impacted • Shortage in centrally located, affordable, high-quality units Rising unaffordability = rising talent churn in essential sectors: • Healthcare • Education • Logistics • Tech The Economic Strategy Behind Housing • Dubai real estate transactions (2024): AED 761 billion • 1.6M+ investors from 170+ nationalities • Yet only a fraction of inventory targets the affordable segment • Real estate GDP contribution (2024, YTD Q3): 8% D33 + UAE Vision 2031: Policy Integration D33 Agenda goal: Double Dubai’s GDP to AED 800B by 2033 Key enabler: Human capital productivity Affordable housing enables: • Lower wage pressure • Higher retention • Shorter commutes • Greater quality of life • UAE targets Top 10 Global Talent Competitiveness by 2030 What Sets This Project Apart • Cross-agency delivery: Roads and Transport Authority + Dubai Municipality + Wasl Group • Transit-oriented urban design: Proximity to mobility networks • 20-minute city alignment: Less commuting, more livability • Inclusive targeting: Expatriates + Emiratis + Public & Private Sector • Social cohesion: Helps stabilize housing for 1M+ middle-income workers This isn’t just a real estate move. It’s a long-term investment in national competitiveness. Dubai is proving once again: The future isn’t built on towers alone it’s built on infrastructure, inclusion, intention, and vision. Under the bold leadership of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and HH Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai isn’t just leading it’s defining what cities of the future look like.

Inspired by Eric Schaefer's testimony on Wednesday to US Congress, it was a good time to look back at Charles L. Biederman, VP of Technical Services, Levitt & Sons Corp., testimony to Congress on July 9, 1969. This testimony comes from a leading onsite builder considering a move offsite: Need for Industrialized Housing National housing goal: 26 million homes in 10 years (set by President Johnson). Current construction methods and workforce limitations make this goal unachievable using traditional site-built techniques. Critical labor shortage: Skilled trades are not growing at a fast enough rate to meet future demand. By 1978, a shortage of 205,000 plumbers was expected, even under optimistic assumptions. Cost and Efficiency Comparisons Current average construction cost (excluding land and overhead): $11,000 $4,400 of that is field labor Site-built home in 1975: Estimated to cost $15,175 Factory-built home in 1975: Estimated to cost $12,709 Factory-built homes offer: Reduced labor hours; Lower-skilled labor (more available); Lower wage growth (5% vs. 10%); Less material loss/theft/damage ; More predictable conditions (indoor manufacturing) Barriers to Progress Local building codes, zoning laws, union practices, and land use restrictions block innovation. Rising construction costs outpace income growth, shrinking the housing market. Without change, we risk failing to meet housing needs and pricing out many Americans. Biederman's Policy Recommendations in 1969 Establish a National Institute of Building Sciences to promote performance-based standards over material-based codes and support innovation and fair evaluation of new building methods. Establish an Institute of Environmental Sciences to tackle zoning and environmental standards affecting housing placement. Support HUD's Operation Breakthrough Encourage private sector innovation in building methods. Expand Funding for Sections 235 and 236 of the National Housing Act Adjust limits for inflation to make subsidies more effective Authorize Variable Rate Mortgages Keep monthly payments stable while adjusting mortgage duration based on interest rates. Support Inclining Rate Mortgages Let payments rise with homeowner income growth, aiding affordability and lender returns. Mandate Residential Mortgage Investments Require pension funds and insurers to invest a minimum % in home mortgages. Fund R&D for Industrialized Housing Suggest investing just 0.1% of the federal budget to spur innovation in housing production. Conclusion Current construction methods are insufficient to meet future demand. Industrialized housing offers a solution through increased productivity, lower costs, and reduced dependency on skilled labor. Achieving national housing goals requires federal leadership, industry innovation, and systemic changes to regulation and financing. With government support and regulatory reform, industrialized housing can ensure decent, affordable homes for all Americans.

Budget season brings an influx of media conversations—each an opportunity to spotlight the transformational role of affordable housing in India’s economic and social progress. In this conversation with Tanisha Tyagi of ABP Network, I discussed how financial innovations and proactive government interventions—PMAY Urban 2.0, NHB’s launch of RMBS (Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities), the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Low-Income Housing (CGFTLIH), and the expanding financial ecosystem—are unlocking homeownership for millions, especially in Real India. This impact extends beyond metro boundaries, starting right outside municipal corporation limits and deep into emerging urban clusters. Proactive government policies do more than just make homes affordable; they drive the expansion of the entire housing ecosystem—fueling Affordable Housing Finance Companies (AHFCs), expanding distribution networks, deepening financial inclusion, and improving India’s mortgage-to-GDP ratio, which remains significantly below global benchmarks. With 8 lakh kilometers of road connectivity, metro expansions, and enhanced rail infrastructure, rurbanisation is becoming a powerful force for economic growth—bringing jobs, social mobility, and homeownership opportunities closer to where people live. With the right financial and policy frameworks, every Indian family can own a home—at EMIs lower than what many urban residents pay for their cars. This is the true power of financial inclusion—turning aspirations into assets, and homes into engines of national growth. #AffordableHousing #GrihumHousingFinance #ViksitBharat #FinancialInclusion #PMAYUrban2.0 #MOHUA # #IndiaGrowthStory