Most Helpful
acardboardmonkey

This is an issue globally. Curious to hear what possible solutions could come about over the next few years?

There is only one: build more housing.

If you are asking  how to effectuate that, well... that is a more complex issue.  But in general, take approval rights away from local zoning boards which are dominated by homeowners and turn master planning over to people who know what they're talking about and can craft comprehensive local/regional plans without being influenced by NIMBYs or special interest groups.  

 

I'm looking at it from a Toronto perspective.

Change the balance of supply and demand. That's literally the only way.

Reduce demand by banning foreign purchases, investors buying more that 2-3 properties per person, cut immigration, reduce student visas, ban airbnb.

Increase supply by approving more housing starts, opening more land to be developed, either promote or force developers to build dense housing (towers provide more housing than townhomes or short apartment buildings).

 
tdotbcomm

I'm looking at it from a Toronto perspective.

Change the balance of supply and demand. That's literally the only way.

Reduce demand by banning foreign purchases, investors buying more that 2-3 properties per person, cut immigration, reduce student visas, ban airbnb.

Increase supply by approving more housing starts, opening more land to be developed, either promote or force developers to build dense housing (towers provide more housing than townhomes or short apartment buildings).

Why would you want to change demand?  Housing is one of the great engines of modern economies.  It would make as much sense as if, when your car ran out of gas, you decided the best solution was to go back to horse-drawn carriages instead of filling your tank back up.

 

I think reduced demand from investors would be great. Shift the demand back to those who NEED homes, not WANT homes. Sure, an investment property or two is fine, but nobody NEEDS 500 units for an Airbnb empire. In your example, it’d be as if investors, who already have more than enough personal vehicles, decide to buy up all the supply of cars, forcing others to revert back to horse-drawn carriages due to limited supply/inflated car prices. I would like to invest in real estate myself, but I realize there should be a limit. Hard to say what exactly that limit should be but many investment firms have blown way past it.

 

The Toronto context is a bit different and I do agree with tdotbcomm. As one example, we have two giant condo towers smack in the middle of downtown that're majority AirBnB. Shit tons of RE bros have done exactly what you mention in your other post, buy / lease a large number of units because and capitalize on the spread between rent and AirBnB rates. Anecdotally, I know some people who've done that with 50-75 units. Canadian real estate also has a history of being a safe haven for money laundering.

Ultimately the solution is supply. We have too much SFH on all the major subway lines and the NIMBYs allow nothing to be built. There's a large development that was recently blocked because "it does not fit the neighborhood" or some such bullshit. The land in question is a parking lot / strip mall.....

 
Controversial

Plenty of housing and room for more in the US of A. Issue is blue controlled areas are causing people to flee at a higher rate than red controlled areas can build. Until the population center of the country shifts back towards the east coast the problem will persist. 

This is just explicitly not true. The places with the biggest housing shortages tend, not surprisingly, to be (mostly liberal) urban areas.

Fewer and fewer people are living in rural communities and more and more people are living in or around cities, and entrenched interests (of all sorts) in those cities are resisting calls to build more housing for a variety of selfish reasons.  Until supply can be more readily built in the communities that need it, we'll have a housing shortage.  It has got relatively little to do with political alignment and everything to do with NIMBYism (and the general long lead time for constructing housing in the first place)

 

I swear @Ozymandia has to be the pink haired he/they, birthing person on the "TAX THE RIGH & FREE HOUSING FOR EVERYONE" board in your local Chaz/Chop Autonomous zone. I swear every one of his comments sounds like he's working for CNN. We get it, you're more virtuous than the rest of us but can you please stop?

 

Need to build new so older product shifts down in price point. People in class B that can afford it trade up to new class A, people in class C trade up to B, LIHTC trade up to market rate C so on and so forth. It’s a supply side issue. All in cost to build would be less if it didn’t take 18 months to get a property zoned and entitled, developers could build at lower densities with 2/3 story garden rather than meet ridiculous demands of local governments.

 

While that can be part of the solution, it's only a small part. It's still incredibly expensive to build and doesn't make economic sense to build what is really needed, more affordable housing. Deals will only pencil when you're building a unit that most of the population cannot afford.

Lets break this down.

First off, removing density and zoning restrictions will make it cheaper to build housing, if only because it will bring down the price of land.  So right off the bat, you're helping reduce costs.  Second, one of the reasons it is so expensive to build is because it is expensive to spend the time and effort to entitle land.  Making it easier to build to a highest and best use, instead of spending months/years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get your permits, will also make it far less expensive to build.  With more certainty around timing, it becomes easier to purchase forward contracts for materials, or to contract labor to get the site built.  Which, again, brings down costs.

Second, building more housing will create more affordable housing.  If you build 100,000 new market rate rentals in NYC, for example, then the 100,000 units of housing that were built in 2013 become less attractive; less amenitized, older housing stock, etc.  And the price will drop accordingly.  And because now that is renting for 5% less, the housing that was built in 2003 is less competitive to that housing stock... and so on and so forth.  Adding supply allows more elasticity in pricing across the board.  But it has to be meaningful supply, not a handful of units.

And yes, I agree that the absolute lowest income Americans will need help.  But once you are allowing for middle income wage earners to access habitable apartments/homes, you can then focus more resources on the people at the absolute bottom of the totem pole and give them immediate relief.

 

All single family is made up of two values - the land and the improvements. The improvements value should be about the same whether you have a brand new 1200 square foot home in Miami vs a brand new 1200 square foot home in the middle of nowhere West Virginia. Where the value should fluctuate is the land. Land in BumF-- West Virginia is going to be cheaper than Miami no doubt.  So aside from extreme NIMBYISM causing zoning problems in some cities such as San Francisco (maybe the worst) where  land prices are insane, I'm not sure much can be done to bring down the cost of real estate development (and therefore rents and affordability). There is still a minimum cost. 

Many of these companies that are building Class A units, are developers and not construction entities. They are hiring a GC company that makes a huge spread on the overall construction cost and then the developer charges insane rents on the back end to make up for it.  My partners and I build workforce housing. We recently built 80 units ourselves for 7.3M. It was a success and it appraised for something like 9M, but it was a pain. We decided to bid out our next project which was coincidentally 80 units (same design and everything) and our lowest bid was $8.6M (before financing and developer fee). We decided to hire a GC from a firm and pay him $150k and save the rest. We're about a month or two away from finishing that project and will be in it for $7.2M.

There's been an absolute war on the trades in the last 30 years:

- Natural aging of the workers (I think the average age of a construction worker is like 49-57 depending on the study)

- A huge number of workers dropped out of the industry after the great recession, and even as recently as 2020, they still had not been replaced (I haven't checked this stat lately though)

- A huge push from high schools to send as many students to college as possible even though that may not be the best route for them

- Political fights on immigration has hurt too (go to any job site and look around).

I think the general consensus is that these jobs don't pay well, but you'd be surprised at times. I got a $9,000 quote from a guy to paint just the inside of a 1200 square foot rental property of mine. I don't know if I walk around looking like I'm made out of money or if he was actually getting successful with bids like that, but I guess it's the former. Seeing this,  I've started a roofing company with a guy and I plan on starting a mobile handyman business as well. 

As AI becomes more involved and with the rise of remote work, more and more companies are going to save a ton by finding workers in the Philippines or India. I think in 20 years the trades will be like tech jobs now.

But I say all that to say this, there is a minimum amount of money that things can be built for, and not enough workers in the construction industry. Affordability will be an issue for some time.

 
TheDebtStar

All single family is made up of two values - the land and the improvements. The improvements value should be about the same whether you have a brand new 1200 square foot home in Miami vs a brand new 1200 square foot home in the middle of nowhere West Virginia. Where the value should fluctuate is the land. Land in BumF-- West Virginia is going to be cheaper than Miami no doubt.  So aside from extreme NIMBYISM causing zoning problems in some cities such as San Francisco (maybe the worst) where  land prices are insane, I'm not sure much can be done to bring down the cost of real estate development (and therefore rents and affordability). There is still a minimum cost. 

Density. Easier permitting and entitlement.

Lets focus on the latter.  Making it easier (e.g. faster and more certain) to get drawings approved or zoning changed will cut costs to a massive degree, especially in dense urban areas.  I can budget more appropriately, borrow more appropriately, and fundraise more appropriately if I know the process will take 6 months, instead of between 6 and 36 months.  We pass on projects all the time because the uncertainty around the entitlement process entails a financial risk we won't take.

And on the former... well, if I can build 20,000 sf on a 5,000 sf lot, that's okay.  If I can build 40,000 sf, my price/bsf goes down significantly.  Denser housing is relatively less expensive.  

 

We need a greater amount of supply so people can't raise rents to absurd levels since tenants would just go pay a mortgage and own or they would move to a less expensive apartment. But, public investment can only go so far. Could governments operate as REITs and develop and operate housing on a break even basis? Perhaps. Is that a likely scenario? No. So that means they would look to the private sector to help develop rental properties and for-sale properties. Since they are different strategies let me break them out separately.

Rental: No one in the private sector is doing a deal that they don't benefit from, that is a pretty well established fact. So, the equity sources need an equivalent return to the amount of risk they are taking (which I don't really need to go into, especially on here). The ways to hit those returns are either: continually raise rents to outpace or match operating expense costs to have the same margins that they underwrote initially, or reduce costs in either up front capital (construction costs/acquisition costs) or operating expenses to maintain rent levels and margins. So, since private owners don't want to take a haircut on their sales price lets remove that as an option. That leaves lower/maintain op ex levels, lower construction costs whether it is hard costs/soft costs/financing fees, or land cost, or we just have to keep raising rents. BUT we are under the assumption that raising rents is the issue we are trying to tackle so lets remove that option. So, lets start with the OpEx piece...these costs are usually materials, internal labor, or external contracted services along with fixed costs like RET or INS. If we want to reduce these costs we either need cheaper materials or people to want less money for their work. I think it's safe to assume people don't want to make less money though so there would need to be a decrease in materials costs substantially enough  that it offsets the rising costs of labor (which is unlikely). Capitalism doesn't want any of these options to happen since someone is making money from each of these and so no one wants to lower costs. The only other option would be government subsidizing landlords to maintain OpEx at certain levels so the spreads between Net Operating Expenses and Net Rental Income is the same. Now lets look at the alternative to OpEx decreases...construction costs. This is pretty similar to OpEx in the fact that contractors, architects, engineers, lawyers, etc. don't want to lose wages or profit margins themselves so reducing costs isn't a likely option. That leaves financing costs and land value. Well lets assume the $1T banks like JPM aren't going to lower their rates and not going to give 90%+ leverage. This leaves land value and like I mentioned previously, owners don't want to take a haircut on the price to help someone else out. Once again this leaves us with the only option of public subsidies, potentially in the form of increased leverage and potentially decrease the financing costs, or public subsidies on hard costs. The only alternative to this would be greater supply in the number of OpEx services (landscaping, utilities, maintenance, etc.) or increased supply in contractors, architects, engineers, etc. to lower the construction costs. This is a never ending rabbit hole of increasing supply of EVERYTHING to bring prices down that's just not realistic. So the best option is for governments to provide subsidies, tax breaks, etc. to landlords to make their returns better and increase investment in this space. There is one more alternative which isn't remotely likely but for the sake of thoroughness I'll mention it, a decrease in returns in other asset classes that make real estate returns the most attractive in the market. If public equities, corporate PE, fixed income, etc. all went to crap and the best returns were in real estate then people would accept a 8-12% IRR and deals would get done much much more. Again, this isn't likely but it is worth mentioning. 

Ownership: This is pretty similar to the above, so I'm not going to repeat myself with the construction costs part. However, since there is no OpEx since the strategy is to offload the product on completion, there is a lot less avenues here. Private investors in the homebuilding world still have desired returns for the risk they are taking with their money. So, to increase supply that means there needs to be a steady stream of buyers that are willing to help them maintain their levels of returns and keep investors in this space. But, since people can't afford houses it is a downward spiral  of less sold=need for greater returns to make up for lack of deals= raise prices and so on. The way to counteract that would be for public funding to step in and either help lower costs and keep sale prices stable, or the public funds would supplement the purchase price to offset the rise in costs and keep margin healthy. Unless the government wanted to outright buy the houses themselves and sell at a discount, I don't see private investors requiring lower returns similar to the example I laid out above.

In general, the housing crises needs a combination of public and private investment to increase supply and have people compete to lower their prices to keep tenants in their buildings so to not lose them to ownership (which would become more affordable) and to other apartment complexes. There is always the high barrier to entry in real estate so the amount of REPE/Dev Cos/ REITs are more limited than ideal, but if every deal becomes 20-25% because of government subsidies then every pension fund, sovereign wealth fund, and large investment entity will be throwing cash at developers and REPE shops since those returns would be more attractive than other forms of investment. 

 

I never understand why users of this website have such a hard time wrapping their head around supply and demand when it comes to housing…the laws of supply and demand still apply…The ONLY solution to lack of housing is…more housing… like what other solution is there? If you have 100 families and there is only 1 house…there is no other solution to housing the other 99 families than to build more houses… I suppose other solutions could be to defy physics for example if you could invent Hermione’s purse where there is infinite space then you could have infinite housing. Another solution would be to drastically reduce the population…you could do this in a number of ways 1.) introduce another black plague, 2.) world war 3, 3.) if you are incredibly convincing, convince a decent amount of the population to commit suicide so the rest of the population can have more affordable housing. These are possible “other solutions,” but in my opinion, building more housing is a lot easier and more ethical. Now there is only 1 reason why we can’t build more housing…zoning laws and NIMBYISM. Basically homeowners don’t want more housing in their neighborhoods…this is a fact. Recently the residents of a very wealthy town in my state just voted to approve a bill that would require a 24 month demolition delay on all properties…think about that…if you are a real estate developer, you have to pay cost of carry for 2 fucking years before you can do any work…this makes the cost of building homes much more expensive which ultimately inflates the price of homes and this is just one bullshit strategy NIMBYs use to prevent development. If we no longer had restrictive zoning laws on housing and every parcel of land could be an apartment building instead of single family homes, I guarantee that we would not have a housing crisis. But for some reason idiots on this site (and the world) think that mandating affordable housing requirements, banning investment properties, or other dumbass regulations are the solution instead of simply building more housing 

 
Fred Fredburger

I never understand why users of this website have such a hard time wrapping their head around supply and demand when it comes to housing…the laws of supply and demand still apply…The ONLY solution to lack of housing is…more housing… like what other solution is there? If you have 100 families and there is only 1 house…there is no other solution to housing the other 99 families than to build more houses… 

Whether they consciously know it or not, people do understand this, it's just that what they want is to be the person who owns the house, and not the 99 on the street, and the presumption is that policy will be made in such a way that they'll be ones with their privilege enshrined.  Go read BBK1234's response.  They argued that owning lots of homes should be made illegal... but only for people who own lots and lots of homes, as long as it's in accordance with the number of investment/vacation properties they want to own, that's a reasonable number.  Always about punishing others and helping oneself.

At the end of the day, increasing supply means reducing the value of existing supply.  So the people who have managed to get housing at an attractive price merely want to maintain their high home values, even if it means rent burdening everyone else, or making them homeless.  It's just selfishness, and anyone arguing for any solution that doesn't being with "increase supply" is arguing in bad faith.

 
DPFU1418

There isn't a housing crisis in the US. We have a crisis of people feeling entitled to live in the most expensive places in the world regardless of income level. If there truly was a housing crisis, the rent in Philadelphia wouldn't be 1/4 of what it is 90 miles up the road in NYC.  

I mean, there is some validity to this argument, that the right to safe and clean housing doesn't mean the right to safe and clean housing at any price, wherever you want.

However, in practice, there are compelling reasons that we need people to live in NYC and not in Philadelphia.  There are a ton of low wage jobs, the majority in fact, that are required to keep a place like NYC functioning.  You can't have all the bankers and lawyers living in NYC and the janitors and cashiers living in Rochester.  You need a range of housing options across the socio-economic spectrum.  To your point, not everyone needs to be able to afford Tribeca.  But it should be possible for everyone to afford living within a reasonable distance of their place of work, and as a municipality and public entity, NYC (or anywhere else) has a vested interest in making sure that is possible, if only so that it ensures it can keep functioning properly.

 

Didn't look at any of the comments above but first thing that comes to mind is Singapore model for housing or Vienna Austria social housing. The inefficiency is only deepened by Western society (white) capitalism. So good luck on in solving any issue in housing if we aren't looking at models like what I stated above. Artificial scarcity is the key issue. (zoning leaning toward SFH, NIMBYism, commoditization of housing, etc.)

 
bolo up

Everyone so focused barriers to supply. How about a solid recession to reduce demand? 

I can't tell if this is a joke or not.  I mean... some people do genuinely think this way, which is sad and hilarious and terrifying all at once.

 

Breaking down the zoning barriers is the #1 solution. The artificial scarcity of MF zoned parcels creates a bidding war where only luxury devs can get the numbers to pencil without significant soft funds and, while that does increase total housing supply, it further draws down the available zoned parcels. Will cities ever change the zoning issues that cause this? Probably not because their constituents will NIMBY and hurt reelection chances but, in a perfect world, that would be a massive breakdown of barriers to increasing the housing stock.

On a more achievable scale (but still a challenge) increasing soft funding availability will help to incentivize developers to go through the long process of rezoning. Antiquated views of housing has made people hyper-fixated on ONLY bringing in more SF housing but, with limited land in metro areas, SF housing alone will not solve the housing supply gaps.

You're not really a born and bred, traditional aristocrat if you work hard enough to get into Harvard.- Prospie
 

Make zoning basically a “shall issue” process. It shouldn’t be complex and require legions of consultants and attorneys. There shouldn’t be a need for shadow studies: https://reason.com/2018/06/27/developer-of-historic-laundromat-in-san/ Also, the ability for neighbors to hamstring it is ridiculous. Also get rid of the ridiculous affordability requirements that many cities have pushed for, adding 100 market rate units is better than a project that doesn’t pencil.

 

I think the solution is to do what lib states do and create all sorts of laws and regulations and disincentives for building…especially tax incentives, those have to go. Then you can turn around and blame the boogie man for lack of affordable housing and have something to campaign on. 

 

I think there are many variables.  All the inputs to building are very expensive in the places people want to live.

- land

- labor

- materials

- regulation

Technological innovation in the residential development space has been virtually nonexistent.  Most today are built very similar to 50 years ago, manual labor.  This is something I don’t see talked about enough.  If we could build houses for 20-30% cheaper, it would make a huge dent in our the supply and pricing problem.

Zoning is another issue, but the studies about upzoning show conflicting results.  Upzoning rich areas promote gentrification, upzoning poor areas does not.   It has to be a combination of policy and upzoning.

Controlling investor demand is an interesting thought, but investors are a big part of updating the old stock of housing.  It’s a key part of the housing cycle.  It would need to be so nuanced, I just don’t see a good way to do this w/o introducing more costly policy.

General housing regulation - pulling back this would be another huge move.  I think there is a lot of housing regulation crap that needs to be retired.

Another issue is that housing varies country to country.  In the US, we have 30 year mortgages and people look to own. This is different from Europe, Asia, and Australia.  So the answer needs to be tailored to the region.

For the US - need to push more mortgages to the private markets. The GSE’s are subsidizing housing which drives pricing up. Government should invest more money in trade schools to build up skilled labor.  Immigrant programs for trade programs or something like that.  Government and private industry should invest public money into housing development technology, some sort of partnership. Change zoning regulations to allow for more than Single Family across the country - it just doesn’t make sense anymore.  Crete incentives and policy that would make affordable unit profitable for developers.  Maybe establish Social housing programs like some European countries - Germany, Austria, and Singapore do this well.  Specialized focus group to revise housing regulation (non zoning), state by state.

 

With regards to NYC specifically - it's not a popular idea, but people need to realize that affordable housing laws hurt the city more than anything else. Manhattan is simply not for low income, and trying to force it to be is causing mountains of issues. There is 0 incentive to upgrade/improve the rent protected units/buildings so many are in terrible shape, RE investors see it as too much of a PITA to even try to get into the market (aside from a few very large/very experienced funds that are willing to put up, despite the massive difficulties), etc.

Most surprisingly, I think people would be shocked by all the benefits of deregulating all NYC housing. Because of the rent regulation, the city is widely only livable for the very wealthy and for deeply entrenched low income, who will never give up their units. The market almost completely excludes average folks and middle income. If housing were deregulated, market pricing would respond by largely stabilizing at a much more reasonable point. The 20-30% (just guessing) of newly deregulated units would flood the market and normal rents would drop, creating a more affordable city in general.Additionally, the lowest paid jobs in the city would have to respond by paying a higher wage, to either bring those workers up to a more middle income level, or to make it worth it for workers to commute every day.

There are essentially no downsides, except for the bleeding heart perception that somehow very poor people living in Manhattan is necessary for the cities image/heritage, despite the fact that their domiciles are terrifyingly run down and in perpetual disrepair, because there's no reason to fix them.

Edit: I’ve completely glossed over the massive increase in city tax revenues that would occur.

 

Not to mention the supply increase in places normal people will be WILLING to live. When someone wants to move to NYC, and the only option in someone’s price range is in a decrepit ghetto, they will simply not move. The price of housing is not just based supply, but on DECENT supply.

If you’ve walked around the Bronx you know what I mean. Manhattan rent prices would probably halve if the entire borough was bulldozed and replaced with something people are willing to move to.

 
bupit

With regards to NYC specifically - it's not a popular idea, but people need to realize that affordable housing laws hurt the city more than anything else. Manhattan is simply not for low income, and trying to force it to be is causing mountains of issues. There is 0 incentive to upgrade/improve the rent protected units/buildings so many are in terrible shape, RE investors see it as too much of a PITA to even try to get into the market (aside from a few very large/very experienced funds that are willing to put up, despite the massive difficulties), etc.

I think you need to differentiate between rent stabilization and other affordable housing laws and regulations.  It's doubly important because rent stabilization isn't an NYC law - it's a state law.  But as far as your point applies specifically to RS, you're right - all of that housing stock is going to degrade very, very quickly.

Most surprisingly, I think people would be shocked by all the benefits of deregulating all NYC housing. Because of the rent regulation, the city is widely only livable for the very wealthy and for deeply entrenched low income, who will never give up their units. The market almost completely excludes average folks and middle income. If housing were deregulated, market pricing would respond by largely stabilizing at a much more reasonable point. The 20-30% (just guessing) of newly deregulated units would flood the market and normal rents would drop, creating a more affordable city in general.

This... doesn't make a ton of sense.  The city would not become overall more affordable, because you aren't actually adding supply.  What would happen is that prices would generally adjust and resemble a more traditional pricing curve, rather than have these two massive peaks at the cheaper and more expensive end, with a massive trough in between.

And parts of NYC are extremely affordable.  Living in the boroughs isn't super expensive for middle class families.  It's just that young people and families don't want to live in Jamaica or Mill Creek or Soundview.

 

There are essentially no downsides, except for the bleeding heart perception that somehow very poor people living in Manhattan is necessary for the cities image/heritage, despite the fact that their domiciles are terrifyingly run down and in perpetual disrepair, because there's no reason to fix them.

Well, I think there is a fair bit of value in creating mixed-income communities.  And there is already a massive debate going on, and which has been going for years, among city policy-makers about whether or not building affordable housing in Manhattan makes sense from a cost/benefit standpoint.

Edit: I've completely glossed over the massive increase in city tax revenues that would occur.

Why?  Again, if you aren't adding any supply to the market, then you aren't doing anything to lower prices.  All you're doing is taking an artificially constrained pricing curve and allowing it to take on a more natural form.  Which means that while a lot of "middle income" housing will suddenly appear as prices surge for the newly-deregulated units, you'll also see prices fall at the upper end of the spectrum as people forced into renting luxury housing above their price point now have more buying power.

 

You ARE adding supply.  There is 20 - 30% of the current supply that is simply not really there due to laws that make housing mobility essentially non existent.  Did you know that among the most financially well off individuals in the city that something like 60% of them live in a rent stabilized unit? These are individuals now making on average of 150 - 172K per year, whom will likely never move.

 

Municipalities really need to revisit their antiquated zoning codes. A few cities are starting to do so out west in an effort to incentivize developers. I think San Jose just did a major update?
 

Also, construction methodologies really need some innovation. Personally I’ve been interested in prefab, there’s really no one in the states doing it well. This could really be a game changer if done right. 

 
ShawnDog

Municipalities really need to revisit their antiquated zoning codes. A few cities are starting to do so out west in an effort to incentivize developers. I think San Jose just did a major update?
 

Also, construction methodologies really need some innovation. Personally I've been interested in prefab, there's really no one in the states doing it well. This could really be a game changer if done right. 

The challenge is doing it right.  You know how hard it is to build modular housing or other prefabricated product in dense urban areas?  There is a reason this stuff doesn't get built right now.  Maybe, maybe you see efficiencies such that costs come down enough to make it worthwhile... but at the moment the challenges are enormous.  Which is why it doesn't get "done right"

 

In America, I think the solution is relatively simple. Or at least something that makes a substantial, massive, difference. 

To 5x, or more, the 4% and 9% low income housing tax credits. And then there are other things that could be done to make the program better instead of just bigger like allowing some combination of 4%/9% credits to be used together instead of the current exclusive way, to easy up on the bond issuances required for the 4%s, to increase the points received by developments in more impoverished/isolated/less well of places when applying for the tax credits, etc. These are incredibly effective programs. Expanding the programs are one of the easiest way to make sure there is enough affordable housing. And it is fairly easy to make the program better since most of the changes don’t really need legislation. It can be done through what is effectively changes in executive policy which is a fairly easy thing to do

 

I think the evolution of self-driving cars + telework + flying cars/taxis in the next 20-30 years will radically change how people live and work and thus how we approach housing. Because self-driving cars can make city living very easy (no need to own a car or to park a car, and your self-driving car drops you off right at your destination), city life could become much more in-demand. Lack of parking needs could make it much easier to build far more densely in the cities, thus making city life in greater demand and also more affordable (in time as new supply catches up). On the other hand, the ability to telework and/or to commute from far away quickly in a luxurious, comfortable vehicle without the stress of driving in traffic and the ability to get work done while in transit could make suburban/exurban living much more desirable and in demand than it already is, so we may see more suburban sprawl. Though as self-driving cars and telework and air taxis make it palatable to live hundreds of miles away from the office we could see, at least in the medium term, reduced pressure on suburban prices as big, beautiful housing neighborhoods won't need to be tied to major employment centers.

So, hard to say how things will evolve, but the larger point is, housing policy generally takes a generation to implement and by the time we as a society implement today's policies they will be obsolete. 

 

Quae in autem voluptatem assumenda totam eum animi. Tempore numquam expedita ad perferendis. Aut amet labore optio velit. Omnis est in repellendus qui et optio.

Facere in impedit magni dolorum cum in. Id voluptatum facilis repudiandae illo. Omnis repellendus consequatur et. Officiis magnam voluptatum ratione sed. Deleniti quaerat dolor et nobis sunt voluptatem fuga. Quis et asperiores veniam ab enim.

Impedit qui sunt id est. Et voluptates non consequatur id.

 

Ad facere neque velit et. Consectetur impedit explicabo est nihil fugiat aliquid rem. Et ratione saepe possimus dolorum sint facilis. Recusandae sunt molestias sapiente perspiciatis velit. Expedita est suscipit assumenda incidunt.

Voluptas ut aut velit. Quam repudiandae et est vel. Incidunt nobis possimus excepturi quasi. Voluptatum minus et voluptatem dicta sequi illum.

Quod voluptate quia nihil impedit ipsum iusto sunt tempora. Dolor sapiente sit dicta rerum. Sequi ipsum voluptatem qui officia deleniti.

Incidunt saepe eius sint. Magnam nesciunt omnis repellat tenetur. Minus a alias culpa dolorem et dolorem. Nobis magni ab facere. Voluptates repellat eveniet ut est. Vitae nostrum dolor qui aut eaque et.

 

Sint ipsam quaerat et tempora qui quas consequatur. Ut ipsa molestiae praesentium ex et praesentium. Et illum ut at vero veritatis. Quia consequuntur quis iste.

Ratione qui quia nisi dolore voluptates rerum tempora. Et eveniet excepturi omnis vero commodi eum. Sequi repellat rerum fuga et.

Qui sunt ipsam suscipit impedit accusantium commodi autem. Sit fugiat molestiae et deserunt magnam saepe omnis facilis. Optio id itaque asperiores modi vero. Dignissimos a ipsum tempore eius eos exercitationem ratione optio.

Animi et suscipit nulla commodi possimus ipsa qui. Accusamus veniam eum voluptates magnam sequi.

Career Advancement Opportunities

April 2024 Investment Banking

  • Jefferies & Company 02 99.4%
  • Goldman Sachs 19 98.8%
  • Harris Williams & Co. New 98.3%
  • Lazard Freres 02 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 03 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

April 2024 Investment Banking

  • Harris Williams & Co. 18 99.4%
  • JPMorgan Chase 10 98.8%
  • Lazard Freres 05 98.3%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.7%
  • William Blair 03 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

April 2024 Investment Banking

  • Lazard Freres 01 99.4%
  • Jefferies & Company 02 98.8%
  • Goldman Sachs 17 98.3%
  • Moelis & Company 07 97.7%
  • JPMorgan Chase 05 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

April 2024 Investment Banking

  • Director/MD (5) $648
  • Vice President (19) $385
  • Associates (86) $261
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (14) $181
  • Intern/Summer Associate (33) $170
  • 2nd Year Analyst (66) $168
  • 1st Year Analyst (205) $159
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (145) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
3
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
99.0
4
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
5
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
6
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
7
kanon's picture
kanon
98.9
8
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
9
bolo up's picture
bolo up
98.8
10
Linda Abraham's picture
Linda Abraham
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”