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Authorities in San Francisco are making moves to bring a $600 million affordable housing bond to voters later this year. The bond, according a recent press release, would allow the city to "fund the creation, preservation, and rehabilitation of affordable housing in San Francisco." City officials... View full entry
The damage from the housing crisis — a toxic combination of frenzied buying, rampant construction, predatory lending and investment excess — was extensive. Of the 23,000 single-family homes in the 89031 ZIP code, more than 7,500 have had at least one foreclosure since 2006, according to Attom Data Solutions. — NYT
A team including; Matthew Goldstein, Robert Gebeloff, Ross Mantle and Matt Ruby released a deep dive into the community of North Las Vegas. The global financial crisis of 2008 impacted it greatly and though the local housing market has strengthened and it is today one of the fastest-growing cities... View full entry
The billboard suggested the rapid rise in home values between 2008 and 2017 necessitates a steep tax aimed at speculative flipping. The proposed tax would grab as much as 100 per cent of the profit from a home resale during the first year of ownership, then decline by increments of 10 per cent over 10 years. It would target non-resident and resident buyers alike, including primary residences [...] the goal is to keep Toronto’s popular neighbourhoods affordable for all income levels. — The Globe and Mail
The number of apartments deemed affordable for very low-income families across the United States fell by more than 60 percent between 2010 and 2016, according to a new report by Freddie Mac.
The report by the government-backed mortgage financier is the first to compare rent increases in specific units over time. It examined loans that the corporation had financed twice between 2010 and 2016, allowing a comparison of the exact same rental units and how their affordability changed.
— The Washington Post
The Washington Post reports about a new report by Freddie Mac: "More renters flooded the market after people lost their homes in the housing crisis. The apartment vacancy rate was 8 percent in 2009, compared to 4 percent in 2017. That trend, coupled with a stagnant supply of apartments, resulted... View full entry
New York City is in the throes of a humanitarian emergency, a term defined by the Humanitarian Coalition of large international aid organizations as “an event or series of events that represents a critical threat to the health, safety, security or wellbeing of a community or other large group of people.” New York’s is [...] a “complex emergency”: man-made and shaped by a combination of forces that have led to a large-scale “displacement of populations” from their homes. — The New York Review of Books
"What makes the crisis especially startling," author Michael Greenberg continues in his latest piece for The New York Review of Books, "is that New York has the most progressive housing laws in the country and a mayor who has made tenants’ rights and affordable housing a central focus of his... View full entry
The average price of building a garage parking space (as much as $34,000 in 2012) is passed on to people whether they own a car or not, and distort the true demand for urban parking. — Quartz
According to the 2011 National American Housing Survey data of the US census, about 16% of a housing unit’s monthly rental cost is attributable to the expense of building an urban parking spot. For the average renter that amounts to to $1,700 per year, or $142 per month. Parking mandates... View full entry
The standard yardstick for judging housing affordability is to look at the median level of rents or home prices. As we all remember from statistics, the median is the observation in the middle of the distribution. And while for many purposes, it’s a reliable indicator of typical prices, in some neighborhoods, particularly those with a mix of expensive and cheap housing, the median is actually a weak indicator of affordability. — City Observatory
"For an illustration of this problem, imagine two neighborhoods. In both places, the median home costs $300,000. But in the first neighborhood, every home costs exactly $300,000, while in the second, there are a range of homes from $100,000 to $500,000. Although both neighborhoods have the same... View full entry
Lenders often give special treatment to the wealthy, of course, but the tech industry has created a particularly ripe crop of clients who are rich or on their way. [...]
“Lenders get so caught up trying to stay competitive and finding a market edge, they basically allow greed to overcome common sense ... Easy money does fuel and accelerate the inevitable bubble.”
— bloomberg.com
Related on Archinect:Facebook enters the housing market – and it's probably not a good thingGoogle acquires LinkedIn's HQ in huge, unexpected property swapWhat's the newest project for Silicon Valley investors? Building citiesSilicon Valley is set to get over 10K more housing units – is this... View full entry
my research shows that longtime residents aren’t more likely to move when their neighborhood gentrifies; sometimes they’re actually less likely to leave [...]
In a 2009 study, I found that gentrifying neighborhoods are more racially diverse than non-gentrifying ones. [...]
To be sure, market forces help change commerce in gentrifying neighborhoods. But often lurking behind the “invisible hand” are activists and policymakers who wish to nudge the market to produce certain outcomes.
— washingtonpost.com
Lance Freeman's research at GSAPP focuses on issues related to gentrification, affordable housing, and race. Watch the Washington Post's video below, summing up the myths:Related on Archinect:A tale of two parks: debate rages over a new plan for a "Maker Park" in BrooklynA telltale sign of... View full entry
We’re growing faster than any other metropolitan area in the country, and we have been for the last five years...And the challenges are, with all the growth that we’re having, we’re going to stop being the city that we imagine that we are, that we remember being. We have to grow to be the city that we still recognize. So those challenges are not optional challenges for us to deal with, they’re the challenges for us to deal with. — Metropolis Magazine
As Austin rapidly becomes an "it" city, how will the city keep its character? Metropolis talks with Austin Mayor Steve Adler about the multiple challenges ahead.More on Archinect:Seven U.S. cities competing to be the "smartest" in urban transit systemsGuns in the Studio: Texas' new campus carry... View full entry
when media outlets report cost of materials as being some $13,000, I want to know what was donated in terms of materials, too. Were permit fees waived? There are many times when you need a licensed architect or engineer for certain permits, and that’s not likely in these totals.
It is completely fine to get around having to do that stuff, but it’s not truthful to report the results without the real numbers as a part of the story. These kinds of things get shared around...
— Jordan Pollard – metropolismag.com
Related on Archinect:Michael Kimmelman on the state of affordable housing in NYCLessons learned: The complex realities when designing communal social housingThe Guardian reveals how developers play the planning system to get around affordable housingDevelopers in California can be required to... View full entry
New York City once set the standard for subsidized housing. The city started out building and maintaining tens of thousands of apartments for working families, sponsoring job training and social programs. It ran a budget surplus. [...] Now the Village is like a gated playground for runaway wealth. Subsidized apartments all across town are converting to market-rate rentals and condos faster than City Hall can build affordable units or preserve old ones. — nytimes.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:NYC's public-housing woesThe promising affordable housing of Hunters Point SouthMy Micro NYC Apartment Complex Is Officially Renting View full entry
But if L.A. is going to remain a creative capital, its civic and cultural leaders are going to need to do more than offer really great talk about how great we are...This can start with the Otis Report on the Creative Economy...If this report is to be more than just a feel-good data dump, it could use some solid recommendations on how L.A. compares to other cities culturally and how we might improve the situation for artists and cultural organizations, both small and large. — Los Angeles Times
More about arts districts on Archinect:Venice Beach's ongoing grapple with the tech titan invasionDowntown LA's vision of an architecture and design super clusterHow one urban planner is helping revamp a Miami suburb "without gentrification"With a little compromise, illegal urban squats like... View full entry
Americans living in rentals spent almost a third of their incomes on housing in the second quarter, the highest share in recent history. Rental affordability has steadily worsened, according to a new report from Zillow, which tracked data going back to 1979...While mortgages remain relatively affordable, landlords have been able to increase rents because demand for apartments remains strong. The U.S. homeownership rate fell to the lowest level in almost five decades in the second quarter. — Bloomberg
More on Archinect:Shipping container village crops up in Oakland, offering alternative to sky-high SF rents500 Square Feet and FallingPlay "Inside the rent", and become a virtual developer in NYCMonterey Park City Council adopts tougher penalties for landlords of illegal boarding homesL.A.'s... View full entry
Melbourne is now a more expensive place to live than New York. The increasing cost of living, and in particular, the cost of housing risks seriously undermining the city’s liveability.
Plan Melbourne, the new metropolitan strategy for the city, recognises that housing affordability is one of the pressing issues facing Melburnians. The strategy offers a set of concepts aimed at shaping the city’s future and – the government hopes – addressing housing affordability and choice.
— thisbigcity.net
Related: Melbourne named world’s most liveable city for fourth consecutive year View full entry