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Blockers and Pillars come from Up for Growth’s housing framework.

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October 5, 2026 FOOTNOTES | ANALYSIS

FHA apartment loan limits should now keep pace with construction costs

Section 211 of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act resets FHA’s per-unit multifamily loan limits and ties future annual adjustments to multifamily construction costs, helping preserve financing capacity as development costs rise.
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September 19, 2026 FOOTNOTES | ANALYSIS

Old housing can depreciate and still become less affordable

Filtering is not simply what happens when buildings get older. Whether depreciation becomes affordability depends on the supply response around them.
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September 16, 2026 FOOTNOTES | ANALYSIS

Multifamily insurance is becoming a capital problem

If owners cannot pass higher insurance costs through to tenants, the next effects may show up in property values, debt capacity, equity returns, and investment decisions.
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September 7, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

Corporate purchases remain nationally small

Institutional buyers are a small share of national home purchases, though concentrated in some Sun Belt metros. The measurement question is which threshold counts as institutional in the first place.
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June 23, 2026 WRITING | ESSAY

The $546,000 Door

Chris LaGrand and I explain why Build America, Buy America lands hardest on affordable deals, where capped rents and fixed awards leave added costs nowhere to hide.
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June 2, 2026 HOMEFRONT | NO. 4

A win, not the win

Homefront briefing on the House's 396–13 passage of the ROAD to Housing Act, the build-to-rent fix it delivered, and whether the Senate will keep it.
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May 28, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

Building near transit pencils out for cities

Where a home is built changes what it costs a city to serve it. The fiscal math on infill and the housing math point in the same direction.
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May 27, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

Affordable housing is local economic infrastructure

The case for affordable housing is usually made on fairness. This one is made on local balance sheets: consumer spending, workforce stability, and the tax base a city actually collects.
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May 26, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

House THUD bill protects core housing programs but trims public housing

Appropriations reveal priorities more plainly than speeches. This bill protects vouchers and homelessness aid while trimming public housing, and asks for performance without funding the underlying shortage.
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May 24, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

A bipartisan housing bill clears the House, but the Senate test still matters

A 396–13 vote signals unusual agreement on housing. Whether that consensus survives the Senate, and whether the manufactured-housing provisions change what gets built, are separate questions.
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May 24, 2026 FOOTNOTES | NOTE

Waters and Warren split on housing strategy, even as both want a win

Two legislators who both want a housing win disagree about whether investor limits protect tenants or constrain the capital stack. The split is really about which constraint they think binds.
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April 14, 2026 MEDIA | ARTICLE

Housing Shortage Isn't Just a Money Problem

Politico examined how federal housing policy aimed at limiting institutional investors may be constraining capital and slowing new housing production, raising concerns about unintended consequences for supply.
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April 9, 2026 HOMEFRONT | NO. 3

The fix is on the table

Homefront briefing on Section 901, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, and the targeted fix needed to protect new housing production.
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April 2, 2026 HOMEFRONT | NO. 2

The market isn't waiting

Homefront briefing on federal housing policy, market behavior, and what uncertainty means for what gets built.
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April 2, 2026 MEDIA | PODCAST

Build to rent is collateral damage

I joined The Rent Roll to explain how the Road to Housing Act's BTR provision froze capital, why the seven-year sell rule is unworkable, and what Congress should fix
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March 25, 2026 HOMEFRONT | NO. 1

The supply bill that reduces supply

Homefront briefing on federal housing policy and what the build-to-rent restriction could mean for housing supply.
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March 24, 2026 WRITING | ESSAY

Why limiting investment time horizons for build-to-rent communities is bad for affordable housing

I explain why treating purpose-built rental neighborhoods like scattered investor-owned homes risks shrinking the capital stack behind new housing supply.
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May 10, 2025 WRITING | ESSAY

We didn't just price out renters. We priced out the ability to build.

How regulation, delay, and rising development costs turned a housing affordability crisis into a breakdown in the basic ability to build — and where that leaves federal policy.
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July 29, 2021 WRITING | ESSAY

Ending single-family zoning? Not quite.

I separate what zoning reform can do from what it cannot, arguing for more housing options without pretending land-use reform solves every constraint.
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June 12, 2020 WRITING | ESSAY

The downstream impacts of the rental crisis

I follow missed rent payments through owners, workers, lenders, local governments, and future development to show how a rental shock propagates.
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May 14, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

The fifth wave of housing advocacy

I place the emerging supply and access movement in a longer history of American housing policy and ask whether a fifth wave was forming.
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April 25, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

The Cautionary Tale of Portland’s Inclusionary Housing Policy

Noel Johnson and I examine Portland's permit data after inclusionary housing took effect and argue the policy was reducing housing production at most income levels.
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March 8, 2019 WRITING | ESSAY

It’s not just more supply – addressing existing housing plays an important role in curing America’s broken housing ecosystem

I argue that housing policy has to distinguish shortage from vacancy, quality, preservation, and affordability problems because different markets fail in different ways.
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October 23, 2018 WRITING | ESSAY

Why older homes become more unaffordable if new homes cost more to build

I trace how higher development costs can suppress new production and transmit scarcity into the prices of older homes in high-demand markets.
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