Homeownership Future
From Steve Lafluer on NewGeography over the weekend:Like many 20-something young professionals, I have no aspirations towards home ownership. I ditched my car when I moved out of the suburbs, and I...
View Article20 Percent of Home Mortgages Are Still Underwater
A recent report by the real-estate website zillow.com shows that more than one fifth (21.5%) of U.S. homeowners are still "underwater": The value of their home is less than the amount they owe on it....
View ArticleThe Housing Policy Debate
David Streitfeld has a pretty good article in The New York Times recapping the current state of the housing policy debate. He first notes that the current administration policies have epically...
View ArticleNew Housing Refinance Program Starts Today
The next stage in the Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Plan (HAMP) kicks in today, with a new wave of "short refinancing" incentives. The new plan will allow banks to refinance...
View ArticleRandazzo on the Mortgage Mess
Over on the National Review'sblog "The Corner," Reason Foundation's Anthony Randazzo has a series of three posts on the mortgage meltdown and the morass that would be created by a home foreclosure...
View ArticleOn the Mortgage Interest Deduction
Ask anyone on the Hill, and they'll tell you the Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) is a third rail that no one—not fiscally conservative republicans or social goal of homeownership supporting...
View ArticleAddressing Affordable Housing Goals
There is a need to reframe this GSE debate: mortgage finance policy and affordable housing policy are two different things. Whether we should subsidize low-income Americans putting a roof over their...
View ArticleIncreasing GSE Fees
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac offer a guarantee that mortgage payments will be delivered to investors, and they charge fees to cover the risks inherent with these promises. But they don't charge enough....
View ArticleFive Best and Worst States for Housing in 2011
Last week, MarketWatch listed the top five states expected to recover from the nationwide housing slump the fastest and slowest.Five best housing statesNorth Dakota: lowest mortgage delinquency rate...
View ArticleAnother Proposal on GSE Reform
Free market defenders Peter Wallison, Alex Pollock, and Ed Pinto have released a joint white paper offering a series of changes to reform the housing finance system. The proposal this morning is built...
View ArticleHomeownership Rates and Housing Subsidies
Numbers can be really enlightening when you start moving around the pieces. Let's take a look at some the homeownership numbers over the past few decades.Last week, homeownership data released by the...
View ArticleNew Paper: No Government Guarantees for Mortgages
This morning Reason published a new policy brief outlining ten reasons that an explicit (or implicit) government guarantee for the housing sector would be a bad idea. The report is timely in the Fannie...
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Thoughts on Housing Prices
At the end of last year, Peter Schiff noted in a WSJ op-ed that, looking at historical trends, housing price still needed to drop further to get to where they should be without government supports. The...
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Housing Finance Reform: Protecting Taxpayers, Ending Bailouts, Reducing the...
Chairman Garrett, Ranking Member Waters, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to join you in discussing the important matter of reforming the nation's mortgage...
View ArticleMore on the Housing Bubble and the Politics of Land Use Planning
Wendell Cox's recent study for the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) on how planning may have influenced the size and scope of the housing bubble is getting well deserved press. The Wall Stree...
View ArticleUnmasking the Mortgage Interest Deduction
The deduction of mortgage interest from federal income taxes subsidizes homeownership, making it more affordable to become a homeowner. Or so we've been told. It is a highly popular tax break, yet one...
View ArticleNew Study: Unmasking the Mortgage Interest Deduction
Ditching homeowner subsidies would allow everyone's income tax rates to be lowered 8 percent in revenue neutral solutionThe mortgage interest deduction does not increase homeownership rates and amounts...
View ArticleStudy: Time to Eliminate the Mortgage Interest Deduction
The mortgage interest deduction does not increase homeownership rates and amounts to little more than a subsidy for wealthy homeowners, according to a new Reason Foundation study that recommends...
View ArticleUnmasking the Mortgage Interest Deduction - Update 2012
The federal income tax code is riddled with loopholes, deductions and credits designed to promote various social goals and benefit assorted groups of Americans. One of the largest of these is the...
View ArticleIf Cities Want More Affordable Housing, Let the Market Work
Across the United States, major cities are experiencing the gentrification of their neighborhoods and city officials are constantly calling for more affordable housing to halt this process....
View ArticleMarket-Driven Solutions Can Help Create Affordable Housing in Sarasota
Sarasota Observer As former City Commissioner Eileen Normile told the Observer, “I don’t know how we understand the term ‘affordable housing’ without defining what that term is. What’s affordable to...
View ArticleNo simple answers on affordable housing
Public officials often talk about affordable housing as if it is something they can create. But in reality affordable housing is a tricky issue I describe in this column.Many people seem to have...
View ArticleOrange County's Affordable Housing Mandates Keep More Homes Out of Reach
Orange County Register The Register recently reported that the median home price in Orange County was $629,500 in June, the highest in seven years and not far from the pre-recession high of $645,000 in...
View ArticleAffordable Housing Myths
YourObserver.com For the most part, the affordable housing discussion in Sarasota is increasingly sensible and productive. For example, in June the Tiger Bay Club hosted a panel discussion that was...
View ArticleThe Workforce Housing Tax Credit
Florida nearly leads the nation in a concerning statistic: young people living at home/with parents. Nearly 40% of young adults in Florida live with their parents, and that percentage has been rising...
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