UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate

Opinion | This Is How To Fix the Housing Crisis Kamala Harris’s proposals won’t fix the housing affordability crisis. The solution can be found in the way the U.S. raised the legal drinking age.

Affordable housing on church parking lots? A new law makes it easier to build In L.A., which has little vacant land, sky-high rents and many homeless people, affordable housing proponents see religious institutions as an untapped resource.

Soaring Insurance Costs Could ‘End’ Affordable Housing, Developers Warn Developers and landlords of subsidized housing, who cannot raise rents or charge more for starter homes, say property insurance increases could put them out of business.

Newsom administration tells Beverly Hills its efforts to block a high-rise violate state housing law The affluent city has stalled plans for a 165-unit building. State housing officials say the “Builder’s Remedy” project should go forward.

Why Too Few Homes Get Built in the U.S. We explore why it could take a long time to fix — and what policymakers are doing about it.

California’s decade-long effort to legalize ADUs offers lessons for other US states and regions The audacious goal of building 10,000 affordable homes in California’s Coachella Valley The audacious goal of building 10,000 affordable homes in California’s Coachella Valley

Kamala Harris reveals her plan to fix the housing crisis. Here’s who would benefit the most. Housing costs are a top issue for many Americans, and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s newly announced proposal to rein them in may resonate with some key voting blocs.

Should tenants have a right to cooling? More cities say yes amid record heat. As rental cooling standards pop up around the country, experts warn that they aren’t a perfect solution to the rising danger of scorching temperatures.

Harris Housing Plan Aims to Add Three Million Homes. That Won’t Be Easy. The Democratic presidential candidate’s proposal to encourage home building and curb investor purchases would likely face political opposition.

Los Angeles County voters are lukewarm on tax hike for homeless services, poll says A measure on the November ballot that would double the county’s quarter-cent homeless sales tax is leading in an early poll of L.A. County voters but not with enough support yet to pass.

Los Angeles' building earthquake retrofit data have been outdated for years, Times investigation uncovers After a Times investigation, Los Angeles building officials commit to hiring an auditor to review building database.

This Orange County city has the hottest housing market in the country Irvine had the largest surge in U.S. home values over the past year and is defying population and homebuilding trends, in part because of Asian and Asian-American buyers.

A Warehouse Store Promises Housing for South LA, in Bulk A mixed-use project with 800 small units above a big-box store was dubbed a “Costco prison,” but housing advocates see a future model for building affordable apartments.

In the August 2024 UCLA Economic Letter, UCLA Ziman Center Staff Economist Sayantani S., Ph.D. studies how preventing insurers from cancelling wildfire policies causes premiums to rise, and what to do about it.

Download the PDF: https://bit.ly/August24-UCLA-Econ_Letter-Sayantani

Review past UCLA Economic Letters: https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/about/centers/ucla-ziman-center-for-real-estate/faculty-and-research/ucla-economic-letter

"The Catholic church has found a new charitable calling in Los Angeles — using its extensive land holdings to help address the region’s severe shortage of affordable housing."

Catholic housing efforts L.A. church will partner to build affordable homes

Mortgage rates fall for a second week in a row — and refinances soar 117% Mortgage applications rose 16.8% in the last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

San Francisco Is Sinking in Bad Hotel Debt The sharp drop-off in visitors since before the pandemic is squeezing the city’s hospitality sector.

Thousands are housed as L.A. County makes progress on Skid Row L.A. County has seen a decrease of nearly 14% in the homeless population on Skid Row under a project launched a year ago.

California is giving schools more homework: Build housing for teachers Affordable housing is in short supply for California teachers. State officials are asking school districts to build their own.

Landlords are facing higher insurance premiums because of increased risk of California wildfires, and passing those costs on to their tenants in the form of higher rents.

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✍️ Levi Sumagaysay | CalMatters

Biden Invests $100 Million to Fuel Housing Construction The White House is expanding low-cost financing, easing regulations and incentivizing local reforms in a wide-ranging effort to increase housing supply.

Decline in Veterans’ Homelessness Spurs Hopes for a Broader Solution Two federal agencies, backed by ample funding from Congress, have quietly shown that it is possible to make progress on a seemingly intractable problem.

Boomers Buying Houses Had It Bad in the ’80s. Millennials Have It Worse. In the 1980s, conditions improved over time as mortgage rates declined, but the same solution might not be as easy today.

Exclusive | Fannie, Freddie Are Poised to Tighten Real-Estate Lending Rules The move comes as federal regulators and prosecutors step up efforts to root out commercial mortgage fraud.

Researchers discover new mechanism to cool buildings while saving energy A low-cost approach regulates heat with common building materials that absorb or radiate heat.

Can Free Rent Revive Downtown San Francisco? The city, which is among those most devastated in the country after the pandemic, is trying to lure businesses back with a free-rent period.

We’re Entering an AI Price-Fixing Dystopia Algorithmic collusion appears to be spreading to more and more industries. And existing laws may not be equipped to stop it.

Opinion | California’s Homelessness Is a Failure of Will Removing the state’s encampments won’t fix the problem.

More senior households are carrying high levels of debt: EBRI - HousingWire Carrying debt into retirement is a more common trend among households led by people 75 or older, the Employee Benefit Research Institute said.

Weekly mortgage refinance demand soars 16% as rates sink to lowest level in over a year Mortgage interest rates dropped last week to the lowest level since May 2023, causing a surge in mortgage demand from both homebuyers and especially current homeowners.