California’s Maduros face housing crisis
Economic illiteracy has an astoundingly high cost. In Venezuela, children are dying of hunger but the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, has a bizarre new idea for making food affordable again. His...
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House prices: What the Fed hath wrought
A version of this op-ed ran on The Hill. After the peak of the housing bubble in 2006, U.S. house prices fell for six years, until 2012. Are these memories getting a little hazy? The Federal Reserve,...
View ArticleAEI Event: Eliminating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac without legislation
A panel of housing finance experts met at AEI last Tuesday to discuss how the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could be eliminated without legislation. Moderated by R...
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What have the massive guarantees of mortgages by the U.S. government achieved?
The U.S. government, through multiple agencies, indulges in massive guarantees of U.S residential mortgages. Much, but not all, of this happens through the formerly celebrated, then failed, humiliated...
View ArticleThe hidden cost of California’s housing crisis
*Patrick T. Brown cowrote this oped. For many California families, the accelerating housing crisis affects not just their budget, but their way of life. Every year over the past decade, the state...
View ArticleRealtors’ initiative could boost home sales, limit property taxes
Property-tax-limiting Proposition 13 has long been viewed as the “third rail” of California politics given its continued popularity among the home-owning electorate. Public-sector unions occasionally...
View ArticleDesignation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as SIFIs
Dear Secretary Mnuchin: The Treasury Department has just issued a new review of “Financial Stability Oversight Designations,”[1] and we are writing to you in your capacity as Chairman of the Financial...
View ArticleFHFA’s g-fee calculation ignores the law
In a recent report to Congress, the Federal Housing Finance Agency once again failed to satisfy a fundamental legal requirement. This is a requirement that the FHFA keeps ignoring, apparently perhaps...
View ArticleWe can’t reduce housing costs by wishing for rent control
The term “magical thinking” describes people who believe, as one psychology related website puts it, “that one’s own thoughts, wishes or desires can influence the external world.” It’s the idea that if...
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Update on U.S. property prices in the Fed’s brave new world
The attached policy short was published in the Spring 2016 edition of Housing Finance International, the quarterly journal of the International Union for Housing Finance. Readers of my last update in...
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The temptations of housing finance bubbles
A version of this policy short originally appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of the journal Housing Finance International. Running up the leverage is the snake in the housing finance Garden of Eden. It...
View ArticleEarthquakes and home mortgage risk
The United States faces severe earthquake risk in many areas of the country, yet consumers routinely choose not to purchase insurance products to cover this risk. Low earthquake insurance take-up rates...
View ArticleHomesick: How housing tax breaks benefit the wealthy and create McMansions
Since its inception a century ago, the individual income tax code has been exceedingly generous to homeowners. Homeowners may deduct the interest paid on up to $1 million in mortgage loan debt; an...
View ArticleRethinking tax benefits for home owners
The attached piece, which appeared in the Spring 2014 issue of National Affairs, was co-written with Ike Brannon and Zackary Hawley. The individual income-tax code offers a multitude of benefits for...
View ArticleTaxpayers shouldn’t be asked to pay for Fannie and Freddie’s risk exposure
As the old Washington saying goes, “When all is said and done, more is said than done.” This certainly applies to the years of congressional debates about how to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They...
View ArticlePRI Podcast: Steven Greenhut’s end-of-session wrap
R Street Western Region Director Steven Greenhut joins Pacific Research Institute’s Another Round podcast to discuss the California Legislature’s housing package, its recent cap-and-trade deal, bills...
View ArticleCalifornia housing plan is a dud, but local rules are biggest problem
Perhaps it’s the sign of Capitol hubris, but lawmakers in the waning days of the legislative session touted their “housing package” as a big part of the solution to California’s ongoing housing...
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Has Canada’s housing bubble finally reached bursting point?
The attached policy brief originally appeared in the Autumn 2017 issue of Housing Finance International, the quarterly journal of the International Union for Housing Finance. Both Canadian and foreign...
View ArticleCalifornia’s soaring poverty rates tied to its fiscal irresponsibility
The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest statistics, released this month, find that California’s poverty rate remains the highest in the nation, despite dipping ever so slightly. The reason is no surprise: It’s...
View ArticleEnd of session defined by higher taxes, anti-Trump and union priorities
California’s legislative session, which completed its work in the wee hours Saturday morning, was one of the more controversial ones in years, given the degree to which the Democratic majority was able...
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