Category: Housing
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Short-term rentals are killing housing supply
Zoning gets the blame for housing shortages, but Airbnb-style rentals have quietly removed millions of homes from the long-term market in tourist cities.
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Rent control works
The textbook case against rent control is built on assumptions that don’t survive contact with actual housing markets. The evidence is more interesting than economists admit.
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HOAs are a form of private government nobody voted for
Homeowners associations exercise governmental powers without governmental accountability. The legal framework was set up to favor developers, not residents.
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Your house is not an investment, it’s a forced savings account with bad returns
Treating your home as an investment hides poor returns and high costs. The forced-savings framing is more honest and changes how you should buy.
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Mortgage forbearance during COVID created a generation of zombie homeowners
COVID forbearance kept millions in their homes, but it also produced a class of borrowers who owe more than they can realistically repay. Here’s the fallout.
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Rent control fails
Rent control polls well and feels fair, but decades of data show it shrinks supply and hurts the renters it’s meant to help. The evidence is hard to ignore.
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Why homeownership isn’t always the goal
Owning a home is sold as the cornerstone of adult life, but the math, mobility, and opportunity costs make renting the smarter choice more often than people admit.
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Cash-out refis built the 2008 crisis and we’re doing it again
Cash-out refinancing helped inflate the housing bubble that crashed in 2008. The data says we’re repeating the mistake. Here’s what’s different — and what isn’t.