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California lawmakers pass SB 79, housing bill that brings dense housing

This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . California lawmakers just paved the way for a whole lot more housing in the Golden State. In the waning hours of the 2025 legislative session, the state Senate voted 21 to 8 to approve Senate Bill 79 , a landmark housing bill that overrides local zoning laws to expand high-density housing near transit hubs. The controversial bill received a final concurrence vote from the Senate on Friday, a day after passin

GAO warns of privacy risks in using facial recognition in rental housing

RENTAL HOUSING Use and Federal Oversight of Property Technology Report to Congressional Requesters July 2025 GAO-25-107196 United States Government Accountability Office Highlights For more information, contact Alicia Puente Cackley at [email protected]. Highlights of GAO-25-107196, a report to congressional requesters RENTAL HOUSING Use and Federal Oversight of Property Technology Why GAO Did This Study Some policymakers have raised questions about the use of property technology tool

It's the Housing, Stupid

A few weeks ago, I was on The Compound and Friends, and there was a debate about why we were seeing 2021-like meme stock activity and money market funds holding record assets at the same time. For context, both of these things are true. If we look at the performance of the 100 most shorted stocks compared to the Russell 1000, that performance spread is nearing 2021 levels: It’s like a bunch of mini GameStop short squeezes all over again. And if we look at the non-profitable tech retail invest

The Folk Economics of Housing

Abstract Why is housing supply so severely restricted in US cities and suburbs? Urban economists offer two primary hypotheses: homeowner self-interest and political fragmentation. Homeowners, who outnumber and have organizational advantages over renters, are said to lobby against development to protect their property values. The fragmentation hypothesis emphasizes that development's negative externalities are borne locally while most of the benefits accrue regionally or nationally, leading local

Illegal Price-Gouging Runs Rampant After Disasters. The LA Fires Proved It

Last January, a series of massive wildfires broke out across the Los Angeles area, fueled by high winds and dry temperatures. The fires raged for weeks, incinerating entire neighborhoods in the wealthy Pacific Palisades and in middle-class Altadena. They killed at least 30 people and destroyed at least 10,000 homes. As the embers cooled, thousands of displaced Angelenos scrambled to find new housing in a rental market that was already among the nation’s toughest. They scoured Zillow and Airbnb

Amazon and Apple best deliver on affordable housing promises, as other tech giants falter

One of the downsides of tech giants creating Silicon Valley was the affordable housing crisis it spurred. That has made it next to impossible for those on typical salaries to rent or buy in the area. Apple was one of a number of tech companies which pledged to help out back in 2019, and so far has delivered more than most … The growth of tech companies within the Bay Area led to dramatically increased demand for housing, alongside price pressure created by the relatively high salaries paid to

States and cities decimated SROs, Americans' lowest-cost housing option

Overview Low-cost micro-units, often called single-room occupancies, or SROs, were once a reliable form of housing for the United States’ poorest residents of, and newcomers to, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and many other major U.S. cities. Well into the 20th century, SROs were the least expensive option on the housing market, providing a small room with a shared bathroom and sometimes a shared kitchen for a price that is unimaginable today—as little as $100 to $300 a month (in 2025 dollar

States and Cities Decimated Americans' Lowest-Cost Housing Option

Overview Low-cost micro-units, often called single-room occupancies, or SROs, were once a reliable form of housing for the United States’ poorest residents of, and newcomers to, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and many other major U.S. cities. Well into the 20th century, SROs were the least expensive option on the housing market, providing a small room with a shared bathroom and sometimes a shared kitchen for a price that is unimaginable today—as little as $100 to $300 a month (in 2025 dollar

The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

The sharpest criticisms of the book Abundance have sometimes come from the antitrust movement. This group, mostly on the left, insists that the biggest problems in America typically come from monopolies and the corruption of big business. In housing, for example, Ezra Klein and I write that a key bottleneck to homebuilding in the last few decades has been legal barriers to construction, including zoning laws and minimum lot sizes. This is a mainstream view supported by economists and scholars w

The Anti-Abundance Critique on Housing Is Dead Wrong

The sharpest criticisms of the book Abundance have sometimes come from the antitrust movement. This group, mostly on the left, insists that the biggest problems in America typically come from monopolies and the corruption of big business. In housing, for example, Ezra Klein and I write that a key bottleneck to homebuilding in the last few decades has been legal barriers to construction, including zoning laws and minimum lot sizes. This is a mainstream view supported by economists and scholars w

What happens when housing prices go down?

There’s a theory about housing that has taken hold with a kind of religious fervor: If you want to make housing more affordable, just build more of it. Supply and demand. Simple economics. This narrative is now dominating housing policy discussion across the political spectrum. Deregulate, upzone, speed up approvals, let the market work. And if you build enough homes, the theory goes, prices will come down. But here’s the question almost no one asks: What happens when prices actually start to

Why It’s Taking LA So Long to Rebuild After the Wildfires

This story originally appeared on Vox and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In the wake of the record-breaking wildfires in Los Angeles in January—some of the most expensive and destructive blazes in history—one of the first things California governor Gavin Newsom did was to sign an executive order suspending environmental rules around rebuilding. The idea was that by waiving permitting regulations and reviews under the California Coastal Act and the California Environmental Quality A

Trump administration moves to count crypto as a federal mortgage asset

In a landmark shift for the U.S. housing finance system, the Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued a directive ordering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to formally consider cryptocurrency as an asset in single-family mortgage loan risk assessments. The move, signed by FHFA Director William J. Pulte on Wednesday, signals a new era of crypto integration into traditional financial infrastructure — this time within the core of American home lending. The order directs both housing finance giants to

Your Bitcoin Might Soon Get You a Mortgage—No, Really

In a move that should send a chill down the spine of anyone who remembers 2008, the man now in charge of regulating a huge chunk of the U.S. housing market wants to see if your crypto holdings—like Bitcoin or Solana—should count when Americans apply for a mortgage. That’s right: your dog-themed coin stash might one day help you buy a house. Bill Pulte, the new director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), announced the plan on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “We will study t