Category: Housing
-
VanValkenburg Tackles Affordable Housing
by James A. Bacon Broadly speaking, there are two types of strategies for making housing more affordable: demand-side strategies and supply-side strategies. The demand-side approach makes it easier for people to buy houses — lower down-payments, interest-rate subsidies, outright grants. Such tactics might help the lucky individual households that qualify, but only by allowing Homeowner…
-
Does a Hedge Fund Want to Buy This House?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore State Sen. Glenn Sturtevant (R-Chesterfield) plans to reintroduce his bill to prohibit investment firms worth more than $50 million from purchasing homes in Virginia, reports the Virginia Mercury. The bill is a reaction to the perception that investment firms are buying a disproportionate share of houses on the market, particularly houses that…
-
Youngkin Tackles Housing Shortage
by James A. Bacon Governor Glenn Youngkin is rightly concerned about the housing shortage in Virginia, which drives up living costs and throttles economic growth. Yesterday he announced a plan to spend $75 million over five years to catalyze investment of $750 million and build 5,000 units to accommodate a growing workforce. But he acknowledges…
-
Keep Your Hands Off My Single Family Zoning
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The high cost of housing is a frequent topic of discussion in society and on this blog. Some observers fault local governments for their restrictive zoning practices that limit density. According to this argument, increasing density would help mitigate the increase in housing costs. The argument has merit. However, its proponents seem to assume that…
-
Government as Landlord
by James A. Bacon If you were a tenant, who would you rather butt heads with? A slumlord or a public housing authority? Private-sector landlords have a bad reputation for going to court to evict their tenants. But it’s not clear that government is any kinder or more understanding. As COVID-era eviction moratoria expire, housing…
-
In Defense of Teardowns
by James A. Bacon Everybody hates McMansions, it seems, other than the people who build them. That certainly seems to be the case in the City of Richmond, where Councilman Andreas Addison and a sympathetic Axios Richmond decry the phenomenon of “teardowns” that is “threatening the historic charm and character of many of Richmond’s most…
-
Some Homeless Deserve Compassion, Others Don’t
by James A. Bacon The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on a case that will determine if local governments can criminalize the homeless for sleeping in public, even when shelters are unavailable, reports The Virginian-Pilot. Citing National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) figures, the newspaper notes that there were nearly 6,000…
-
The Junk Science Behind a Property-Valuation Study
by James A. Bacon When you examine every issue through a racial lens, everything looks like racism. It’s even easier to find racism everywhere when you resort to junk science (or social science, as the case may be). A case in point is a new study by Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia (Home), which…
-
Wait, I’m Confused. Are Rising Housing Valuations Good or Bad for Black Neighborhoods?
by James A. Bacon It’s hard to keep up with the twists and turns of what progressives deem to be racist these days. Once upon a time, gentrification was considered racist because the phenomenon of White people moving into a neighborhood increased local property values, which increased taxes on long-time African-American residents and pressured them…
-
Rent Control Bill Introduced in Virginia
by Hans Bader A just-introduced Virginia bill, HB 192, would limit rent increases to “one percent over the Consumer Price Index” in places where the rental vacancy rate is “less than 10 percent,” if the “Consumer Price Index … is greater than five percent.” Virginia has a rental vacancy rate of about 4%, well below…
-
Around the Commonwealth: Local Unions and Housing Help
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Some interesting recent actions by local governments: Local employee unions–Many on this blog predicted that local government bodies, especially those in “progressive” urban areas would not be able to resist attempts by local employee unions to enter into collective bargaining. The City of Norfolk has demonstrated that it can and will resist.…
-
Charlottesville, Its Public Schools and UVa – Part One – Bad things Happen
by James C. Sherlock In the relationship between Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, very bad things have happened to Charlottesville and continue to do so. I have developed a working thesis on that relationship. The city is at the mercy of the University by virtue of the latter’s wealth, influence, and power in Charlottesville…
-
Things Fall Apart: Virginia Homeownership Rate
From an email from search-intelligence.co.uk attributed to RubyHome Luxury Real Estate: Virginia experienced the largest decline in homeownership of any state during the new millennium. In 2000, the homeownership rate sat at 73.9%; it declined to 67.4% in 2022. This makes for a percentage-point change of 8.8% since 2000 in 2020 — the most of any state.…
-
Short Term Rentals — Long Term Impact
by Jon Balilies The City of Richmond has been discussing altering and revising regulations about short-term rentals (STR’s) and the next action will take place at the Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday afternoon (September 5th). It is an important decision because it is entirely possible the decision by the Commission and ultimately City Council could…