On September 7, Jeff Bezos - the Founder and CEO of Amazon - announced plans to open a second headquarters, dubbed “HQ2,” claiming the company expects to invest $5 billion and create up to 50,000 high-paying jobs in a new location that will be "a full equal" to the Seattle HQ. The RFP from eligible cities triggered a wave of proposals from 238 applicants including states, … [Read more...]
Paying For Dirt: Where Have Home Values Detached From Construction Costs?
In the expensive U.S. coastal metros, home prices have detached from construction costs and can be almost four times as high as the cost of rebuilding existing structures. However, absent restrictions on housing supply, competition among developers tends to maintain average metropolitan home prices tethered to the cost of construction. This study estimates the average home … [Read more...]
Applications for New ADUs Surge in San Francisco
In the coastal cities of California, the declining affordability of housing has been a source of universal exasperation for decades. Recently, new legislation was passed at the local and state levels aiming to encourage the construction of secondary units - also known as Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) - as a way to grow the housing supply. A look at the initial impact shows … [Read more...]
The Toughest Places to Build: Behind the Scenes of a Wall Street Journal Analysis
The Wall Street Journal recently asked me to identify and rank the nation's toughest places to build housing. This blog post provides readers with the full set of rankings, as well as commentary and a rundown of the data and methods used. Download Rankings Metropolitan areas Zip code areas, ranked nationally Zip code areas, ranked within metropolitan … [Read more...]
Having Shed Young Workers, the Construction Industry Needs Change
Despite the housing market recovery and the current affordability crisis, the construction industry workforce continues to shrink. The industry's contraction is related to its aging: like other industries, it is aging as Baby Boomers progress through the lifecycle but, in contrast, it shed much of its younger workforce during the Great Recession and has failed to rebuild … [Read more...]