Fixing The Housing Market

Explains the financial history leading to the mortgage meltdown and assesses today's housing finance systems in the United States and abroad.

Let’s face it—fixing and flipping houses is sexy. Who doesn’t love the idea of buying a rundown, mold-infested shack and transforming it into someone’s dream home for massive profits? Reality TV shows make it look so easy. A little paint here, some new kitchen cabinets there, and presto! The house is sold for big bucks and everyone lives happily ever after. If only it were that simple. Fixing and flipping houses is a business. In order for a business to survive, prosper, and grow, systems must be put in place. Fixing and Flipping Real Estate: Strategies for the Post-Boom Era is a book that breaks down the four essential components of a fix-and-flip business, giving you the building blocks to efficiently buy and sell 1 to 20 properties a month in today’s post-boom era housing market. You’ll learn about each of the boxes: Acquisition—How to find and buy a profitable real estate deal. Rehabbing—How to systematically remodel a house and how not to underimprove, or overimprove, your property. Sales—How to sell your flip for the highest possible price in the shortest possible time. Raising Capital—How to get the capital you need to grow your business, including using other people’s money, for your real estate deals without getting sued or going to jail. In the post-real estate boom era, fixing and flipping is again a solid business--especially in the “sand” states—Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, and Florida, among others. It’s also a good bet in states as diverse as North Carolina and Washington State. And with the real estate market projected to bottom out nationally in 2012 (this time for real), there are plenty of houses to be renovated and plenty of money to be made by the enterprising in all fifty states. This book shows real estate investors everything they need to know to get started fixing and reselling houses either as a substantial sideline or a full-on business.

Practical ideas to provide affordable housing to more Americans Much ink has been spilled in recent years talking about political divides and inequality in the United States. But these discussions too often miss one of the most important factors in the divisions among Americans: the fundamentally unequal nature of the nation’s housing systems. Financially well-off Americans can afford comfortable, stable homes in desirable communities. Millions of other Americans cannot. And this divide deepens other inequalities. Increasingly, important life outcomes—performance in school, employment, even life expectancy—are determined by where people live and the quality of homes they live in. Unequal housing systems didn’t just emerge from natural economic and social forces. Public policies enacted by federal, state, and local governments helped create and reinforce the bad housing outcomes endured by too many people. Taxes, zoning, institutional discrimination, and the location and quality of schools, roads, public transit, and other public services are among the policies that created inequalities in the nation’s housing patterns. Fixer-Upper is the first book assessing how the broad set of local, state, and national housing policies affect people and communities. It does more than describe how yesterday’s policies led to today’s problems. It proposes practical policy changes than can make stable, decent-quality housing more available and affordable for all Americans in all communities. Fixing systemic problems that arose over decades won’t be easy, in large part because millions of middle-class Americans benefit from the current system and feel threatened by potential changes. But Fixer-Upper suggests ideas for building political coalitions among diverse groups that share common interests in putting better housing within reach for more Americans, building a more equitable and healthy country.

The proposals in this white paper set out how the Government intends to boost housing supply and, over the long term, create a more efficient housing market whose outcomes more closely match the needs and aspirations of all households and which support wider economic prosperity.

The United States suffers from a shortage of well-placed homes. This was true even at the peak of the housing boom in 2005. Using a broad array of evidence on housing inflation, income, migration, homeownership trends, and international comparisons, Shut Out demonstrates that high home prices have been largely caused by the constrained housing supply in a handful of magnet cities leading the new economy. The same phenomenon is occurring in leading countries across the globe. Gentrifying cities have become exclusionary bastions in the new postindustrial economy. The US housing bubble that peaked in 2005 is more accurately described as a refugee crisis than a credit bubble. Surging demand for limited urban housing triggered a spike of migration away from the magnet cities among households with moderate and lower incomes who could no longer afford to remain, causing a brief contagion of high prices in the cities where the migrants moved. In this book, author Kevin Erdmann observes that the housing bubble has been broadly and incorrectly attributed to various “excesses.” Policymakers and economists concluded that our key challenge was that we had built too many homes. This misdiagnosis of the problem, according to Erdmann, led to misguided public polices, which were the primary cause of the subsequent financial crisis. A sort of moral panic about supposed excesses in home lending and construction led to destabilizing monetary and regulatory decisions. As the economy slumped, a sense of fatalism prevented the government from responding appropriately to the worsening situation. Shut Out provides a much-needed correction to the causes and consequences of financial crises and secular stagnation.

Housing policy not only aff ects all Americans' quality of life, but has a direct impact on their fi nancial well being. About 70 percent of American households own their own homes, and for most, their homes represent the majority of their net worth. Renters are aff ected by housing policy. Even the small minority of Americans who are homeless are aff ected by housing policies specifi cally targeted to low-income individuals.The government's increasing involvement in housing markets, fed by popular demand that government "do something" to address real problems of mortgage defaults and loans, provides good reason to take a new look at the public sector in housing markets. Crises in prime mortgage lending may lower the cost of housing, but the poor and homeless cannot benefi t because of increases in unemployment. Even the private market is heavily regulated. Government policies dictate whether people can build new housing on their land, what type of housing they can build, the terms allowed in rental contracts, and much more.This volume considers the eff ects of government housing policies and what can be done to make them work better. It shows that many problems are the result of government rules and regulations. Even in a time of foreclosures, the market can still do a crucial a job of allocating resources, just as it does in other markets. Consequently, the appropriate policy response may well be to signifi cantly reduce, not increase, government presence in housing markets. Housing America is a courageous and comprehensive eff ort to examine housing policies in the United States and to show how such policies aff ect the housing market.

The UK's chronic housing shortage is lowering the quality of life for millions, turning the British dream of home ownership into a cruel nightmare – not least for 'generation rent'. Countless vulnerable families are meanwhile being deprived of access to decent social housing, causing homelessness to spiral. In this searing polemic, Liam Halligan offers radical solutions to the most urgent political issue of our times. Fully updated, with a foreword from former Chancellor Sajid Javid and drawing on extensive interviews with Cabinet ministers, civil servants, leading developers and struggling homebuyers across the country, Home Truths is a no-holds-barred critique of the UK's housing crisis.

Buying a house is off-limits to many thanks to rising rents, pay freezes, and a lack of affordable homes. But it hasn't always been this way. What went wrong? The book is an easily readable work on the UK Housing Crisis, the biggest domestic issue in our country today. Few other books on UK current affairs have more relevance in a post-Brexit society, on the biggest issue that successive governments have done nothing about for 40 years. For the price of a new plastic Fiver, you can find out why the under-40s cannot afford anything but basic Shelter, if at all, and why the older generations have spent their lives chasing ever-rising house prices. At times Amusing, at other times Sobering, this is more than analysis or an opinion. There is a wider debate on how we want to live our lives and what the Housing Crisis has done to our Freedom. This gives the options available to our society to truly reform the Housing Market and to ensure that this situation never happens again in our society. It argues for a Popular Movement to force Reform on the Government. This could be bigger than Brexit. The Rigged Housing Market.

This open access book discusses booming housing markets in cities around the globe, and the resulting challenges for policymakers and central banks. Cities are booming everywhere, leading to a growing demand for urban housing. In many cities this demand is out-pacing supply, which causes house prices to soar and increases the pressure on rental markets. These developments are posing major challenges for policymakers, central banks and other authorities responsible for ensuring financial stability, and economic well-being in general.This volume collects views from high-level policymakers and researchers, providing essential insights into these challenges, their impact on society, the economy and financial stability, and possible policy responses. The respective chapters address issues such as the popularity of cities, the question of a credit-fueled housing bubble, the role of housing supply frictions and potential policy solutions. Given its scope, the book offers a revealing read and valuable guide for everyone involved in practical policymaking for housing markets, mortgage credit and financial stability.