Housing
The UHERO Housing Policy Group provides rigorous analyses to inform debates regarding housing in Hawaiʻi, with a focus on the high housing cost burdens experienced by the State’s residents. This problem is multiscalar in its origins and thus requires a bundle of analyses ranging from longitudinal portraits of the State’s housing market, to estimates of the impact of housing costs on diverse communities, to objective evaluations of proposed policy solutions.
Preserving Housing Stability During Hawaii’s COVID Crisis
By Philip Garboden Last week, the Eviction Lab released a scorecard for COVID-19 Housing Policy. Hawaii scored fairly well comparatively: 15th out of the 50 states. Unfortunately, this only put us near the top of a fairly rotten pile. With the exception of two or three states, the vast majority of the country currently has […]
Read MoreHCRC Annual Report of Activities
Due to the generosity of the Hawaii Community Reinvestment Corporation (HCRC), I was able to begin service as the HCRC Professor in Affordable Housing Economics, Policy, and Planning in the fall of 2018. Since that time, I have been able to maintain a vigorous national research agenda, while simultaneously working to inform housing policy in […]
Read MoreCombinatorial Optimization for Urban Planning: Strategic Demolition of Abandoned Houses in Baltimore, MD
In 2017, Baltimore City was awarded $75 million dollars earmarked for the targeted demolition of a portion of its 16,000 vacant and abandoned buildings. Selecting an optimal set of demolition targets is difficult given that the cost per demolition is not independent of the overall demolition pattern; like many older cities, Baltimore’s abandoned housing includes […]
Read MoreIs Leasehold Housing Built on Government Land a Solution to Unaffordable Housing in Honolulu?
Housing is expensive on Oahu. For most middle-class Honolulu households, even buying a median-priced condominium ($415,000 in February 2019) is financially out of reach. Some state lawmakers propose to remedy the situation by developing high-density leasehold condominiums on state-owned and city-owned land near rail transit stations on the Honolulu rapid transit system now under construction […]
Read MoreNew Perspectives on Land and Housing Markets in Hawaii
Land leasing is common in Honolulu, with many owners of residential, industrial, and commercial buildings leasing land. This report examines land and housing markets in Honolulu and the mainland United States to understand better why prices and lease rents are so much higher in Honolulu than most other US cities. Three stylized facts stand out: […]
Read MoreGauging Home Affordability: The Challenge
By Peter Fuleky At a time of dwindling inventory and rising prices, housing affordability has once again become a hot topic in Hawaii. One way to quantify whether the typical single family home or condominium is “affordable” is to compare median sales prices to the value of a mortgage the median household income could support. […]
Read MoreThe Unintended Consequences of Affordable Housing Policy
By Carl Bonham Honolulu City Council Resolution 13-168 would amend the percentages of affordable housing units that developers must provide to receive authorization for housing projects. Current city policy requires that 10% of a development’s units must be affordable for households earning no more than 80% of the HUD median income for Honolulu. Another 10% of units in […]
Read MoreUHERO 101.3: Can the Median Household afford the Median Home on Oahu?
With recent months of record low interest rates and a strengthening economy, individuals and families in Hawaii are increasingly looking into becoming homeowners. How realistic is this possibility? Do families have enough for the down payment, and will the median household income qualify for a loan? How will a monthly mortgage payment compare to the […]
Read MoreRobust Hope for Housing
The US housing market turned the corner in 2012 and is set for healthy expansion for the next several years. This according to economists at the annual policy conference of the National Association for Business Economics meeting in Washington last week. Median single family resale prices rose 6-10% last year, depending on the measure one uses, and […]
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