UCLA Housing Voice

Jason Ward, economist and RAND Housing Center director, and Mott Smith, real estate developer and civic entrepreneur, unpack Measure ULA and its ripple effects. They discuss how transfer taxes change developer incentives. They highlight declines in high‑value transactions, impacts on multifamily redevelopment, lost property tax growth, and possible policy fixes.

Enterprise Community Partners has been running a renter wealth-building program since 2022. How’s it going? And what comes next?Show notes:Enterprise Community Partners’ Renter Wealth Creation Fund website.The Renter Wealth Creation Fund term sheet.UCLA Housing Voice episode 108: Building Wealth by Renting with Shane Phillips and Bob Simpson.Phillips, S. (2025). Building Renter Wealth: An Evaluation of Shared Prosperity Rental (SPR) Housing Program Design and Feasibility. UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.Executive summary for the SPR report.

Bob Simpson, former Fannie Mae executive and founder of Simpson Impact Strategies, leads the Multifamily Impact Council and shapes multifamily finance and impact standards. Conversation covers the Multifamily Impact Framework, a shared prosperity rental model that shares profits with tenants, financing and leverage mechanics, tenant reward designs, risks to lenders and renters, and practical pilots for testing the idea.

Fixed-rate mortgages are expensive, but adjustable-rate mortgages are volatile — but do they have to be? Kevin Erdmann pitches an alternative that captures the best qualities of both. This is part 9 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.Show notes:Erdmann, K. (2021). A Suggested Mortgage Amortization Structure: Fixed Amortization, Adjustable Principal. Mercatus Center.UCLA Housing Voice episode 106: Mortgage Lending Standards with Kevin Erdmann.

Kevin Erdmann, a Mercatus Center scholar and author known for the Erdmann Housing Tracker, challenges the idea that the mid-2000s housing market was oversupplied. He explains closed-access, contagion, and open-access city dynamics. He discusses how migration patterns, lending shifts, and tightened underwriting after 2008 reshaped construction, mortgage access, and starter home availability.

Was the housing market really oversupplied in the mid-2000s? Kevin Erdmann says no, and he explains how this misunderstanding is at the root of present-day affordability problems. This is part 8 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.Show notes:Erdmann, K. (2018). Housing Was Undersupplied during the Great Housing Bubble. Mercatus Center.Erdmann, K. (2024). Getting Corporate Money Out of Single-Family Homes Won’t Help the Housing Affordability Crisis. Mercatus Center.Erdmann Housing Tracker: Mortgages Outstanding by Credit ScoreErdmann Housing Tracker: Follow-Up: Mortgages by Credit ScoreErdmann, K. (2021). A Suggested Mortgage Amortization Structure: Fixed Amortization, Adjustable Principal. Mercatus Center.

In this insightful discussion, Richard Green, Director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, talks with Shane Phillips about California's housing challenges. They delve into the history of ADU reforms and the complexities of state housing laws. The conversation highlights the rarity of condos due to liability issues and challenges in the redevelopment of small multifamily units. Shane also explores innovative ideas for building tenant wealth and reducing car dependency through improved transit systems, drawing comparisons with international models.

Why do many U.S. states build so few condos? Muhammad Alameldin explains the role of construction defect liability laws — and how to fix them. This is part 7 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.Show notes:Alameldin, M., & Karlinsky, S. (2024). Construction Defect Liability in California: How Reform Could Increase Affordable Homeownership Opportunities. UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.Economic & Planning Systems. (2025). The Financial Impacts of Construction Defect Liability on Housing Development in California. Terner Center for Housing Innovation and the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR).Shoag, D., Romem, I., & Garcia, D. (2023). The First Step Is The Hardest: California’s Sliding Homeownership Ladder. UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

In which types of homes are people safest from fires? Alex Horowitz shares research showing that multifamily is safer than single-family housing, newer homes are much safer than older homes, and that a single stairwell’s just as good as two. This is part 6 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.Show notes:Rodnyansky, S., Horowitz, A., Clifford, L., Su, D., Smith, S., & Trivedi, S. (2025). Small Single-Stairway Apartment Buildings Have Strong Safety Record. Pew Charitable Trusts.Clifford, L., Rodnyansky, S., & Horowitz, A. (2025). Modern Multifamily Buildings Provide the Most Fire Protection. Pew Charitable Trusts.Baird-Remba, R., & Horowitz, A. (2025). How States and Cities Decimated Americans’ Lowest-Cost Housing Option. Pew Charitable Trusts.Wegmann, J., Baqai, A. N., & Conrad, J. (2023). Here Come the Tall Skinny Houses. Cityscape, 25(2), 171-202.UCLA Housing Voice episode 97, Single-Stair Buildings and Eco-Districts with Michael Eliason.

We’ve been grappling with trade-offs between stricter building codes and declining affordability for over 100 years. Benjamin Schneider helps us trace the history. This is part 5 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.Show notes:Schneider, B. (2025). The Unfinished Metropolis: Igniting the City-Building Revolution. Island Press.Schneider, B. (2025 September 22). 106 Years Ago She Predicted Today’s Housing Crisis. What if we’d Listened? Planetizen. Wood, E. E. (1919). The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner: America's Next Problem. The MacMillan Company.Riis, J. A. (1890). How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons.A brief history of tenements in the US.