REFinBlog

February 9, 2026

Why Was Housing So Much Cheaper in the 1950s?

inequaltiMarketplace quoted me in Why Do Cars, Housing and Clothing Cost Much More Than They Did in the 1950s? It reads, in part, Question: Why did a pair of jeans, a box of rice, cars, houses and other items that still … Continue reading →

Is It a Homebuyer’s Market?

Marketplace quoted me in Is It Really a Homebuyer’s Market Now? It reads, in part, Housing prices are dropping and buyers are scoring steep discounts on their purchases, indicating that the real estate market is becoming more favorable for buyers. … Continue reading →

November 3, 2025

Does Homeownership Build Wealth?

Marketplace interviewed me for a story to answer the question, Does Homeownership Build Wealth? It reads, in part, With housing prices skyrocketing in recent years, homeownership has become increasingly out of reach for many Americans. David Reiss, a law professor at Cornell … Continue reading →

December 8, 2022

A Controversial Fix for America’s Housing Market

Insider quoted me in A Controversial Fix for America’s Housing Market: More Foreclosures. It opens, How many people should lose their homes to foreclosure? In an ideal world, of course, there would be no foreclosures at all. Everyone who buys … Continue reading →

October 31, 2022

Improving Minority and Low-Income Homeownership Experiences

  I participated in a very interesting event at the Chicago Fed last week: Risk and Racial bias: Workshop improving Minority and Low-Income Homeownership Experiences. The Community Development and Policy Studies (CDPS) team at the Chicago Fed sponsored the workshop. … Continue reading →

May 2, 2022

Foreclosure Echo

  David Reiss CC BY-NC-SA Linda Fisher recently posted a pdf of The Foreclosure Echo: How the Hardest Hit Have Been Left out of the Economic Recovery, a book she co-authored with Judith Fox. It came out before the pandemic, … Continue reading →

April 27, 2022

Sharing Your Home with Strangers

Debra Bechtel, Crystal Liu, Ernira Mehmetaj, and I have just posted Sharing Your Home with Strangers: Common-Interest Ownership and Financing Options to SSRN (as well as to bepress). The abstract reads, As the affordable housing crisis in the U.S. escalates, … Continue reading →