Los Angeles City Council moved to dramatically expand the city’s adaptive reuse policy citywide, clearing the way for empty office and commercial buildings across the city to be converted into housing.
The City Council voted unanimously to adopt a pair of ordinances that extend adaptive reuse regulations beyond Downtown for the first time in more than two decades.
The action repeals the city’s existing Adaptive Reuse Incentive Areas Specific Plan, which had limited conversions largely to parts of Downtown, Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Hollywood and Koreatown. It also updates the 1999 Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO) that helped spur more than 12,000 new homes in downtown alone.
According to a City Planning Department fact sheet, the updated regulations are intended to make it easier to convert older or underused commercial buildings, many left partly empty after the pandemic, into much-needed housing.
The revision expands eligibility for adaptive reuse citywide and introduces new incentives and streamlined approvals designed to make conversions easier.
The updated ordinance broadens the types and ages of buildings that qualify, allows more projects to be approved by right, adds incentive for developments that include affordable housing, and establishes design standards to improve ground-floor uses and the public realm. It will apply citywide outside the Downtown Community Plan area, which is governed by its own adaptive reuse regulations under the new zoning code.
City officials said the expansion is part of the Citywide Housing Incentive Program, a package of six strategies aimed at boosting housing production and helping Los Angeles meet its state-mandated housing goals. The adaptive reuse update is the first of those strategies moving forward.
DRACUT — The Zoning Board of Appeals has published a draft decision signaling it is ready to approve the contentious Murphy’s Farm Chapter 40B proposal for apartments in East Dracut. Final approval is expected at the board’s Dec. 4 meeting.
As published, the number of apartments has been downsized from 268 units to 200. The original proposal called for 300 units.
One of the goals of the decades-old 40B law is to increase the stock of affordable housing in the state. Murphy’s Farm will have 20 low-income units and 20 moderate-income units.
Chapter 40B gives the ZBA power to issue comprehensive permits that supersede the normal permitting process.
The draft document lists more than 90 conditions the developer, O’Brien Homes of Andover, must comply with to be granted a comprehensive permit.
If approved by the ZBA and accepted by the developer, an agreement would bring to an end almost three years of public hearings, neighborhood meetings and property tours.
But the developer can appeal to the state Housing Appeals Committee — which operates under the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities — if the proposal would make the project economically unviable.
Asked about the prospect of an appeal, developer Kevin O’Brien said, “The town’s got to do what it’s got to do. And we have to do what we have to do.”
Selectman Tony Archinski, who has attended most of the hearings, told The Sun, “I have spoken to the town manager and secured funding for legal issues should the builder appeal the decision.”
Speaking for the Citizens Against Reckless Development in Dracut, Michelle Boermeester stated, “We appreciate that the ZBA recognized the project as far too dense and moved to condition the development at 200 units. This reduction helps alleviate some of the anticipated density and traffic impacts on direct abutters and on the broader Dracut community. While we would have preferred an outright denial of the permit, the Board’s conditions represent meaningful modifications and will leave it to the developer to decide whether to accept the terms or pursue an appeal.”
She added, “Even so, we remain concerned that the project—despite the reduction—still is overly dense for this area. We also believe the ZBA did not fully address public safety considerations. The current layout includes extended roadways without cul-de-sacs, leaving no margin for error for emergency response vehicles to maneuver, compromising public safety.”
Aside from reducing the number of units in the complex, the proposal would make the developer pay $7,500 for sewer connections for each market-rate apartment. Connection fees for affordable units would be waived. The developer would pay a total of $1.125 million for sewer connections.
Connection to the Kenwood Water District will cost $5,500 for the first unit and $4,125 for each additional unit. The estimated total for 200 units is $826,375. The connection fee for each building must be paid in full prior to connection to the town system.
Some might say the new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus that opened recently in a former 255-room hotel is undergirded by one of humanity’s seven deadly sins — envy.
The intent is to turn that feeling into a motivational force. For his part, Mayor Mike Coffman prefers to refer to the three-tiered residential system at the homeless navigation center as an “incentive-based program” — one that awards increasingly comfortable living quarters to those showing progress on their journey to self-sufficiency.
“The notion here is (that) different standards of living act as an incentive,” Coffman said in early November during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the campus, which occupies a former Crowne Plaza Hotel at East 40th Avenue and Chambers Road. “The idea is to move up the tiers into much better living situations.”
Clients in the new facility, which opened its doors on Nov. 17, start at the bottom with a cot and a locker. They can eventually migrate to a hotel room, with a locking door and a private bathroom.
But that upgrade comes with a price.
“To get a room here, you have to be working full time,” Coffman said.
It’s an approach that the mayor says threads the needle between housing-first and work-first, the two prevailing strategies for addressing homelessness today. The housing-first approach emphasizes getting someone into a stable home before requiring employment, sobriety or treatment. A work-first setup conditions housing on a person finding work and seeking help with underlying mental health and addiction problems.
“We’re providing a continuum of services that starts with an emergency shelter,” said Jim Goebelbecker, the executive director of Advance Pathways.
Advance Pathways, the nonprofit group that ran the Aurora Resource Day Center before its recent closure, was chosen through a competitive bidding process to operate the new navigation campus in Aurora — with $2 million in annual help from the city. Goebelbecker said the tiered approach at the new facility “taps into a person’s motivation for change.”
The Aurora Regional Navigation Campus’ debut nearly completes a mission that has been in the works for more than three years. It is the fourth — and penultimate — metro Denver homeless navigation center to go online since the Colorado General Assembly passed House Bill 1378 in 2022.
The bill allocated American Rescue Plan Act dollars to stand up one central homeless navigation center. The plan has since shifted to five smaller centers, with locations in Aurora, Lakewood, Boulder, Denver and Englewood. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs in late 2023 approved $52 million for the centers. The final center, the Jefferson County Regional Navigation Campus in Lakewood, is undergoing renovations and will open next year.
Aurora’s center, with 640 beds across its three tiered spaces, is by far the largest of the five facilities.
Cathy Alderman, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said the opening of Aurora’s navigation campus is “a really big deal.” Aside from serving its own clientele, she expects the center to send referrals to the coalition’s newly opened Sage Ridge Supportive Residential Community near Watkins, where people without stable housing go to address their substance-use disorders.
“A person can go to one place and get multiple needs met,” Alderman said, referring to the array of job, medical and addiction treatment services that give homeless navigation centers their name. “We are excited that the new campus is now up and running.”
The new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus, operated by Advance Pathways, photographed in Aurora on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
‘How do I move up?’
Walking into the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus feels like walking into, well, a hotel.
The swimming pool was removed during renovation, as was a water fountain in the lobby. Everything else stayed, including beds, bedding, furniture — even a stash of bottled cocktail delights. But not the alcohol to go with it.
“They left everything, down to the forks and knives and a wall of maraschino cherries,” said Jessica Prosser, Aurora’s director of housing and community services, as she walked through the hotel’s industrial kitchen.
The kitchen, which was part of the $26.5 million sale of the Crowne Plaza Hotel to Aurora last year, was a godsend to an operation tasked with serving three meals a day to hundreds of people. The city spent another $13.5 million to renovate the building.
“To build a new commercial kitchen is a half-million dollars, easy,” Prosser said.
The layout of the navigation center was deliberate, she said. The hotel’s convention center space is now occupied by Tier I and Tier II housing. The first tier is made up of nearly 300 cots, divided by sex. There are lockers for personal belongings and shared bathrooms. Anyone is welcome.
On the other side of a nondescript wall is Tier II, which is composed of a grid of 114 compartmentalized, open-air cubicles with proper beds and lockable storage. The center assigns residents in this tier case managers to help them treat personal challenges and get on the path toward landing a job.
The Tier II “Courage” space, which offers overnight accommodation for people who are working on recovery, employment and housing pathways at the new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus in Aurora, on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Tier III residents live in the 255 hotel rooms. They must have a full-time job and are required to pay a third of their income to the program. Residents in this tier will typically remain at Advance Pathways for up to two years before they have the skills and stability to find housing on the outside, Goebelbecker said.
People living in the congregate tiers can house their dogs in a pet room, which can accommodate 40 canines. (No cats, gerbils or fish). The center also doesn’t accept children. Around 60 staff members, plus 10 contracted security personnel, will work at the facility 24/7.
Shining a bright light on the path forward and upward inside the facility — the windows of some of the coveted private rooms are fully visible from the lobby — is an “intentional design feature,” Prosser said.
“How do I move up?” she mused, stepping into the shoes of a resident eyeing the facility’s layout. “How do I get in there?”
The Tier III “Commitment” space, which provides private rooms that will serve people who are in the workforce and are building towards financial independence, seen at the new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus in Aurora on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
It’s a system that demands something of the people using it, Coffman said, while at the same time providing the guidance and help that clients will need.
“This is not just maintaining people where they are — this is about moving people forward,” the mayor said.
The approach is familiar to Shantell Anderson, Advance Pathways’ program director. She told her life story during the ribbon-cutting ceremony, bringing tears to the eyes of some in the audience.
A native of Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood, Anderson fell in with the wrong crowd. She became pregnant at 15 and got hooked on cocaine. She spiraled into a life on the streets that resulted in her children being sent to an aunt for caretaking.
But through treatment and by intersecting with the right people, she recovered. She earned a nursing degree and worked at RecoveryWorks, a nonprofit organization that operated a day shelter in Lakewood, before taking the job at Advance Pathways.
The Tier I “Compassion” emergency shelter, which provides immediate short-term shelter for those in need at the new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus in Aurora on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
“This is a system that honors people’s dignity,” Anderson said, her voice heavy with emotion.
In an interview, she said assuming the burden to improve her situation was critical to her transformation.
“I actually did that — no one gave me anything,” said Anderson, 48. “If it was handed to me, I didn’t appreciate it.”
How much responsibility to place on the people being helped by such programs is still a matter of intense debate by policymakers and advocates for homeless people. The housing-first approach favored by Denver and many big cities across the country is anchored in the idea that work or treatment requirements will result in many people falling through the cracks and staying outside, particularly those who face mental-health challenges.
The Bridge House in Englewood, one of the five metro area navigation centers, follows a “Ready to Work” model that is similar to that of the upper tiers of the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus.
Opened in May, the Bridge House has 69 beds. CEO Melissa Arguello-Green said the organization asks its clients (called trainees) to put skin in the game by landing a job with Bridge House’s help and then contributing a third of their paycheck as rent.
“We help them find employment through our agency so they can leave our agency,” she said. “We’re looking for self-sufficiency that will get people off system support.”
Arguello-Green said she would like to see more coordination between the metro’s five navigation centers, though she acknowledged it’s still in the early going.
“We’re missing that come-to-the-table collaboration,” she said.
Advance Pathways volunteer outreach coordinator Evan Brown organizes the clothing bank before the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus’ grand opening ceremony in Aurora on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Homeless numbers still rising
Shannon Gray, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, said her department had started convening quarterly in-person meetings across the locations.
“While each navigation campus is unique and reflects community-specific strategies, they are all a part of a regional effort to bring external partners together onsite to provide needed services and referrals,” Gray said. Together, they are “building towards a larger regional system to connect homeless households to a larger network of opportunities.”
The centers are permitted to “tailor their approach to their unique needs and vision,” she said. While Englewood and Aurora use a tiered system, Gray said, the other three centers don’t.
“It is important to understand that DOLA serves as a funder for these regional navigation campuses — we do not oversee their operation or maintenance,” she said.
Denver’s navigation center, which opened in December 2023 in a former DoubleTree Hotel on Quebec Street, offers 289 rooms to those in need, said Julia Marvin, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Housing Stability.
She called the facility an “integral component of Denver’s All in Mile High homelessness initiative,” Mayor Mike Johnston’s ambitious effort to appreciably reduce homelessness in the city. The center is just one of several former hotels and other shelter sites in the system.
Earlier this year, his administration cited annual count numbers showing a 45% decrease in the number of people sleeping on the streets since 2023 — dropping from 1,423 to 785 people, despite overall homelessness continuing to increase in that time.
In fact, homelessness numbers are still going in the wrong direction across the seven-county metro, per the latest Point-in-Time survey from the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, which captures a one-night snapshot. The January count revealed that 10,774 people were homeless on the night of the survey, up from 9,977 in the count the year before.
Anderson, the Advance Pathways program director, said the new Aurora facility was opening at just the right time. Despite a recent calming in runaway home values in metro Denver, the $650,000 median price of a detached home in October still demarcated a housing market that was out of reach for many.
“I am excited,” Anderson said of the Aurora navigation campus’ debut. “I’m waiting for people to walk through the door and start the next chapter of their journey.”
When it comes to hotly anticipated World of Warcraft updates, few have sizzled for longer than Player Housing – a feature that will bring liveable homes and dynamic neighbourhoods to the ever-evolving world of Azeroth. And the best news? It’s almost here – scheduled to land in the final patch of The War Within starting on December 2.
The WoW team is giving players a whole new way to express creativity, so we sat down with Design Lead Toby Ragaini and Lead UX Designer Laura Sardinha to find out how housing works, and how it’s offering the ultimate cosy, creative retreat for all types of WoW players.
Housing has been in development at Blizzard for a while, and the team knew that it not only had to meet expectations for such a requested feature, but also exceed them, according to Ragaini. While the update will be released as part of Midnight, WoW‘s latest expansion, the feature itself is evergreen, something that players can invest in for the long term.
“It took years of design and engineering to get where we are today,” says Ragaini. “We wanted something that felt like a whole new part of the game, that would grow with the community.”
So how will it work? Players can obtain a plot of land (though they will have two total for their Warband, one for each faction neighborhood), and every plot contains a house. Each plot differs by style, shape and biome, built to accommodate whatever vibe you’d like. Some houses within a neighborhood are grouped for a more communal feel, allowing friends to become digital neighbors, while other spots are more isolated for the recluses and the solo settlers among you.
No matter how isolated your plot might be, however, all player housing exists within neighborhoods, which contain approximately 50 houses each. There are Public Neighborhoods, where anyone can buy a home, and Private Neighborhoods, which can be created and managed by Guilds or larger groups of players that all want to share a space. Once you’ve chosen a house, you’ll live among those players until you decide to leave the neighborhood. It’s inherently social, a dynamic hub where you’ll be able to see what all your neighbors are up to at all times, which was important for the WoW team.
“These neighborhoods, and the neighbors you have – they’re going to persist for as long as you live in that community,” Ragaini says. “I think that’s one of the most compelling aspects of MMOs. We’re trying to rekindle the magic of online social interaction in that way.”
Housing comes with a robust set of permissions, so you can fully customise how other players in the neighborhood can interact with you, and these can be altered at any time.
“We recognise that ‘social’ means different things to different people,” Ragaini adds. “So we want to make sure that everyone can decide how they want to interact with their neighbours. Whether you want an open house that anyone can visit, or something closed off to visitors, you can choose whatever makes you comfortable.”
Making A House A Home
Once you have a home, what’s next? You’ll need to decorate it, both internally and externally – and there is an entire library of whimsical Warcraft decor to discover. What’s more, there’s little limit to how creative you can be with how to design your home and the surrounding land, whether you’re a mage wanting to throw up a quirky wizard tower, or a rogue designing a dark den. Housing is much more than just a gameplay loop to earn rewards – it’s giving WoW players a robust suite of creative tools and UI to express creativity so your home can be truly unique, and a marvel to other players living in the neighborhood.
“We allow players to have total freedom of how they arrange things. They can use items in unorthodox ways to make something completely different,” Sardinha says. “In addition to that, you have a room layout tool that defines rooms, but you can also play around with the pieces to create your own room with a secret door, or build puzzles for people to solve – the UI is so powerful in how it allows players to be flexible with what they want to build in their world.”
Concept art of decor created for the Blood Elf race
One of the most interesting parts of the Player Housing update is who the WoW team is aiming to engage – besides the long-time players, they want to see cozy gamers, design enthusiasts, and those who may not have found a reason to venture into Azeroth before, but certainly could now.
To do so, the team wanted housing to be more than a currency grind – expanding your house is a whole new mechanic in itself. With that in mind, it was also important to make housing an approachable update for lapsed or entirely new players – how can this be interesting to the uninitiated, while still introducing those players to the full scope of WoW?
“We didn’t want housing to exist as a standalone activity; it needed to be integrated into the core mechanics of World of Warcraft,” Ragiani explains. “So that if someone new comes in and wants to engage with housing, they’re not just feeling isolated, they’re encouraged to participate in all aspects of the game.”
You’ll be able to earn items for your home – items, furniture, trophies and trinkets – through numerous activities, and anyone can get stuck in, no experience needed.
“There’s a lot of different ways to play WoW, and no one has the ‘right’ way,” Ragaini says. “So when you’re out doing quests, or raids, or dungeons, there will be opportunities to earn decor and other rewards for your house. You’ll be brought into the core loop of the game as part of the housing experience.”
To increase that sense of participation, neighborhoods will have semi-regular events called Endeavours, and players within these spaces can work together to complete tasks and unlock rewards for all residents within a neighborhood. These tasks range from questing and running dungeons, to activities like crafting and gathering, so that every style of player can contribute to a community-wide goal. Completing these tasks can also earn you Neighborhood Favor, a new currency used to level up your home, increase your decor limit, or buy additional items from NPCs.
Player Housing is such a fresh, inviting direction for World of Warcraft, a game that is so visually warm and entrancing, but can feel overwhelming in terms of how much content is on offer. This is a smart, interesting way to encourage different types of players to get involved, and idea of building a unique home, sharing a space with friends, and completing objectives together to craft a collaborative environment is an intensely appealing prospect that I can’t wait to get started with.
This Golden State optimism tally is now 25% below its average since 2007. Plus, it hit its lowest November reading since 2012, and is not the consumer buoyancy merchants would like to see during the holiday shopping rush.
Consumers juggle numerous challenges. The federal government shutdown, no matter who you blame, rattled nerves. Perhaps its resolution will revive sinking financial sentiments.
Still, the job market appears wobbly. Immigration crackdowns are unnerving a part of the population. Plus, the state government budget has another huge shortfall.
The California index tracks two slices of shopper sentiment, neither of which reveals much economic enthusiasm.
Its “present situation” index – measuring current conditions – dropped 11% in November to a low last seen in mid-pandemic March 2021. It’s also 10% below average.
The “expectations” index – gauging consumers’ financial outlook – was off 22% in November to its lowest level since October 2011. It’s now 37% below average.
Nationally nervous
U.S. consumers were spooked, too, but not as much as the Golden State.
The overall national confidence index was off 7% in a month to a seven-month low and is 3% below its 19-year average. This was the weakest November confidence since 2013.
The nationwide view of current conditions fell 3% in a month to its lowest since September 2024. But this yardstick remains 20% above average.
The future is murky, nationally, too. The expectations index was off 12% to a seven-month low and sits 24% below average.
Stately unease
Five of the seven other big states tracked by the Conference Board saw optimism drop – but no political pattern emerges.
Michigan: Down 22% in a month to the lowest level since June 2014 and 9% below average.
Florida: Down 15% in a month to the lowest since April 2025, but 8% above average.
Ohio: Down 10% in a month to the lowest since October 2016 and 7% below average.
Illinois: Down 8% in a month to the lowest since October 2020 and 6% below average.
Pennsylvania: Down 8% in a month to the lowest since September 2024 and 4% below average.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For the second time since Florida passed the Live Local Act, Pinellas County leaders have voted to opt out of part of the law’s affordable housing property tax exemption — a move supporters say protects local land-use control, while critics argue it does little to help workers struggling with rising rent.
What You Need To Know
For the second time since Florida passed the Live Local Act, Pinellas County leaders have voted to opt out of part of the law’s affordable housing property tax exemption
It’s a move that supporters say protects local land-use control, while critics argue it does little to help workers struggling with rising rent
County officials point to a dedicated funding source through the Penny for Pinellas tax, which has allocated $98 million for housing over the past decade
The opt-out applies only to the 80–120% AMI tax exemption for the 2025 tax year
The unanimous vote from the Pinellas County Commission removes a tax incentive for developers building units priced for households earning 80 to 120% of the area median income (AMI).
County officials say that range is too close to market-rate housing and does not address the needs of the county’s most rent-burdened residents.
Service industry employees, including hospitality, restaurant and gig workers, make up a significant portion of St. Petersburg and Clearwater’s economy. Many say the high cost of housing is pushing workers farther away from their jobs, straining an industry already dealing with labor shortages.
William Kilgore, a bike courier and advocate with the St. Petersburg Tenants Union, says the term “affordable” is often misleading.
“When you use the term ‘affordable,’ it’s a subjective term,” Kilgore said. “What’s affordable for me may not be affordable for someone else. The vast majority of folks who are rent-burdened are not benefiting from the housing produced by these tax incentives.”
Kilgore said workers such as hotel housekeepers, gig workers and restaurant employees continue to struggle to keep up with rising rents despite the passage of the Live Local Act in 2023.
Commission Chair Brian Scott said the Live Local Act preempts local governments’ ability to control where large, high-density developments can be built, especially in areas where industrial and employment land needs to be protected.
“Eighty to 120 percent AMI is basically market-rate housing,” Scott said. “There’s no real need for an exemption for market-rate housing. Live Local also preempts us from making land-use decisions because developers can come in and build by right.”
Scott said the county is putting its focus on supporting residents with incomes below 80% AMI, which he said represents the county’s greatest housing need.
County officials point to a dedicated funding source through the Penny for Pinellas tax, which has allocated $98 millionfor housing over the past decade. Commissioners said they are also identifying surplus county-owned parcels for future affordable housing development.
The opt-out applies only to the 80–120% AMI tax exemption for the 2025 tax year.
Officials said the decision helps ensure that land-use decisions, particularly those regarding high-rise development, remain under local control, while still allowing the county to target funding toward the lowest-income households.
The share of U.S. homes that have lost value in the past year is the highest since the aftermath of the Great Recession, according to Zillow.
In October, 53% of homes saw their “Zestimates” decline, the most since 2012 and up from just 16% a year earlier. Losses were most widespread in the West and South.
In fact, those regions have housing markets where nearly all homes declined in value over the last year. Denver topped the list with 91%, followed by Austin (89%), Sacramento (88%), Phoenix (87%) and Dallas (87%).
The Northeast and Midwest, by contrast, have largely avoided such losses, but declines are spreading to more homes in all metros, Zillow said.
In addition, most homes also dropped from their peak valuations, with the average drawdown hitting 9.7%. While that has soared from 3.5% in the spring of 2022, it’s still well below the 27% average drawdown in early 2012.
To be sure, lower home values are just losses on paper and aren’t realized by homeowners unless actual sale prices undercut their initial purchase prices.
By that score, homeowners are still ahead as Zillow data shows that values are up a median 67% since the last sale, and just 4.1% of homes have lost value since their last sale.
“Homeowners may feel rattled when they see their Zestimate drop, and it’s more common in today’s cooler market environment than in recent years. But relatively few are selling at a loss,” Treh Manhertz, senior economic researcher at Zillow, said in a statement. “Home values surged over the past six years, and the vast majority of homeowners still have significant equity. What we’re seeing now is a normalization, not a crash.”
Zillow
The lower values come as the housing market has been frozen for much of the past three years after rate hikes from the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 sent borrowing costs higher, discouraging homeowners from giving up their existing ultra-low mortgage rates.
But the dearth of new supply kept home prices high, shutting out many would-be homebuyers who were also balking at elevated mortgage rates.
With demand weak, the housing market has been shifting away from sellers and toward buyers. The pendulum has swung so far the other way that delistings soared this year as sellers become fed up with offers coming in below asking prices and just take their homes off the market.
But the National Association of Realtors sees a turnaround coming next year. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun predicted earlier this month existing-home sales will jump 14% in 2026 after three years of stagnation, with new-home sales rising 5%. Those sales will support a 4% uptick in home prices.
“Next year is really the year that we will see a measurable increase in sales,” Yun said at a conference on Nov. 14. “Home prices nationwide are in no danger of declining.”
My wife and I have been on a mission since 2017 to visit all 50 states. After this weekend, we’ve now reached 44, including Alaska and Hawaii.
The only ones left are the great plains states, Virginia and Vermont.
This past weekend found us in the Steel City, also known as “The Burgh”- Pittsburgh, Pa. When we drove in from the airport and emerged from the Interstate 376 tunnel, an incredible panorama of skyscrapers opened before us.
Framed by three rivers, the Pittsburgh skyline is one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen. From our base there, we were able to visit Steubenville, Ohio; Cumberland, Maryland; and Weirton, West Virginia — all within a short drive.
You may be wondering what any of this has to do with commercial real estate. If you’ve followed my column for any length of time, you know I can’t help but look for real estate lessons in everything I experience. This weekend was no exception. Let’s take a look at a few takeaways from the Allegheny River Valley.
Steubenville, Ohio
Protecting the Foundation. Just across the Ohio River from West Virginia sits the historic town of Steubenville. It began as a frontier fort designed to protect surveyors mapping new land. Without those early surveyors, the land could not have been divided, titled, or developed. In many ways, they laid the groundwork – literally and figuratively – for the future economy.
The lesson for commercial real estate is clear. Before any deal can progress, the groundwork must be done properly. That means understanding zoning, confirming ownership, verifying building conditions, and doing your due diligence before you commit. Much like those surveyors, we protect our clients by defining the boundaries and identifying the hazards. Skipping this step can leave you exposed, just as the early pioneers would have been without a fort to retreat to.
Pittsburgh
Once the beating heart of America’s steel industry, Pittsburgh suffered a severe economic collapse in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But instead of fading away, the city reinvented itself. It invested in education, technology, and healthcare. Today, Pittsburgh is home to world-class universities, robotics startups, and medical research centers. Its economy no longer depends on steel, it depends on innovation.
This kind of reinvention is something we often see in commercial real estate. Properties, like cities, go through life cycles. A building once used for heavy manufacturing may find new life as a logistics hub or a research lab. An outdated office building might become a mixed-use creative space. The key is seeing potential where others see decline. Pittsburgh teaches us that reinvention, when paired with vision and investment, can lead to thriving new opportunities.
Cumberland, Maryland
Traveling south from Pittsburgh, we stopped in Cumberland, a small mountain town with big character. Decades ago, its downtown looked tired and forgotten. But today, it’s been completely transformed. Streets have been repaved, buildings repainted, and storefronts refilled. There’s energy, color, and commerce where there once was blight.
In our world, downtown revival projects often start with one bold investor or a city initiative that reimagines what’s possible. When one property owner takes the leap to remodel, others follow. Before long, momentum builds. Cumberland shows us that with vision and collaboration, even a struggling location can experience a renaissance.
If you’ve ever driven through an older industrial corridor that suddenly seems alive again – with breweries, boutique manufacturers, and adaptive reuse projects – you’ve seen this same story play out closer to home.
The North Shore
One of the most striking parts of Pittsburgh is its North Shore, home to the Steelers, Pirates and Pitt Panthers. Decades ago, this area was primarily industrial. Today, it’s a bustling entertainment district filled with stadiums, restaurants, a casino and hotels. What was once a manufacturing zone is now a center of experience and energy.
Commercial real estate increasingly revolves around creating experiences. Whether it’s a retail development designed around community gathering spaces or an industrial project that prioritizes employee amenities, success depends on understanding how people want to use the space. The North Shore redevelopment shows how powerful it can be when cities – and property owners – think beyond square footage and focus on what draws people in.
Lessons from the Allegheny
Traveling through the Allegheny River Valley, I was reminded that markets evolve, industries adapt, and places reinvent themselves. From Steubenville’s early foundations to Pittsburgh’s transformation and Cumberland’s revival, the story is the same: progress requires vision, courage, and a willingness to build something new from what once was.
Commercial real estate is about much more than bricks and mortar. It’s about understanding cycles, reading signs of change, and helping clients navigate transitions. Whether you’re developing a warehouse, repositioning an office, or reimagining a neighborhood, the principles are the same as those found in the river valleys of the east – prepare well, adapt quickly, and invest with vision.
Allen C. Buchanan, SIOR, is a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Orange. He can be reached at abuchanan@lee-associates.com or 714.564.7104.
FIRST ON FOX: Conservative influencer Benny Johnson is leading a new initiative to “Make Housing Great Again” amid concerns that Millennials and Gen Z are being pushed out of homeownership by rising costs, stagnant wages and regulatory burdens.
The new initiative, which is being announced Friday, will be led by the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) with help from Johnson, who will be the initiative’s co-chair and national spokesperson, serving as the voice of the initiative. Johnson will also help lead a business advisory council related to making housing more affordable.
“Benny has 4 million followers. He is, you know, so influential. He’s been talking about this a lot on his own social media platforms, and so he is the perfect person to help deliver the policies,” Ashley Hayek, AFPI’s Executive Vice President and co-chair of the initiative, told Fox News Digital. “He has young children. I have young children. And for us, we are both very fired up about this issue.”
Conservative influencer Benny Johnson will be the voice of the America First Policy Institute’s new ‘Make Housing Great Again’ initiative launched on Friday.(Brett Carlsen and Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Hayek pointed out that advocating for policy is, at least in part, a messaging war, and Johnson’s ability to articulate himself well will help with that. Additionally, he has the attention of many young people, who Hayek noted often aren’t aware of the tools out there to help them buy a home.
Greg Sindelar, AFPI’s interim president, added that the current culture in the United States “too often diminishes traditional aspirations,” like homeownership and building a family, which has taken a toll on younger generations.
Even Democrats tend to agree. Former Democrat congressman and ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post in August explaining how the increased difficulty of homeownership is depressing young men, particularly due to the fact that buying a home is often seen as such a pivotal part of achieving the American Dream.
“Rising costs, stagnant wages, regulatory burdens, and a culture that too often diminishes traditional aspirations have left millions feeling directionless and forgotten,” Sindelar said. “AFPI is committed to reversing this trend by advancing meaningful, actionable policy solutions rooted in the principles of the America First movement.”
The new initiative, announced Friday, laid out a list of policy proposals it plans to advance across government of all levels.
Single family homes in a residential neighborhood in San Marcos, Texas, US, on Tuesday, March 12, 2024.(Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Among those proposals is a push to eliminate capital gains taxes on first home sales as long as they reinvest in another home within the following five years. This proposal is aimed at mirroring the spirit of President Donald Trump’s “Opportunity Zones” aimed at accelerating wealth and economic development for low-income communities.
“Homes are too expensive and totally out of reach for young people. The slow death of the American Dream is happening before our eyes. It is a generational betrayal and we must reverse this trend by Making Housing Great Again,” Johnson told Fox News Digital. “Today, the average age of a first-time homebuyer in America is 40 years old. That is well past the optimal age for marriage and family creation. The battle for homeownership is a battle for our cultural and civilizational survival. We need more young people to get married and start families and that cannot happen without a culture of homeownership. We must deliver on this promise for our young people. The American Dream hangs in the balance.”
Another proposal includes a push for the creation of “Home Savings Accounts” similar to a Health Savings Account (HSA) that allows individuals to contribute pre-tax dollars to pay for their healthcare needs.
One proposal also includes a plan to reduce regulations and increase incentives across states and localities that have restricted the development of new housing supply. One example they point to is “green building standards,” which the initiative says bloats costs for builders. By getting rid of these regulations, they say that it will dramatically reduce the cost for builders, who will then in turn be able to increase supply.
Conservative commentator Benny Johnson has 3.8 million followers on X and 5.6 million YouTube subscribers. (Fox News Digital)
Other proposals include measures to stop predatory lending to young people, while promoting innovative housing like tiny homes.
Tax-focused proposals are in the mix as well, such as a “Family Formation Mortgage Credit,” aimed at making family formation and homeownership financially synergistic. It will give families that marry and have a child within five years a $10,000 reduction on their mortgage through a refundable tax credit. The initiative will also push to double the child-tax credit for households filing their taxes jointly and own a home, or are planning to own one.
The distinctive former headquarters of the Christian media company Trinity Broadcasting Network in Costa Mesa has sold for $44.5 million, clearing the way for new housing.
The purchase of the ornate palazzo-style structure by Meritage Homes was expected after city officials in August approved Meritage’s plan to build 122 townhouses and 20 single-family homes on the site just south of the 405 Freeway.
Trinity, one of the world’s largest religious television networks, sold its Costa Mesa complex in 2017 after describing it as obsolete. The center dates to 1978.
It was most recently owned by Khoshbin Co., a Costa Mesa real estate company that positioned the property as an event venue.
Khoshbin paid $22 million for the six-acre property in 2021, according to real estate data provider CoStar.
“We’ve spent over $1 million improving the site, beautifying it, and I think the neighborhood really enjoys seeing some life [come back] into the property,” Manny Khoshbin told the city Planning Commission last year.
“We’ve been getting a lot of requests for events, weddings and birthdays, because it’s such a beautiful landscape,” he said.
The structure across the freeway from South Coast Plaza on Bear Street will be torn down to make way for the new housing. It has been a subject of fascination for years.
“With its classical columns, mirrors, faux gold and white marble everything, the Trinity compound’s look is ‘Gone With the Wind’ meets Caesars Palace,” The Times wrote in 1998.
“White walls are adorned with gold-framed floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Visitors climb the sweeping white marble stairway and come upon a 15-foot-tall statue of Michael the Archangel, his wings spread, his left foot planted on Satan’s head, hovering over the gilded grandeur,” the Times article said back then.
The gold-painted dome ceiling has a florid original mural of angels that Trinity Broadcasting founder Paul Crouch called “Orange County’s own Sistine Chapel.”
It will take about two years to redevelop the site as housing, Meritage told the city.
Planning commissioners credited Meritage’s plan for providing more housing in Costa Mesa, where 60% of residents rent their dwellings. There is high demand for housing in the coastal city and costs are climbing, the Daily Pilot said.
Meritage will designate seven units for very low-income occupants.
The new complex aims to provide housing for “the missing middle,” a segment of the population looking to move beyond renting but who cannot yet afford single-family homes, by offering townhouses that enable buyers to build equity, then move up the housing pyramid, the Daily Pilot said.
San Francisco Bay Area Democrat Eric Swalwell, a nettlesome foil and frequent target of President Trump and Republicans, on Thursday announced his bid for California governor.
The congressman declared his bid during an appearance on the ABC late-night show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, adding a little Hollywood flourish to a crowded, somewhat sleepy race filled with candidates looking for ways to catch fire in the 2026 election.
Voter interest in the race remains relatively moribund, especially after two of California’s most prominent Democrats — former Vice President Kamala Harris and current U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla — opted to skip the race after months of speculation. About 44% of registered voters said in late October that they had not picked a preferred candidate to lead California, which is the most populous state in the union and has the fourth-largest economy in the world.
The lack of a blockbuster candidate in the race, however, continues to entice others to jump in. Earlier this week, billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer announced his bid, and other well-known Democrats are exploring a possible run.
Swalwell, a 45-year-old former Republican and former prosecutor who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, said his decision was driven by the serious problems facing California and the threats posed to the state and nation with Trump in the White House.
“People are scared and prices are high, and I see the next governor of California having two jobs — one to keep the worst president ever out of our homes, streets and lives,” Swalwell said in an interview with The Times. “The second job is to bring what I call a new California, and that’s especially and most poignantly on housing and affordability in a state where we have the highest unemployment rate in the country, and the average age for a first-time homebuyer is 40 years old, and so we need to bring that down.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom cannot run for reelection because of term limits, and he is currently weighing a 2028 presidential bid.
None of the candidates in the race, including Swalwell, possess the statewide notoriety, success or fundraising prowess of California’s most recent governors: Newsom, California political icon Jerry Brown and movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“If you look at the past three governors, they’ve all had personalities,” said Jim DeBoo, Newsom’s former chief of staff, at a political conference at USC on Tuesday. “When you’re looking at the field right now, most people don’t know” much about the candidates in the crowded race despite their political bona fides.
Nearly a dozen prominent Democrats and Republicans are running for governor next year, including: former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond; former Controller Betty Yee and conservative commentator Steve Hilton. And speculation continues to swirl about billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta possibly entering the race.
On Thursday, Thurmond proposed a tax on the wealthy to fund education, healthcare, firefighting and construction. The proposal was seen in part as a subtle dig at Steyer and Caruso, both of whom have used their wealth to fund previous runs for office.
“The naysayers say California’s ultra wealthy already pay enough, and that taxing billionaires will stifle innovation and force companies to leave our state,” he said in an online video. “I don’t buy it.”
Steyer painted his decision to leave the hedge fund he created in California as an example of his desire to give back to the state’s residents in an ad that will begin airing on Friday.
“It’s really goddamn simple. Tackle the cost-of-living crises or get the hell out of the way. Californians are the hardest-working people in the country. But the question is who’s getting the benefit of this,” he says in the ad, arguing that he took on corporations that refused to pay state taxes as well as oil and tobacco companies. “Let’s get down to brass tacks: It’s too expensive to live here.”
Porter also went after Steyer, another sign that the intensity of the race is heating up as the June primary fast approaches.
“A new billionaire in our race claims he’ll fight the very industries he got rich helping grow — fossil fuel companies, tobacco and private immigration detention facilities — at great cost to Californians,” she wrote on X on Wednesday.
The former congresswoman was the subject of recent attacks from Democratic rivals in the governor’s race after videos emerged of her scolding a reporter and swearing at an aide. Yee said she should drop out of the race and Villaraigosa blistered her in ads.
Villaraigosa also attacked Becerra for his connection to the scandal that rocked Sacramento last week, involving money from one of his campaign accounts being funneled to his former chief of staff while Becerra served in the Biden administration.
“We don’t have a strong or robust opposition party in California, so you end up like seeing a lot of this action on the dance floor in the primary, obviously, between Democrats, which is going to be interesting,” said Elizabeth Ashford, who worked for Schwarzenegger, Brown and Harris and currently advises Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. “There’s obviously a lot of longtime relationships and longtime loyalties and interactions between these folks. And so what’s going to happen? Big question mark.”
The ability to protect California from Trump’s policies and political vindictiveness and deal with the state’s affordability, housing and homelessness crisis will be pivotal to Swalwell’s potential path to the governor’s mansion. His choice to announce his decision on Kimmel’s show was telling — the host’s show was briefly suspended by Walt Disney-owned ABC under pressure from Trump after Kimmel made comments about the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Kimmel thanked Swalwell for his support during that period, which included the congressman handing out pro-Kimmel merchandise to his colleagues in Washington, D.C., before the two discussed the future of the state.
“I love California, it’s the greatest country in the world. Country,” Swalwell said. “But that’s why it pisses me off to see Californians running through the fields where they work from ICE agents or troops in our streets. It’s horrifying. Cancer research being canceled. It’s awful to look at. And our state, this great state, needs a fighter and a protector, someone who will bring prices down, lift wages up.”
There is a history of Californians announcing campaigns on late-night television. Schwarzenegger launched his 2003 gubernatorial bid on “The Tonight Show,” hosted by Jay Leno; Swalwell announced his unsuccessful presidential bid on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Swalwell said, he traveled to nearly 40 countries, and he would try to leverage the relationships he formed by creating an ambassador program to find global research money for California given the cuts the Trump administration has made to cancer research and other programs.
The congressman is perhaps best known for criticizing Trump on cable news programs. But he’s faced ample attacks as well.
In 2020, Swalwell came under scrutiny because of his association with Chinese spy Fang Fang, who raised money for his congressional campaign. He cut off ties with her in 2015 after intelligence officials briefed him and other members of Congress about Chinese efforts to infiltrate the legislative body. He was not accused of impropriety.
He is also being investigated by the Department of Justice over mortgage fraud allegations, which he dismissed as retribution for him being a full-throated critic of Trump.
Swalwell served on the City Council of the East Bay city of Dublin before being elected to Congress in 2012 by defeating Rep. Pete Stark, a fellow Democrat.
An Iowa native, Swalwell grew up in Dublin, which he said was “a town of low-income expectations” that was smeared as “Scrublin” at the time. He said that after graduating from law school, he served on the local planning commission that helped transform Dublin. The town increased housing, attracted Fortune 500 employers, exponentially improved the number of students going to college and leveraged developers to improve schools, resources for senior citizens, and police and fire services.
“We have a Whole Foods, which no one can afford to shop at,” he said.
UCLA, which has been on a campaign to vastly expand student housing around its Westwood campus, is planning a new 19-story tower that 1,150 students can call home.
Housing has long been a challenge for UCLA students, who have had limited options on campus and faced a pricey housing market in Westwood and nearby neighborhoods.
In 2022, UCLA announced that it would become the first and only University of California campus to guarantee housing for four years to first-year students and two years for transfer students. The campus now touts housing as a selling point for students it hopes to attract.
“Residential housing allows us to better ensure that every student gets a good start and is therefore more likely to be successful. So we wanted to give every student an option of having four years,” UCLA’s then-Chancellor Gene Block said in 2022. “That was the dream and it’s finally coming true.”
The latest new housing complex, recently revealed in a draft environmental study, calls for a 19-story student housing building for UCLA undergraduate students at 901 Levering Ave., adjacent to the school campus.
The proposed project would provide up to 1,150 beds within a combination of one-, two-, three and primarily four-bedroom units. The cross-shaped tower designed by Seattle architecture firm Mithun would include common courtyard and terrace areas oriented toward Levering Avenue, the study said. On-site parking for residents and guests would not be provided.
Five existing university-owned apartment buildings with a total of 52 beds would be demolished to make way for the new building. Work could begin as early as next year and be completed by 2030.
The 901 Levering Terrace tower would be the latest in a string of large student housing projects built by UCLA in recent years, including the 10-story Levering Place apartments next door and a 17-story tower across the street, real estate website Urbanize said. The university is working on another apartment building for 500 students on Gayley Avenue, set to be completed next September for $108 million.
UCLA’s physical footprint of 419 acres is the smallest among UC’s nine undergraduate campuses and it sits atop some of the state’s priciest real estate, near Brentwood, Bel-Air and Beverly Hills.
UCLA is also working on converting the former Westside Pavilion shopping center, two miles south of the university at Pico and Westwood boulevards into a research park that will house the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy and the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, as well as other science and medicine programs.
SEMINOLE, Fla. — According to Realtor.com, foreclosures are increasing across the country.
And while things still aren’t as bad as the 2008 housing crisis, experts say it would not be a surprise if rates continue to go up.
What You Need To Know
According to Realtor.com, Tampa has the highest foreclosure rates in October among metro populations with more than 1 million people, with 1 in every 1,373 housing units
The site says foreclosures have been on the rise across the country for eight months
Data shows that Florida has the highest number of foreclosures in the U.S.
According to Realtor.com, they’ve been increasing for the last eight months, with Florida leading the pack.
Luis Bedoya, a licensed real estate agent with Charles Rutenberg Realty, showed Spectrum News a Seminole home that he described as a failed project. He is now helping the owner find another buyer to take it over as a short sale.
He said projects like this are becoming more common, especially in Tampa Bay.
“There’s been a doubling in the amount of short sales and foreclosures since the beginning of 2025,” Bedoya said. “It’s just been doubling in the last three months alone.”
Realtor.com said in an article that Tampa has the highest foreclosure rates in October among metro populations with more than 1 million people, with 1 in every 1,373 housing units.
Data shows that in places like Lakeland and Ocala, it’s worse — Lakeland is 1 in every 470, and Ocala is 1 in every 665.
University of South Florida economics professor Michael Snipes said it is unusual for foreclosures to increase eight months in a row. He said it hasn’t happened since 2008, but emphasized that things are not close to the severity of that year.
“I don’t think we should be surprised if we see foreclosure numbers continue to go up,” he said.
Snipes said there are several reasons this could be happening, and points toward the higher number of people who live on fixed incomes in the state.
“HOA fees are going up, insurance fees are going up,” he said. “So, when you have all of these things affecting a population, that may not necessarily have a whole lot of income coming in on a fixed income, that’s definitely something that’s going to lead to a lot more foreclosures.”
Despite the number of foreclosures, Bedoya said it’s dependent on the area, adding that there are still many people looking for homes.
“It’s also creating an opportunity for the informed investor, for the buyers that are looking to find properties in distress that they can then renovate, sell for a profit,” he said. “And it brings new families to the community.”
Snipes said he does not expect housing prices to go down or stay the same despite the foreclosures.
Nearly three years after the state’s deadline, a Bay Area county and three cities across the region still haven’t finalized their state-mandated housing plans, leaving them vulnerable to fines, loss of grant funding and the dreaded “builder’s remedy,” which can cost them control over land use decisions.
San Mateo County and the cities of Half Moon Bay, Belvedere and Clayton have yet to secure state approval for their plans, which were due by Jan. 31, 2023.
Every eight years, local governments across California are required to submit the plans, known as housing elements, which serve as roadmaps for how cities and counties aim to permit a specific number of homes across a range of affordability levels.
Following decades of sluggish development and skyrocketing housing costs, state officials have significantly increased the homebuilding targets for most jurisdictions — and added new penalties for those failing to complete their plans on time.
Despite the threat of stricter penalties, housing advocates say the few remaining municipalities without completed housing elements appear to lack a sense of urgency in obtaining the state’s sign-off.
“They’re mostly small and wealthy jurisdictions that probably feel they don’t have any obligation and that they can hire enough lawyers to get out of whatever obligation the state imposes on them,” said Matt Regan, a housing policy expert with the Bay Area Council, a pro-business group.
Some local officials rejected the claim, saying they’ve worked closely with regulators to finalize the complex plans, which are typically hundreds of pages and outline a broad range of housing policies and practices.
“There hasn’t been any foot-dragging happening in the city of Half Moon Bay,” said Leslie Lacko, community development director with the city.
Earlier this month, the San Mateo County coastal city adopted a fifth draft of its plan to update policies on accessory dwelling units and other concerns from regulators. The city aims to submit the plan to the state officials this month.
Since phasing in the new housing element rules, the state has only pursued serious penalties against a handful of cities, primarily in Southern California, for failing to secure approval for their plans. In 2023, state officials sued Hunnigton Beach, which has openly flouted the housing element process, putting it at risk of potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly fines.
The state’s Housing and Community Development department did not provide a response to questions about whether the state would seek to impose penalties against any Bay Area jurisdictions.
Still, Bay Area communities that were late submitting their housing plans have been subject to the builder’s remedy, a provision in state law that allows developers to push through massive housing projects that exceed local zoning limits. Local governments are only required to accept such projects during periods when the state determines their housing elements are out of compliance.
As of last year, cities and counties across the region had received at least 98 builder’s remedy proposals, totaling more than 13,000 units. Despite a flurry of headline-grabbing applications and the subsequent uproar from suburbanites that the builder’s remedy would “Manhattan-ize” their communities, it remains unclear how many projects have actually broken ground.
In Belvedere, however, one developer used the threat of a large builder’s remedy proposal to persuade local officials last year to approve a smaller, 40-unit duplex project along the affluent Marin County city’s waterfront.
Even so, Belvedere has yet to complete its housing element. In September, regulators sent the city a letter urging it to complete a required rezoning process to allow for more housing, a key aspect of its plan. The letter also reminded the city about potential fines and penalties for noncompliance, including ineligibility for certain state housing and transportation grants.
Belvedere officials did not respond to a request for comment.
On the Peninsula, San Mateo County received a similar letter from the accountability unit in September. County officials said they are working as “expeditiously as possible” to finish their required rezoning process by the middle of next year, attributing the delay to “difficulties of navigating the many new housing laws” passed in recent years. They said the county had not received a builder’s remedy application.
In Half Moon Bay, officials said the slow progress is necessary to ensure the city’s housing plan complies with regulations outlined by the state’s Coastal Commission. The commission aims to protect coastal habitats and maintain public access to the shoreline, but critics have long blamed it for stalling new housing. Officials said the city has not received a builder’s remedy proposal.
City officials in Clayton, a small suburban enclave near Concord, did not respond to a request for comment on the delay in obtaining approval of its plan.
Techie Homes focuses on building micro-home communities that offer affordable, sustainable housing options while helping more people, especially those in Black and brown communities, become homeowners. Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
Atlanta-based human resources executive turned real estate developer and founder of Techie Homes, the innovative company behind one of the city’s most forward-thinking micro-community movements, Booker T. Washington is introducing a new era of living.
Techie Homes focuses on building micro-home communities that offer affordable, sustainable housing options while helping more people, especially those in Black and brown communities, become homeowners.
Enter: Techie Homes
Growing up in southwest Atlanta and in a single-parent household, Washington said his inspiration for Techie Homes stemmed from a lack of what his family didn’t have. His family moved around from different projects. His mom, he said, never taught them much about ownership.
“We did not know anything about ownership. When she passed away 12 years ago, we thought the home we lived in for 20 years was hers, but come to find out, she rented it for 20 years,” he said. “My siblings and I thought about all the money that was spent on rent, and this was a person who worked every day.”
Washington says his mother wasn’t living off government aid and worked every day, so it made him think about how she got there, being educated.
Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
“She passed away with a negative bank account, so that sparked a fire in me about five or six years ago to start leaning into these urban communities about why they don’t have ownership,” he said.
Once he found out ownership is strategically kept away from black and brown communities, that’s when Washington began designing a way to build a community the way his dreams were: front porches, talking to neighbors being at peace during the walk around the neighborhood, having a home that you own, and it all being nestled in a way that makes the home owner feel they’re able to grow in the community and have pride of ownership.
“This all started because of coming out of lack and being a child of a single parent who worked, was educated, but still didn’t own anything, so I wanted to change that for anybody else coming behind me,” he said.
Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
Techie Homes, ownership, & equity
Techie Homes, now the largest builder of micro and cottage homes in Georgia and the sixth largest in the U.S., has completed two major developments: South Park Cottages in College Park and Union Park Cottages in Union City. The company’s first community, South Park, was crowdfunded with more than $3.5 million from local investors.
Union Park Cottages, described as America’s first mixed-use micro home community, includes shared spaces such as a coffee shop, tech lab, dog parks, gardens, and walking trails. Each home ranges from 400 to 1,000 square feet and features standard-sized appliances and modern finishes.
Washington said the communities are ideal for single parents, small families, and retirees looking to downsize without losing the sense of neighborhood connection.
In June, the average Atlanta apartment cost more than $1,600 per month for just over 750 square feet. In that context, Union Park’s homes offer something crucial that apartments cannot: ownership.
Each home was designed with sustainability and durability in mind. Fiber-cement cladding protects from fire and mold, roofs are slanted for solar panels, and premium construction materials help build owners’ pride, according to Washington.
Also, Washington says he does not use the term “affordability” because it’s relative and not specific to a person or income bracket.
“You can have a person who makes $150,000 a year choose a cottage for affordability because they’re deciding about their income and what disposable income they want to have,” he said. “But you also have a person who makes $60,000 a year who wants to find homeownership, and this is the only affordable homeownership option, so what we give people is access.”
He also says they try to make it known that they give people accessible community access because at whatever entry level point you are, they meet you where you are.
Union Park Cottages is also pioneering the first micro-community with a mixed-use commercial space. Residents share 15% ownership in an on-site coffee shop and tech lab through the HOA. The target demographic of Union Park Cottages ranges from 20-somethings in the early phases of building equity to seniors and empty-nesters wanting to downsize.
Washington emphasized that micro homes present an alternative to high rents and shrinking homeownership rates among African Americans. He also noted that many families spend more than half their income on housing, while other demographic groups spend significantly less.
Next on the map for Techie Homes is a new micro-home community in Norcross. Washington said they’ll start construction in late 2025.
Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
Home for the Holidays, future, & more
Washington recently announced the launch of Home for the Holidays, a national raffle giving one lucky winner the chance to own a fully furnished, smart-enabled home in the Union Park Cottages community in Union City, Georgia, valued at $250,000.
“Home for the Holidays really comes from understanding there are so many people out here that, without aid, will never see home ownership,” he said. “In the current climate we live in, there are so many artificially pitted factors against black and brown communities; slavery was just 140 years ago.”
Washington says without help or someone learning from the plight, home ownership will never happen, which is why he introduced the raffle because no one else is going to do it.
Designed with modern aesthetics, smart-home features, and eco-efficient construction, the campaign raises awareness around attainable homeownership and sustainable community design.
Additionally, tickets to enter the raffle are $250, and the winner will be announced and receive their home on Christmas Day, free and clear of any debt.
Proceeds from the raffle will help the Techie Homes nonprofit division, which provides down-payment aid to future micro-home applicants, helping individuals and families take the next step toward attainable, sustainable homeownership.
While Washington is also known for his high-profile partnerships with leaders like Killer Mike and Dr. Jamal Bryant on broader community initiatives, Home for the Holidays stands as his newest independent effort to make homeownership more accessible to everyday Americans.
Additionally, Washington also launched another project with Killer Mike and his wife, Shana Render, to launch The Park at Brawley, a $5 million affordable homeownership development located along Atlanta’s historic Westside Corridor.
The project will deliver 18 modern, energy-efficient micro condos priced below $300,000—a meaningful response at a time when Atlanta’s median home price has climbed above $400,000.
Designed for working families, lifelong residents, teachers, city employees, culture-bearers, and elders who have sustained the Westside for generations, The Park at Brawley stands for a commitment to equitable, community-rooted development that prioritizes belonging over displacement.
“The Brawley is a symbol of our evolution, and our vision was never singular,” he said. “This is a change because now we show people in the deeper metropolitan areas of the city, we can find you access because the price points of those units will still be below $300,000, so now you can be down the street from the stadium in a place you own for less than $1,800 a month.”
In the next five years, Washington says he sees Techie Homes to have built multiple communities and to be a leader in this piece of the home building industry.
“There are major home builders in the United States, but they do not build cottages, and they do not build things in the urban market that would be affordable today,” he said. “They build homes and some are nice, but it’s not a way for the people in urban environments to grow and find home ownership early, and it shouldn’t be delayed.”
Techie Homes has only been in business for four years, but they have already developed and built out more than $15 million worth of real estate, according to Washington.
Also, Washington says he would like to see municipal access to build types as it relates to Atlanta’s housing landscape future.
“All real estate actually is more controlled by your municipal people, city councils, governments who overlay and design the communities for you,” he said. “It’s called a comprehensive plan.”
Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
Washington says that what would be more helpful is to be involved with small-scale, minority developers in scaling out more adaptable uses of land, while if you saw them build a 26-home community and coffee shop on 1.67 acres, until they began building South Park, this was not a reality for anyone.
He also says that as a city, they need to build more realities for municipal comprehensive plans that allow for access to a diverse marketplace of home ownership types and not the same cookie-cutter set of open homes for young people.
“You would think if I don’t find a town home, I gotta live in an apartment, which I gotta wait to save up, but every year, your rental rate changes and your other expenses change,” he said. “The finish line for you to save for that new home always changes, and a lot of that is driven by the municipal government, which is why voting matters.”
As far as advice, Washington says aspiring business owners should rush to fail.
“Most entrepreneurs and business owners want to be social footed about what they’re doing and how they’re doing that, but they actually put more of a paralysis to their business than a leg up because only through failure and in a way of understanding and adapting to what the marketplace is can you innovate,” he said.
Furthermore, Washington says the landscape and future for home ownership, and why it matters is that there is a war for equity currently. He believes people don’t know this and are asleep at the wheel.
“If you write down comparable points of the chart of divorce rates, which are up more times than not,” he said. People want to stay single longer; birth rates are down, and the upward trajectory to home ownership is delayed until you are close to 40. All those things are connected to expense, and your expense of life is based upon your experiences, and your rush to get experiences is based upon you trying to achieve the American Dream.”
Washington says he would tell people they don’t have an American dream; they have an urban dream of survival and are trying to figure out how to gain ownership, equity, value, and pride in the work of their lives and the benefit of their lives.
“Yet, you’re hoping somebody gives you that recognition, and our champion of home ownership is related to that plight, so I would add those pieces, and that’s the major reason why I will tell people my dream continues,” he said.
The White House says it is considering backing a 50-year mortgage to help alleviate the home affordability crisis in the country. But the announcement drew immediate criticism from policymakers, social media and economists, who said a 50-year mortgage would do little to resolve other core problems in the housing market, such as a lack of supply and high interest rates.
Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said on X over the weekend that a 50-year mortgage would be “a complete game changer” for homebuyers. FHFA is the part of the federal government that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy and insure the vast majority of mortgages in the country.
The 30-year mortgage is a uniquely American financial product and the default way to buy a home since the New Deal. Politicians and policymakers at the time wanted to create a standardized mortgage that borrowers could afford and pay off during their working years, when the average lifespan for an American was 66 years old.
Lower payment
Extending the life of a mortgage to 50 years does decrease a borrower’s monthly payment.
The average selling price of a home in the U.S. was $415,200 in September, according to National Association of Realtors. Assuming a standard 10% down payment and an average interest rate of 6.17%, the monthly payment on a 30-year mortgage would be $2,288 while the payment on a 50-year mortgage would be $2,022. That’s presuming a bank would not require a higher interest rate on a 50-year mortgage, due to the longer duration of the loan.
But significantly higher interest
Because even more of the monthly payment on a 50-year mortgage would go toward interest on the loan, it would take 30 years before a borrower would accumulate $100,000 in equity, not including home price appreciation and the down payment. That’s compared to 12-13 years to accumulate $100,000 in equity when paying off a 30-year mortgage, excluding the down payment.
A borrower would pay, roughly, an additional $389,000 in interest over the life of a 50-year mortgage compared to a 30-year mortgage, according to an AP analysis.
Other analysts came to a similar conclusion.
“Extending a mortgage from 30 years to 50 years could double the (dollar) amount of interest paid by the homebuyer on a median priced home over the life of the loan and significantly slow equity accumulation,” wrote John Lovallo with UBS Securities.
Broader housing issues
A 50-year mortgage does nothing to solve one critical issue when it comes to housing affordability — the lack of supply of homes. States like California and cities like New York have recently passed legislation or made regulatory changes to allow builders to build homes faster with less regulatory red tape.
There’s also the raw cost of homebuilding in the country. Products such as steel, lumber, concrete, copper and plastics that go into home construction are now subject to tariffs under President Trump. Further, many construction jobs were being done by undocumented workers, particularly in the Southwest, where deportations are impacting the ability for homebuilders to find enough labor to build homes.
“Many of the big things that would address supply right now are going in the wrong direction,” said Mike Konczal, senior director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project.”
Pulte said on X that the introduction of a 50-year mortgage was just a “potential weapon,” among other solutions the White House has considered to combat high housing prices.
Americans don’t live long enough
The average age of a first-time homebuyer has been creeping up for years and is now roughly 40 years of age. A 50-year mortgage would be difficult to underwrite for a bank for a 40-year-old first-time homebuyer, who would be 90 years old by the time that home is paid off. The average life expectancy of an American is now roughly 79 years, meaning there’s 11 years of life expectancy not covered in a 50-year loan.
“It’s typically not a goal of policymakers to pass on mortgage debt to a borrowers’ children,” Konczal said.
Others have tried longer loans
Other parts of the financial system have extended loan terms, to mixed results. The seven-year auto loan has become increasingly common as car prices have risen and Americans keep their cars longer. Despite longer loan terms, auto loan delinquencies have been rising, and the average price of a new car is now $49,740 compared to a price of $38,948 for a new vehicle five years ago.
Student loans were originally designed to be paid off in 10 years, and now there are multiple payment options that extend repayment out to 20 years.
Economists pointed out that a 50-year mortgage may do the opposite of helping with home affordability by causing home price inflation by introducing more potential buyers into a market struggling with supply.
Trump downplays idea
After significant criticism, President Trump seemed less enthused about the 50-year mortgage. When asked by Laura Ingraham of Fox News about the idea, President Trump said it “might help a little bit” but seemed to brush it off.
Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cannot insure a mortgage that is longer than 30 years, so any 50-year mortgage would be considered a “non-qualifying mortgage” and would be more difficult to sell to investors. Congress would have to amend U.S. financial laws in multiple places to allow for 50-year mortgages, and there seems to be little appetite for Congress to take this on immediately.
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. — A new senior housing development has officially opened.
What You Need To Know
Florida’s largest affordable housing developer, Housing Trust Group, is welcoming home residents at the Fountains at Hidden Lake
The new senior housing community is helping seniors in the area live comfortably and affordably
Affordable senior housing is a struggle in the area, with the median age of residents in the city to be between 63 and 64 years old
Rent prices start at $787 at the Fountains at Hidden Lake and there may be plans for a future expansion
Florida’s largest affordable housing developer, Housing Trust Group, is welcoming home residents at the Fountains at Hidden Lake. Already, the new community is helping seniors in the area live comfortably as a celebration unfolds.
“It’s an exciting development and we’re very proud to have seniors have a safe, clean, affordable housing as a place to live with dignity at very affordable rents,” said Jordan Tolman, COO of Housing Trust Group.
This brand-new community is just the latest in affordable housing for seniors in Citrus County. That includes seniors like Julie Sauve, who has been calling the community home since July.
“I kind of felt that it was time for a change,” said Sauve. “I wanted to go into my later years someplace where I knew it was going to be safe and I’d be able to make a lot of new friends and feel very comfortable.”
Before settling down, Sauve said it was a struggle finding affordable housing in the Tampa Bay area. She previously lived in Clearwater but said rent prices were becoming unaffordable.
“There’s nowhere else where we could get anything as amazing as this for the price that each one of us pay,” says Sauve. “It’s so important for seniors going into their later years to be able to have the stability of having a home like this.”
It’s a struggle Tolman and the rest of Housing Trust Group realize. Rent prices start as low as $787 for residents.
“The population here has been growing tremendously,” said Tolman. “And as the population keeps growing, prices keep increasing and increasing naturally. So, to be able to provide affordable housing for seniors aged 62 and older is really a great blessing.”
According to the City of Crystal River, the median age of residents is between 63 and 64 years old, making up about 36% of the population.
“I’d say get your name in as quick as you can,” said Sauve. “It’s going to fill up quick. There’s just no place like it, I just love it here.”
There may be plans for an expansion in the near future. Tolman said the Housing Trust Group is exploring building a second phased community that would sit near the current development.
LOS GATOS — A senior living community in Los Gatos that opened its doors earlier this year has been bought for more than $50 million by a big-time real estate investor from Chicago.
Ivy Park at Los Gatos has been bought for $54 million by an affiliate controlled by Harrison Street Real Estate, according to documents filed on Nov. 5 with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office.
An alliance of two Bay Area real estate firms, Vacaville-based Chronograph Properties and San Jose-based Swenson, developed the senior community and sold it to the Harrison Street affiliate.
The purchase price was well above the January 2025 assessed value of $38.4 million as calculated by the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office. A county assessment is just one metric that can be used to provide a snapshot of a property’s value.
Harrison Street Real Estate, which is owned by Harrison Street Asset Management, was founded in 2005 and has been a frequent investor in senior living centers, according to the company’s website.
Over the 20 years since it was founded in 2005, the firm has invested approximately $14.6 billion in senior housing assets that total a combined 43,000 units, the company stated in August in connection with its purchase of a portfolio of senior living communities in the New York City area.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani swept to victory Tuesday evening on a platform of affordability, anchored by a plan to freeze rents across nearly 2 million rent-stabilized apartments.
But economists, universally, hate rent control. In a 2012 poll of top economists, just 2% agreed that rent-control laws have had “a positive impact” on the supply and quality of affordable housing. The Nobel laureate Richard Thaler even quipped in the survey that the next question should be: “Does the sun revolve around the Earth?”
Why do economists revile a plan that seems to promote fairness and equity in a housing market that is clearly broken?
Seductive simplicity
To most voters, freezing rents looks like common sense: If prices are out of reach, stop them from rising. But to economists, that’s like treating a fever by breaking the thermometer: It suppresses the symptom without curing the disease, the persistent shortage of housing.
“Freezing rents doesn’t fix scarcity,” said David Sims, a Brigham Young University economist whose research on Massachusetts rent control remains a touchstone. “It just reshuffles who bears the cost.”
Sims’s work examined the rent-control regime that once governed Cambridge, Mass., where tenants could stay indefinitely at below-market rents. The policy was meant to keep housing affordable, but it led to what he calls misallocation.
“People who could do better by moving tend to stay,” he told Fortune. “Older households hang on to large units they no longer need, while young families can’t find space. Over time, you end up with the wrong people in the wrong apartments.”
When Massachusetts voters repealed rent control in 1994, property values in Cambridge rose 45%—not only for the deregulated apartments, but for entire neighborhoods. It turned out that years of capped rents had discouraged investment and dragged down surrounding property values, meaning that when controls were finally removed, landlords were empowered to upgrade and renovate their apartments. Neighborhoods that had been frozen along with the rents suddenly seemed to revitalize.
That dynamic is already visible in New York. According to the city’s Housing and Vacancy Survey, roughly 26,000 rent-stabilized apartments are sitting empty, many uninhabitable because renovation costs far exceed what landlords can legally recover. The state’s 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act caps recoverable renovation expenses at $50,000 spread over 15 years. Rehabilitating a century-old tenement can cost twice that, leaving owners little incentive to do anything but lock the door.
Short-term relief, long-term pain
Rent control’s immediate benefits, for current residents, are undeniable. It offers stability to tenants living paycheck-to-paycheck and reduces the risk of displacement. But over the long term, economists argue it functions the same way as throwing sand in the gears of the housing market. Landlords defer maintenance they can’t recoup, new construction slows, and the available housing stock quietly erodes.
A 2018 Stanford study led by Rebecca Diamond, one of today’s leading experts in housing markets, found that when San Francisco expanded rent control in the 1990s, the supply of rental housing fell 15% over the next decade. Many landlords converted apartments to condos or owner-occupied housing to escape regulation. The policy helped existing tenants, but ultimately raised market rents citywide and accelerated gentrification, causing the opposite of what policymakers intended.
“It’s not about pitying landlords,” Sims said. “It’s about understanding incentives. You can’t expect people to invest in something if they’ll never break even—just like you can’t expect tenants to volunteer to pay more rent.”
For economists, the deeper problem with rent freezes is conceptual: They imply that affordability can simply be decreed against the logic of supply and demand.
“It creates this belief that the problem can be solved by fiat,” Sims said. “But rents are high because people want to live in New York. The only lasting fix is to make it easier to build more housing that people actually want.”
He offers a visceral analogy of market pressures: Black Friday. People don’t wait in line for stores anymore on Black Friday, Sims said, but there was a time when, for a $1,000 TV at $200, there’d be a line around the block at 4 a.m., and only a few lucky people would get the TV.
“But housing isn’t like a $200 TV,” Sims observed. “Everyone kind of needs a place to live, but if housing is priced like the $200 TV, then there’s a bunch of people in that line who don’t get it.”
That’s the thing about rent control, economists say: It benefits insiders at the expense of outsiders. Over time, it can deepen inequality by keeping younger, lower-income, or newly arrived residents locked out of regulated neighborhoods that effectively become closed clubs.
Band-Aid policy in a broken market
Supporters of Mamdani’s plan counter that New York’s crisis is so severe, temporary freezes are a moral necessity.
With median rents above $4,000, they argue, the city cannot wait for zoning reforms and construction projects that take years to materialize. But even sympathetic economists warn that without parallel measures to boost supply, a freeze simply defers the reckoning.
“If you don’t pair a rent freeze with a credible plan to add housing,” Sims said, “you’re not solving the problem. You’re just pushing off accountability without really solving the underlying problem.”
Supporters of Zohran Mamdani celebrate during an Election Night event at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater on Tuesday. Photo: Angelina Katsanis/AFP/Getty Images
When New Yorkers elected Zohran Mamdani, they gave a much-needed boost to the next mayor by approving ballot measures that will ease the process of building housing, which experts say will be a boon to the mayor-elect’s ability to deliver on his campaign pledge to make the city more affordable.
Proposals 2 and 3 create a fast-track review process for publicly financed affordable-housing projects and cut down the time to review smaller projects. The fourth measure creates a board that has the power to overrule the City Council’s rejection of or revisions to affordable-housing proposals. Most significantly, the measures curtail the City Council’s inputon land-use decisions, removing them from the review process and ending the practice of member deference, which gave councilmembers significant power to block projects in their communities.
“I think it’s going to shave a lot of time, possibly years, off some of the new affordable-housing units that the city is financing, so I think that’s really significant to the next mayor’s housing plan,” says Rachel Fee, the executive director of the New York Housing Conference.
Mamdani has promised to jump-start housing construction, with the goal of creating 200,000 units over the next ten years. Amit Singh Bagga, campaign director of the Yes on Affordable Housing PAC, which supported the ballot questions, said that such lofty goals will not be possible without these changes to the city’s housing process.
“Unless we are able to turbocharge the amount of housing that is produced every single year, we are not going to be able to meet that 200,000 figure that Zohran Mandani has promised for his first term. Because 15,000 to 20,000 units a year does not equal 200,000 in four years,” he says, referring to the current rate of housing creation in the city.
The measures would allow potential projects to avoid the typically lengthy Uniform Land Use Review Procedure that requires applications to undergo months of scrutiny by city agencies, as well as by the local community board and the borough president, culminating in a City Council vote that is subject to the mayor’s approval or veto.
The City Council swiftly condemned the proposed measures and moved to defeat them, first attempting to block the questions from appearing on the ballot and later launching a campaign that spent more than $1.5 million on mailers urging voters to reject the allegedly “misleading” ballot questions — actions that some critics believe run afoul of the city’s laws against electioneering.
Bagga believes the reaction to the measures has been overblown and that the City Council was removed from these review processes for a good reason. “The reason for that is that our current system has essentially been weaponized by a small-minded few that have forced individual City Council members into a Hobson’s choice, which is block housing or lose your seat. What that has resulted in is a total lack of movement on housing for decades in multiple iterations of the Council,” he says. However, he did offer praise for the current City Council and its Speaker, Adrienne Adams, noting that they ushered through the “City of Yes” plan to build more housing.
Mamdani was notably mum on his position on the ballot measures throughout the election. Some of his most prominent allies were on opposite sides of the issue, with Comptroller Brad Lander, Governor Kathy Hochul, and Cea Weaver, who has advised Mamdani on housing policy, supporting the measures and union backers like Local 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council opposing them. Ultimately, Mamdani revealed Tuesday that he voted “yes” on the proposals.
Fee believes that the measures could spur new construction in areas long seen as resistant to new housing and will motivate developers to give project proposals a second look. “If those proposals require a councilmember saying ‘yes’ in the City Council and that councilmember has indicated to the development community that their answer is going to be ‘no,’ nobody’s even looking at sites. Nobody is looking at those opportunities. They’re not going to take the risk of buying a site, investing time and money in a ULURP process that’s going to go nowhere,” she says.
“I do think developers will take a fresh look at some of these areas where we’ve not been building any housing at all and that we will see some new proposals come up that never would have without these changes,” she says.
