I don’t know if you’re familiar with Randall O’Toole from the Cato Institute, but he’s much better reading than Lawrence Yun. I was just acquainted with one of his latest works entitled How Urban Planners Caused the Housing Bubble.
If you’re in real estate, it is a must read. I live in a strict Growth Management state from a public planning perspective. As a freedom loving individual, it is frustrating. But this analysis not only talks about the costs of planning, but the volatility it introduces into the market and why. It compares different policies of various states.
The correlation between planning practices and pricing volatility is uncanny! Fed policy, the Community Reinvestment Act and other hair brained political practices can’t explain the phenomenon without the inclusion of growth managment into the equation. The costs for growth managment are also staggering! For real estate nerds, it is required reading!
Benjamin Ficker says:
I spent the first 4 years of my real estate career in Portland OR, where the Urban Growth Boundary was the thorn in every builders side. Home prices definitely went up during the bubble, but not even close to the rate that other parts of the country (Phoenix) saw. Now, their sales have slumped and the prices have dropped slightly, while in Phoenix you can meet people who owe 3x what their home is worth.
October 14, 2009 — 7:15 pm