Programs & Events Conferences
-
Wednesday, April 10th 2013
Big Ideas for the Big Apple: Furman Center Mayoral Forum
Mayoral Candidates Bill de Blasio, Christine Quinn, John Liu, Bill Thompson, Adolfo Carrion, and Sal Albanese gave their perspective on New York City’s housing issues to 450 attendees at the Furman Center and Moelis Institute’s Mayoral Forum, Big Ideas for the Big Apple, hosted by Brian Lehrer yesterday. The Forum was preceeded by several panel discussions on the housing legacy of former Mayor Ed Koch. Hear analysis from Furman Center Director Vicki Been and get the full forum audio from the Brian Lehrer Show , or follow @FurmanCenterNYU on twitter to see tweets from the event. Complete video of the forum will be available here soon.
-
Wednesday, September 19th 2012
Bringing More Private, Credit-Risk-Taking Capital into the Housing Market
At the request of the Housing Commission, Research Fellow Mark Willis gathered together a special group of experts in housing finance and capital markets to help the Commission members better understand ways to bring more private, credit-risk-taking capital into the housing market. Willis moderated the two sessions at the NYU School of Law. The first convening focused on bringing in private capital ahead of a government guarantee that would then only be needed to cover catastrophic losses. The dialogue explored different types of insurance and of capital market vehicles for taking the “first-loss” risk as well as the types of institutions needed to issue the securities and provide the government wrap. The second convening explored the conditions needed to revive the private-label-securities (PLS) market to allow for the securitization of more mortgages without any direct government support. The dialogue covered issues ranging from standardization and model documents to increased transparency for investors to better able to assess their risks both before and after the mortgage-backed securities are sold.
-
Tuesday, April 10th 2012
The Size and Scope of the Problems Second Liens Pose
Director Vicki Been, Research Fellow Mark Willis, and Howell Jackson, the James S. Reid, Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, facilitated “The Size and Scope of the Problems Second Liens Pose,” a roundtable discussion that examined the role second liens play in making it harder to resolve distressed first mortgages and therefore potentially undermining efforts to stabilize the housing market. A wide range of issues were debated by participants that included servicers, investors, title insurers, consultants, bank regulators, government officials, mortgage counselors, economists, lawyers, accountants and academics. The discussion also explored possible ways to mitigate the impact of second liens today and to avoid recreating the same problems in the future. The information gathered at the roundtable discussion, in combination with an extensive literature review, provides the basis for a white paper for the Pew Foundation’s Strategies for Revitalizing the Housing Sector.
-
Thursday, November 10th 2011
Foreclosures & Neighborhood Decay: Implications for Housing and Criminal Justice Policy
In the last few years, the mortgage foreclosure crisis has uprooted millions of households and destabilized myriad communities around the country. News stories have reported growing concerns about the effects of these foreclosed homes on surrounding communities and on crime in particular, as buildings sit vacant and unmonitored. With funding from the National Institute of Justice, the Furman Center is undertaking a set of studies exploring how foreclosures affect neighborhood crime. On November 10th, the Furman Center hosted an invitation-only roundtable to present its research findings to date and to facilitate discussion of the implications for housing and criminal justice policy. Participants represented a broad array of stakeholders, including representatives from local government (including those working in both housing and criminal justice), nonprofit organizations, foundations, and academia. View the working paper on foreclosures and crime in New York City here.
-
Thursday, September 8th 2011
Opportunities for Affordable Housing Preservation: Strategies for the Future
On September 8, 2011, the Institute for Affordable Housing Policy gathered leaders from across government, community-based non-profits, private firms and academia for a roundtable discussion to address the future of affordable housing in New York City. The Furman Center and Institute’s Subsidized Housing Information Project (SHIP) was launched on the morning of September 8, 2011 and served as the focal point of the roundtable discussion. The SHIP database provides extensive information on nearly 235,000 subsidized affordable housing units in New York City, consolidating information from 50 separate public and private data sources into one searchable website. This critical new resource will enable policymakers to make informed decisions and help ensure the continued availability of subsidized rental properties for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.
-
Friday, February 4th 2011
Navigating Uncertain Water: Mortgage Lending in the Wake of the Great Recession
On February 4, 2011, the Furman Center’s Institute for Affordable Housing Policy hosted an invitation-only Roundtable called “Navigating Uncertain Waters: Mortgage Lending in the Wake of the Great Recession.” The event aimed to assist government, corporations, academics and non-profits address the challenge of mortgage credit need and availability by promoting informed discussion and providing evidence-based, objective research and analysis. The Roundtable included three robust discussion sessions and presentations on the current state of housing finance and recommendations for reform.
-
Thursday, February 12th 2009
A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Transforming America’s Housing Policy
With support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation, New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy convened leading thinkers for the conference “A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Transforming America’s Housing Policy” on Thursday, February 12 and Friday, February 13 2009 in order to reexamine federal housing policy, and its connections to the broader economy and other areas of federal policy.
-
Friday, November 21st 2008
How to House the Homeless
On November 21, 2008 the Furman Center, in partnership with the Columbia Center for Homelessness Prevention Studies and with generous funding from the Russell Sage Foundation, invited a host of scholars and practitioners to discuss current issues and ideas in homelessness prevention.
-
Friday, May 2nd 2008
Transforming Foreclosed Properties into Community Assets
On May 2, 2008, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, with support from the Ford Foundation, convened leading housing researchers, policymakers, lenders, and nonprofit housing organizations to discuss how to best leverage public and private resources to reuse foreclosed properties in a manner that helps stabilize neighborhoods.
-
Wednesday, March 12th 2008
A Conversation on The Blueprint for American Prosperity
A special breakfast forum to discuss a recent initiative from the Brookings Institution. The Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation sets forth a framework for federal-state-metro partnerships to tackle today’s most potent policy issues - housing, transportation, education, the global economy, climate change and environmental policy.
-
Monday, February 12th 2007
Housing and America’s Future
On Monday, February 12, 2007, the Furman Center hosted Jonathan Fanton, President for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, for a major policy address, including an announcement that the MacArthur Foundation will invest $25 million in new research to build and deepen our knowledge about the ways that housing affects children, families, and communities.
-
Monday, April 24th 2006
Affordable for Whom? Meeting Diverse Housing Needs in High-Cost Cities
As housing prices rise in many big cities, the need for innovative strategies—and subsidies—grows more pressing. At the same time, the range of households who face financial difficulties purchasing or even renting a home continues to widen. How do municipalities balance the need for affordable housing at all income levels, and what are the implications and opportunities in communities? What is the appropriatebalance of subsidy and tax dollars for low-, moderate-, and middle-income development, and what is an appropriate income mix for a healthy community? How do public agencies address the needs of higher-income households while continuing to serve those of the lowest-income ones? This conference will address these questions inhousing markets such as New York City, San Francisco, and Boston—cities in which the question is not “is this unit affordable” but, rather, “for whom is this unit affordable?”
-
Thursday, April 21st 2005
VU2005: The Economics of Residential Real Estate
On April 21, the New York Times and the Furman Center hosted the VU2005 real estate conference at NYU School of Law’s Vanderbilt Hall. Panelists included Richard Ferrari, Senior Vice President at Prudential Douglas Elliman, Sharon Baum, Senior Vice President at The Corcoran Group, Rafael Cestero, Deputy Commissioner of Development at HPD, and Anne Bagamery, Senior Editor of Personal Finance from the International Herald Tribune.
-
Monday, March 7th 2005
Barriers to the Development of Housing in New York City
The Furman Center brought together two panels of experts to critique the recommendations included in Reducing the Cost of Housing Construction in New York City: Update 2005 to discuss more broadly the appropriate balance between the need for lower‑cost housing and the need for zoning, environmental and health and safety regulations.
-
Monday, December 6th 2004
Constitutional Constraints on Local Governments’ Exercise of Eminent Domain
Inspired by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent grant of certiorari in Kelo v. City of New London, New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, the Municipal Arts Society and the law school’s Real Estate & Urban Policy Forum (REUPF) presented a mini-conference on the controversy over the “public use” requirement as it relates to government takings.
-
Thursday, November 18th 2004
Planning in the Digital Age
This conference addressed the ways in which public agencies, community development organizations, and research and policy organizations are using technological advances to improve their planning and policy-making processes.
