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The latest news and analysis from the NYU Furman Center.
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Research & Policy
The GSE Conservatorships: Fifteen Years Old, With No End in Sight
Senior Visiting Fellow Donald H. Layton compiles a 10-point Q&A to explain some of the history and key events of the government’s conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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Faced with Housing Shortages, Policymakers Test New Reforms To Increase Production
State and local policymakers around the country are working to address America’s severe housing shortage, by considering, and implementing, a wide range of policies in the hopes of increasing housing supply. A new series of seven papers published by the NYU Furman Center, with funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, shows how specific land use reforms have affected outcomes on the ground, especially in residential areas.
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Research & Policy
Manufactured Housing Is a Good Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing - Except When It’s Not: High-Level and Specific Policy Recommendations (Part 3)
Recently, there has been a renewed focus on expanding the supply of manufactured housing (MH), known for being low cost, as one key method to help reduce that shortage. This reflects the belief by its supporters that MH, being produced in an efficient factory environment, can provide low-cost housing without the need for government subsidy, whereas other sources of low-cost housing usually do require such support in one form or another. In Parts 1 and 2, I showed that MH often does not easily fit into the traditional categories of rental or owned housing, particularly due to the significant market share of MH where the structure is owned by its resident but the underlying land is rented from someone else. In this Part 3, after briefly reviewing the analytical framework and policy underpinnings developed in Parts 1 and 2, I lay out recommendations designed to fit the complex economics of the MH marketplace.
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News & Events
Changing Narratives and Engaging Communities Toward Better Policy: New York City’s Low-Density Neighborhoods Event Recap
A recent report from the NYU Furman Center illustrates that New York City’s least-dense community districts are permitting new housing at lower rates compared to the rest of the city, raising questions for policymakers over how to achieve fair and equitable housing growth across a broad range of neighborhood types. On May 25th, 2023, the NYU Furman Center hosted By The Numbers: Focus on New York City’s Lowest Density Neighborhoods, an event that gathered city officials, housing policy researchers, and leaders from community organizations to discuss the findings from the report and its implications.
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Research & Policy
Government Mortgage Interest Rates: A Serious Discussion about the Intertwined Topics of Risk Adjustment and Cross-subsidies
The purpose of this article is to address the very serious – and not broadly understood or openly discussed – interrelated topics of interest rate risk adjustment (or the lack thereof) and the embedded and often hidden cross-subsidies that today are found at the four government mortgage agencies, i.e., the two GSES plus the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).