he root of our housing crisis isn’t zoning, interest rates, or immigration. It’s a distorted view of equity—and by extension, of what counts as “real” housing.
In America equity is treated as valid only when tied to a suburban three-bedroom, two-bath home. That model is already in place with Habitat and other organizations. It works for families. It even works for multi-generational households. But it fails the far larger group: singles and couples who need an affordable foothold.
The answer is starter-scale equity. Think small units—even kitchenette-style spaces—recognized as legitimate investments. Equity shouldn’t require a mortgage-sized leap.
A co-op framework can make this work. Residents buy in, maintain their unit and community, and sell their share back to the co-op when they move on. They carry forward their equity to the next step.
This reframes ownership: equity as a ladder, not a leap. It opens the door that the suburban model keeps locked.
Yes, zoning and finance matter. But the bigger barrier is mindset—the idea that only a house with a yard builds “real” wealth. Until we challenge that assumption, millions will remain shut out of ownership.
This is super interesting and makes sense on its face. I wonder what can be done to shift the mindset you're explaining -- and whether the fix is actually downstream of policy rather than just cultural.
Glad it resonated. I can only frame it in terms of my own experience:
I've worked as an occasional volunteer for Habitat for a couple decades, and I support their (typical) single family model as far as it goes. Lately I've been exposed to a Habitat org trying a different approach, and assisted them in building ten 450sq. ft. free-standing loft type "tiny homes" (for lack of a better description). They have 30 more in the pipeline.
I'm excited about the approach, which is just a bit rooted in Housing First. Does it connect with policy or culture? I'm not sure, I just bend nails. = ) I think the answer is demonstrating that you can grow people and their equity through the entry level, and prep them for the American Dream that the larger machine (think home builders like Taylor Morrison, Pulte) and Realtors are fixated on.
Re: Boyd? I think it's a heck of an Orientation reset.
My vote for the root cause of the housing affordability crisis is monetary policy. Zoning and regulatory hurdles aid and abet the housing distortions. Housing as an asset market enables corruptions. Tax policy is complicit. Quality land is a finite asset. Housing is unaffordable because of the way we treat land (the economic and political rules of the property game). Our current methods to incentivize affordable housing reward the rich with even more spoils—how generous!
Monetary policy is the root cause—an exploding monetary base and finite land. Monetary policy is the root cause—cheap credit to stimulate borrowing which favors asset owners over wage earners (the spoils of productivity). Monetary policy is the game that sets the monopoly board in motion. Once all the squares on the board are owned by rent-seekers, earning your inflation-adjusted $200 each time you pass go is barely enough to keep you in the game as rent-to-income ratios squeeze higher. Good luck accumulating the capital from wages to earn the down payment necessary to buy back the land from the landlord.
Landlord is a funny word dating back to at least the 14th century. Monetary policy…
My fiancée and I are among the last millennials (99’ers) and we recently moved from NoVA to NoFL(northern Florida just made it up). One of the biggest driving factors, aside from proximity to the beach, was housing affordability. We bought a house down south as a young couple in our mid 20’s. This is completely impossible in NoVA, and much of the north and other “liberal” areas. I think it ultimately gets down to politics. The south builds - a lot! I don’t have numbers but this has to be the root cause. Even tier 3 cities like the one I moved too builds tons of new housing.
Yep! Hence you're seeing rents and housing prices come down meaningfully over the past few months in some major southern metros, especially where there's been an abundance of multifamily building.
I just made the same move and we didn’t save much on housing, but that’s because the dc housing market collapsed this summer. If we had sold a year ago we would have done fine though.
Housing is expensive because high house prices are how we segregate.
I don’t mean this to call people racist or whatever. It’s super rational and justified to buy expensive housing if it’s the only way to get a safe neighborhood and a “good school” anywhere near jobs that pay well. Zoning is just one way of actualizing this desire and not the underlying problem.
So I think solving those problems is really the only way to unlock housing. If huge chunks of all our cities are considered unlivable by normal middle class people that takes a lot of potential housing off the table. People see Japan or Singapore build a lot but you don’t need to worry who your neighbor is in those places.
My preferred housing reform is actually universal school vouchers like we have in Florida. Decoupling “good schools” from real estate makes a way higher swath of real estate livable. It also makes zoning less contentious.
he root of our housing crisis isn’t zoning, interest rates, or immigration. It’s a distorted view of equity—and by extension, of what counts as “real” housing.
In America equity is treated as valid only when tied to a suburban three-bedroom, two-bath home. That model is already in place with Habitat and other organizations. It works for families. It even works for multi-generational households. But it fails the far larger group: singles and couples who need an affordable foothold.
The answer is starter-scale equity. Think small units—even kitchenette-style spaces—recognized as legitimate investments. Equity shouldn’t require a mortgage-sized leap.
A co-op framework can make this work. Residents buy in, maintain their unit and community, and sell their share back to the co-op when they move on. They carry forward their equity to the next step.
This reframes ownership: equity as a ladder, not a leap. It opens the door that the suburban model keeps locked.
Yes, zoning and finance matter. But the bigger barrier is mindset—the idea that only a house with a yard builds “real” wealth. Until we challenge that assumption, millions will remain shut out of ownership.
This is super interesting and makes sense on its face. I wonder what can be done to shift the mindset you're explaining -- and whether the fix is actually downstream of policy rather than just cultural.
Glad it resonated. I can only frame it in terms of my own experience:
I've worked as an occasional volunteer for Habitat for a couple decades, and I support their (typical) single family model as far as it goes. Lately I've been exposed to a Habitat org trying a different approach, and assisted them in building ten 450sq. ft. free-standing loft type "tiny homes" (for lack of a better description). They have 30 more in the pipeline.
I'm excited about the approach, which is just a bit rooted in Housing First. Does it connect with policy or culture? I'm not sure, I just bend nails. = ) I think the answer is demonstrating that you can grow people and their equity through the entry level, and prep them for the American Dream that the larger machine (think home builders like Taylor Morrison, Pulte) and Realtors are fixated on.
Re: Boyd? I think it's a heck of an Orientation reset.
How much land do these 10 homes need?
3.3 acres for all 40, according to the county GIS. I can drop a pic or two if there's interest.
Isn’t this called owning a condo. I owned a condo once.
My vote for the root cause of the housing affordability crisis is monetary policy. Zoning and regulatory hurdles aid and abet the housing distortions. Housing as an asset market enables corruptions. Tax policy is complicit. Quality land is a finite asset. Housing is unaffordable because of the way we treat land (the economic and political rules of the property game). Our current methods to incentivize affordable housing reward the rich with even more spoils—how generous!
Monetary policy is the root cause—an exploding monetary base and finite land. Monetary policy is the root cause—cheap credit to stimulate borrowing which favors asset owners over wage earners (the spoils of productivity). Monetary policy is the game that sets the monopoly board in motion. Once all the squares on the board are owned by rent-seekers, earning your inflation-adjusted $200 each time you pass go is barely enough to keep you in the game as rent-to-income ratios squeeze higher. Good luck accumulating the capital from wages to earn the down payment necessary to buy back the land from the landlord.
Landlord is a funny word dating back to at least the 14th century. Monetary policy…
Several here at Boyd would absolutely agree monetary policy is the root cause!
My fiancée and I are among the last millennials (99’ers) and we recently moved from NoVA to NoFL(northern Florida just made it up). One of the biggest driving factors, aside from proximity to the beach, was housing affordability. We bought a house down south as a young couple in our mid 20’s. This is completely impossible in NoVA, and much of the north and other “liberal” areas. I think it ultimately gets down to politics. The south builds - a lot! I don’t have numbers but this has to be the root cause. Even tier 3 cities like the one I moved too builds tons of new housing.
Yep! Hence you're seeing rents and housing prices come down meaningfully over the past few months in some major southern metros, especially where there's been an abundance of multifamily building.
I just made the same move and we didn’t save much on housing, but that’s because the dc housing market collapsed this summer. If we had sold a year ago we would have done fine though.
Housing is expensive because high house prices are how we segregate.
I don’t mean this to call people racist or whatever. It’s super rational and justified to buy expensive housing if it’s the only way to get a safe neighborhood and a “good school” anywhere near jobs that pay well. Zoning is just one way of actualizing this desire and not the underlying problem.
So I think solving those problems is really the only way to unlock housing. If huge chunks of all our cities are considered unlivable by normal middle class people that takes a lot of potential housing off the table. People see Japan or Singapore build a lot but you don’t need to worry who your neighbor is in those places.
My preferred housing reform is actually universal school vouchers like we have in Florida. Decoupling “good schools” from real estate makes a way higher swath of real estate livable. It also makes zoning less contentious.