On Our Radar

The New York Times, January 3, 2024, When Will New York Solve Its Housing Crisis? Probably Not This Year Now, state leaders will get another try. The 2024 legislative session, which began on Wednesday, will again test New York State’s willingness to tackle one of its most debilitating problems. The context this year is in […]

Bloomberg, December 20, 2023, Big Banks Are Copying From Private Credit’s Playbook On the surface, it was your run-of-the-mill private credit deal. A bunch of heavy hitters in the industry — Oak Hill Advisors, Antares Capital and Golub Capital — were providing half-a-billion dollars to fund the buyout of an engineering firm. But at the end of

The American Prospect, January 3, 2024, Untangling The Government Funding Mess. A Congress that has operated on short deadlines and chaos since its inception last January heads into 2024 with more short deadlines and chaos. In fact, our heroes missed a crucial deadline with the passage of the new year. The debt limit deal had a condition

DCist, December 28, 2023, Forecast For Northern Virginia Housing Market In 2024 Predicts Fewer Sales, Rising Prices The already-tight housing market isn’t expected to get much better in DC’s Virginia suburbs in the new year, even though high interest rates are expected to ease, according to a forecast from the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors and George

Planetizen, January 2, 2024, Approaching Affordable Housing From All Angles Writing in Architectural Digest, Abigail Glasgow assesses the state of affordable housing in the United States. For Glasgow, “Like any systemic issue, the first step to deconstructing the housing crisis requires getting the terminology right.” The article includes examples from places as diverse as Rhode Island and

Federal Trade Commission, December 18, 2023, Federal Trade Commission And Justice Department Release 2023 Merger Guidelines The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department jointly issued the 2023 Merger Guidelines, which describe factors and frameworks the agencies utilize when reviewing mergers and acquisitions. The 2023 Merger Guidelines are the culmination of a nearly two-year process of

WTOP News, January 1, 2024, How A Northern Virginia Teen Is Spreading The Word Around Climate Change With Art From Europe to the Southwestern US, 2023 was likely the hottest year on record. When it comes to the changing planet, a Fairfax County, Virginia, teen wants kids to take action now. Arielle Kouyoumdjian, 17, is founder

The New York Times, October 31, 2023, The New York Times: The Cost of Being Disable in New York City Housing. As a wheelchair user, I have always had to pay a premium to live in an apartment independently. In my nine years living in New York City, I have spent more than $18,500 on

Realtor, October 10, 2023, Is the Housing Market Overvalued? What Buyers Need To Know Homes in 98 of the 100 largest housing markets are selling above their long-term prices, which indicates that they are overvalued, according to an August analysis from Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University researchers. Only two markets had homes selling at a

Axios, October 10, 2023, U.S. Economy Adds Staggering 336,000 Jobs In September The U.S. economy added a staggering 336,000 jobs in September, defying expectations of a slowdown, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 3.8%, according to new data the Labor Department released Friday. : The new data reverses what had been signs of a definitive cooling in the labor market.

NPR, October 10, 2023, The Forest Service Is Trying To Build Affordable Housing To Keep Staff In Colorado The U.S. Forest Service is in charge of millions of acres in Colorado’s mountains, but their workers can hardly afford to live there. Now, the service is trying to build more affordable staff housing. The Forest Service

AP News, October 3, 2023, Massachusetts Has A Huge Waitlist For State-Funded Housing. So Why Are 2,300 Units Vacant? In Massachusetts, which has some of the country’s most expensive real estate, there are 184,000 people on a waitlist for the state’s 41,500 subsidized apartments. Yet a WBUR and ProPublica investigation found that nobody is living in nearly

NYTimes, October 3, 2023, New York Is Rebounding For The Rich. Nearly Everyone Else Is Struggling. As New York City inches closer to recovering all the jobs it lost during the pandemic, Manhattan — the city’s economic engine — marked a far less encouraging milestone. It now has the biggest income gap of any large

Shelterforce, October 3, 2023, Which U.S. Laws Require Accessibility In Housing—And How Well Do They Do? Section 504 says that in any housing development that receives federal funds, at least 5 percent of the units must be accessible for people with physical or mobility disabilities and 2 percent accessible for people with vision or hearing

NPR, October 3, 2023, Consumer Watchdog Agency’s Fate At Supreme Court Could Nix Other Agencies Too If you have a mortgage or a loan or a credit card, you likely have more protection from deceptive practices in the financial services industry today than you did at the time of the 2008 financial crash. Now, however,