HeyJaredHousing Hell
The housing market is hell. Let's figure out why. Posts mostly on real estate economics with other posts on general economic topics.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 9
- Latest publication
- Sep 30, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 13, 2026
Latest issues
TOPA is Bad Policy (opens the original)
Read excerpt
IntroductionWashington DC’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, or TOPA, is an idea that sounds great in theory but is actually awful policy. TOPA gives tenants the right to buy their building (usually as a cooperative) before any other offer can be considered. What appears on the surface to be a reasonable way to promote homeownership, in practice just produces costly delays in the sale to a third party, since buildings are only very rarely purchased by tenants. This lowers the rate of return t
Is Toys R Us a Canonical Example of the Ills of Leveraged Buyouts? (opens the original)
Read excerpt
The downfall Toys R Us is frequently used as a canonical example of the social ills of leveraged buyouts. In 2005, Bain Capital, KKR, and Vornado Realty Trust acquired the company for 6.6 billion dollars. The three firms put up 1.3 billion dollars in equity and 5.3 billion dollars in debt that would now be carried on the company’s balance sheet. Before the LBO, Toys R Us carried about 2.2 billion dollars in debt, but also held about 2.2 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Thus, its net debt wa
Washington DC is just the Building Cycle (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Many center-left/centrist abundance types are dismayed by the decline in multifamily construction starts in the Washington DC. They are quick to assume that the nation’s capital has suddenly become anti-development. While they acknowledge the weak DC rental market, they dismiss this as an explanation for sluggish construction due to an uptick in starts in Northern Virginia suburbs such as Arlington and Alexandria. The reality is that Northern Virginia’s rental is much stronger than DC proper, an
The Building Cycle Visualized (opens the original)
Read excerpt
This article is a brief description of an interesting visualization I created of the building cycle. I briefly lay out the methodology, and then get into the actual visualization itself. The Building Cycle The building cycle is a foundational concept in real estate economics. The idea is that as rents rise, it increases the rate of return to apartment buildings. This draws in capital, attracted by excess returns. This increases construction activity. As new projects get delivered, it puts downwa
There is no “Free Market” for Treasury Bonds (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Many ideologically captured commentators, including the current Fed Reserve Chair, mistakenly believe that the Fed does not control long term bond yields. This is false. While the Fed Reserve does not directly set long term yields like it does with short term interest rates, long term yields are just an expectation of the geometric average of future short rates. In this way, current and expected Fed policy are tightly linked with bond yields. The Fed cannot escape this reality, and doing so will
Publishing over time
Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.
Recurring subjects
Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.
Audience
No verified audience measurement yet.
About this data
Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.
Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.