Free Republic

San Diego is one of the nation’s hottest housing markets, with average home prices hovering around $1 million and rents for a one-bedroom apartment topping $2,000 a month. Yet city officials estimate that more than 5,000 properties sit empty most of the year, which some advocates argue worsens the city’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. So California’s second-largest city is set to take dramatic action. In a few weeks, San Diego voters will decide whether to become the latest California municipality to tax vacant homes

Chicago residents in rent-controlled housing near a site being constructed to honor former President Barack Obama have reportedly unionized in response to the controversial project. Residents of a longtime Woodlawn apartment building organized to resist possible displacement and rent increases they say are being driven by development pressure surrounding the Obama Presidential Center. Tenants at the Chaney Braggs Apartments rallied earlier this month outside their building near 65th Street and Stony Island Avenue, saying a potential sale of the property could upend the lives of families who have lived there for decades, FOX 32 Chicago reported. A California-based investor is...

The New York state attorney general’s office has notified Capital Tonight it has filed a notice of appeal in the state Supreme Court’s ruling in March that a state law requiring landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers is unconstitutional. In its decision, the court ruled it’s a violation of a landlord’s Fourth Amendment rights because it forces landlords to consent to governmental searches of their rental properties and records. The housing voucher program helps those who are low-income, older New Yorkers, veterans and disabled families rent or buy affordable housing. “I don’t agree with the basis of the claim,” said...

The weather might have been extreme this winter in Manhattan, but the snow didn’t stop deep-pocketed home buyers, according to a host of market reports released this week. In the first quarter, demand for homes across the New York City borough priced between $10 million and $20 million jumped, with transactions surging 47.4% compared to the same time last year, according to data from Compass. “Despite broader market slowdowns, the luxury market continued to outperform expectations,” the report, released Tuesday, said. Townhouses in particular had a strong start to the year, according to Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller...

There’s a lot of money in crises and if you’re wondering where that money went, ask the folks profiting from the crisis. The open borders invasion was bad news for a lot of people, but good news for some. Now there’s bad news to go with the good news. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether a New York City Council member and her sister, an aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul, accepted bribes or kickbacks in connection with the appropriation of city funds to a migrant shelter provider in a warrant that seeks evidence of possible criminal violations involving Councilmember Farah Louis,...

Concern is rippling through the housing market as sellers slash prices at notable rates to attract buyers amid softening demand. In February 2026, about one in five homes across nine major metro areas saw a price reduction, according to a new analysis by the Realtor.com. Pandemic-era hotspots have been hit particularly hard, with all four leading markets for price reductions being former Covid 'boomtowns'. Each of these metros saw at least one in five listings marked down, with Phoenix taking the lead 28.2 percent of homes there carried a price cut. Other markets with steep markdowns included Tampa, San Antonio,...

Los Angeles homeless people are being put up in brand new apartments in ritzy neighborhoods that cost taxpayers up to $1.5 million per room, the California Post can reveal. At least $2.6 billion of taxpayers cash has been spent buying and renovating hotels, motels and dorms for the huge unhoused population in the city and county since 2020. The properties were all purchased with $1.3 billion from Governor Gavin Newsom’s Homekey initiative, which then renovated with another $1.3 billion in funding from the city and county of Los Angeles. Some of the suites, which are staggered across neighborhoods such as...

Texas challenged the rule, arguing it threatened the availability of affordable housing. A federal court has struck down a Biden-era rule that imposed “green energy” requirements for new housing constructions, threatening the availability of affordable housing. The case, co-led with Utah, was argued by Attorney General Ken Paxton in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Tyler. “The Corrupt Biden Administration’s radical policies were reducing the availability of affordable homes and making it harder for Americans to achieve the dream of homeownership,” stated Paxton. “This ruling is a major victory for homebuyers, builders, and families and...

Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin confirmed Monday the Trump administration wants to intensify efforts to get state and local regulators to drop burdensome, costly zoning laws — including on homes built on assembly lines — to help the next generation afford the American dream of home ownership. The Palisades Fire in Southern California last year destroyed roughly 13,000 homes in the Palisades and Eaton neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Over a year later, a little more than 3,000 rebuilding permits have been issued and only a few dozen homes have been built, according to The New York Post. Zeldin detailed...

In the shaded courtyard of a San Francisco affordable housing complex in early March, California’s most prolific Yes In My Backyard legislator rolled out his congressional campaign’s new housing platform.

CHICAGO - Tenants at Chaney Braggs Apartments, at 65th Street and Stony Island Avenue, held a rally Thursday morning, protesting possible rent increases and the threat of losing their homes as construction continues at the Obama Presidential Center a few blocks away. Residents say a California investor wants to buy the building and either gut and rehab it or demolish it. According to tenants, the buyer is offering a $2,000 cash payment for each family to move out. Most tenants currently pay $700 to $800 a month in rent, and many have lived in the building for 30 or even...

New York City has more than tripled spending on unsheltered homelessness since 2019, shelling out nearly $368 million even as the number of people living on the streets continued to rise, according to a state comptroller’s report. The city’s own numbers show the unsheltered population grew from 3,588 in fiscal year 2019 to 4,504 in fiscal year 2025, a 26% increase from pre-pandemic levels. Over that same period, spending on services for the unsheltered jumped 262%, from $102 million to nearly $368 million. That works out to roughly $81,700 per unsheltered person in FY 2025 — slightly more than the...

Nearly four in 10 new homes built by 2030 will be needed to accommodate migrants arriving in Britain, according to fresh analysis. The research, conducted by the Conservative Party, draws on projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook. According to the OBR, net migration between 2026 and 2030 is expected to reach almost 1.2 million people. Using ONS data on average household size, the Conservatives estimate this would require around just under 500,000 additional homes for new arrivals alone. Britain is projected to deliver about 1.34 million new homes over the same period. The...

As a cofounder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook, Peter Thiel is widely recognized for his expertise in tech. But for a while now, the billionaire venture capitalist is sounding the alarm on an entirely different sector: real estate.During an interview with Common Wealth Canada in late 2024, Thiel drew upon the insights of 19th-century economist Henry George to underscore the gravity of America’s real estate crisis (1).snip“The dynamic ends up being that you add 10% to the population in a city, and maybe the house prices go up 50%, and maybe people’s salaries go up, but...

In New York’s large suite of self-destructive public policies, it’s hard to choose which one is the very worst. But an excellent candidate is the regime for regulation of residential rents, mostly going by the name of Rent Stabilization. Because of rent regulation, New York’s rental housing stock is older, more outdated, and less well-maintained than the housing of any other American city. If you got yourself into one of the regulated apartments a few decades ago, you likely enjoy a significant bargain on your monthly rent versus comparable space, to go along with your 30- or 40-year old kitchen...

Almost 40 per cent of new homes built by 2030 will be needed for migrant housing, Conservative Party analysis shows. The research is based on the Office for Budget Responsibility's latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook which expects a net migration of 1,172,792 people between 2026 and 2030. The means there would need to be around 499,000 extra homes to house new arrivals, according to the ONS average household size. During the next four years, the UK is forecasted to build 1.34million new homes, meaning 37.1 per cent could be used to home migrants. The figure was used to hit out...

Senate blasts through housing reform 89-10 bipartisan.Cuts HUD red tape stops investor home hoarding.Boosts builds fulfills Trump affordability push.The Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with huge bipartisan support. It fights the housing crunch squeezing working families.Lawmakers like Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren teamed up on grants and pilots to spark new homes.The bill tweaks rules for more housing types and blocks big investors from snapping up single-family houses.It streamlines federal inspections to speed projects without new spending.“When President Trump and Elizabeth Warren and the Senate majority of Republicans can all come to the same place on...

The Senate on Thursday passed the largest housing affordability bill in 30 years, including a ban on investors from buying single-family homes, with a 89-10 vote. But the bill faces an upward battle in the House, which passed its own bipartisan legislation in February. House GOP leaders have already said the measure will need to be negotiated, suggesting they will not take up the Senate-passed bill. House Minority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., earlier this week told fellow House Republicans in a closed-door meeting that the measure is likely to bog down over differences between the two chambers’ versions. One of...

Katelin Holloway and Ben Ramirez thought they had found their forever home when they purchased a spacious North Beach property for $4.75 million in 2021 — a four-story residence with five bedrooms, sweeping skyline views and room for their growing family. Instead, the couple is now facing the possibility that the house must be carved back into four separate apartments after city officials determined the building was improperly converted from a multi-unit property years before they bought it, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. SNIP According to city officials and tenant advocates, the building had previously been altered from a...

The Senate will today debate the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. Buried in the sprawling legislation is a section reportedly written by Sen. Elizabeth Warren titled “Homes Are for People, Not Corporations.” It has the backing of the White House and broad support in the Senate. The idea sounds politically appealing. In practice, it could sow the seeds of the next housing crash. The provision targets large institutional investors that own single-family rental homes. It effectively blocks investors that own more than 350 homes from buying additional single-family houses except under narrow circumstances. Even those purchases must generally be...