You can download the whole series in one PDF by clicking here.
Table of Contents
#1 – Despite Our Extremely High Mortgage Debt, the U.S. has a Below Average Home Ownership Rate
#2 – The Real Reason House Prices Skyrocketed After Covid
#3 - For Black Home Ownership, “Affordable” Housing Policies Have Been Worse Than Jim Crow
#5 - The Home Ownership Boom After World War 2 was Due, in Part, to New Houses Becoming a Lot Smaller
#6 – U.S. Home Ownership Fell More During the Great Recession than During the Great Depression
Economics
#9 – The Fast and Slow Economic Fundamentals of House Prices
#10 – The Economics of Houses are Different
#11 – The Supply of Houses Grows More Slowly than the Supply of Gold
#12 – Houses are Also an Investment Good
#13 – The Desire to Own the House You Live In is Extremely Price Inelastic
#14 – Higher House Prices Can INCREASE Current Demand
#15 – More Reasons Why House Prices Can Increase Surprisingly Fast
#16 – Economic Fundamentals Explain Less Than Half of House Price Changes
#17 - U.S. Housing Policies Almost Moved Toward Vienna or Singapore in the 1960s
Black Home Ownership
#18 – FHA was Extremely Racist
#19 – Worse Than Redlining
#20 – From 1940 to 1970 the Black Home Ownership Rate Increased More in the South than the North
#21 – Redlining was a National Policy to Segregate the North
#22 – The National Association of Realtors Opposed the 1968 Fair Housing Act
#23 – The 1968 Fair Housing Act had Very Weak Enforcement
#25 – The Black Home Ownership Rate is Higher Today in the South than in the North
#26 – The Black Home Ownership Rate Is NOT Getting Any Closer to the White Home Ownership Rate!
Mortgages
#29 – For Mortgages, “Affordable” is Code for “Higher-Foreclosure”
#31 – All Those Decades of “Affordable” Mortgages Didn’t Increase Home Ownership
#32 – “Affordable” Mortgages are Affordable for the Government
#33 – Easier Mortgages Easily Turn Into Higher House Prices
#34 - The Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction Increases House Prices which Lowers Home Ownership
#35 – When House Prices Go Up, Foreclosures Go Down
#36 – Fallacy of Composition – Foreclosures
#37 – Fallacy of Geographic Composition – Foreclosures
#38 – The “Affordable” Mortgage Cycle
#39 – The Real Reason for “Affordable” Higher-Foreclosure Mortgages
#40 – Real, Inflation-Adjusted, Fannie & Freddie Loan Limits are 2 to 3 Times Higher Than in 1980
#42 – Mortgages are Only 20 Years Long in Many Countries
#43 – Portable Mortgages Would Prevent Today’s Mortgage Lock-in Effect
#44 – Lower-Only Adjustable-Rate Mortgages (LO-ARMs) Would Stabilize Home Ownership and the Economy
#45 – The U.S. Mortgage Industry is Largely Nationalized
#46 – Since Our Mortgage System is Nationalized, Shouldn’t We Get a Better Deal?
#47 – A Big Reason the Mortgage Industry Always Pushes for Higher-Foreclosure Mortgages
#48 – Appraisal Creep
#49 – The VA Has a Lot More Zero Down Payment Mortgages Than FHA But the VA Has FEWER Foreclosures!
Real Estate Bubbles
#50 – Housing Bubbles Hurt Older Home Owners, Too
#51 – High House Prices Don’t Help Current Home Owners Much Unless They're Last-Home Sellers
#52 – Housing Bubbles are Common Historically
#53 – 1 Secret Reason for the 2000s Real Estate Bubble
#54 – The Great Real Estate Bubble Was Amazingly Symmetric – Prices Often Fell Like They Rose
#55 – 17% of ALL U.S. Home Owners with Mortgages Were Still Underwater 5 Years AFTER The End of The Great Recession
Interest Rates
Landlord Tax Breaks
#59 – We Have 2 Completely Different Tax Codes for Single-Family Houses
#60 – The Landlord Next Door Gets a Lot of Tax Breaks You Don’t
#61 – Landlords Bought More Single-Family Houses from 2008 to 2012 than All New Single-Family Houses Built
#62 – Tax Breaks for Landlords Increase Homelessness
#63 – How to Easily Increase Home Ownership for FREE!
The Fed
#64 – The Fed’s Mandate is Stable Prices… EXCEPT House Prices
#65 – The Fed Happily Destabilizes Family Wealth to Stabilize Wall Street
#66 – The Housing Wealth Effect is a Double-Edged, Lopsided Sword
The Real Estate Establishment
#67 – The Largest Lobbying Organization in the U.S. is The National Association of Realtors (NAR)
#68 – 26% of Realtors™ Own Residential Properties for Investment
#69 – NAR Considers Landlord-Ownership to be "Home Ownership"
#70 - What You Can Do to Increase Home Ownership
#71 – Congress Almost Prevented 500,000 Foreclosures but the Financial Industry Stopped Them
More…
#72 – Most Developers Today Don’t Want to Build Inexpensive Houses
#73 – Did the Internet Make the Real Estate Market LESS Rational!
#74 – 6-Months of Inventory of Houses for Sale is a Lot More Than It Used to Be
#75 – Many YIMBYs are Really NIMBYs
#76 - A Huge Property Tax Loophole for Land Speculators
Conclusions
3 Solutions to Increase U.S. Home Ownership
Solution #1 - One Tax Code for Single-Family Homes and Condos – Eliminate All Landlord-Only Tax Breaks (By Far the Easiest, Cheapest and Most Effective Solution)
Solution #2 - Redesign U.S. Mortgages to Maximize Home Ownership Instead of Home Sales (Not Easy But Effective)
The Mechanics of Changing American Mortgages
Solution #3 - Greatly Expand Non-Profit, Limited-Profit, Cooperative and Government-Owned Social Housing (Hard to Do in USA (apparently), Very Slow, but Eventually Effective and Easy)
More Solutions - More Ways to Increase Home Ownership, Household Wealth, and Financial Stability
Conclusion - 76 Secrets of U.S. Home Ownership
49 Ways to Increase Home Ownership, Household Wealth, and U.S. Economic Growth