My highest-conviction economic thought over the next 5-10 years is that the home equity is going to be tapped.

My Favorite Quotes from Chapter 22 of "The Great Housing Hijack" 🔹“We quickly forget the political battles that changed our health system. A public health system is now taken for granted as sensible, effective and politically untouchable.” 🔹“The coexistence of public and

This is how useless the Amy Gillett Foundation’s “close passing” laws have been.

Why would a reputable university try and compete with online courses that can be delivered from anywhere in the world by companies much better at creating such an experience than they are? apple.news/Am4OaPCfJSQm2u…

My latest article describes how food deserts are an overhyped problem that largely exist in the heads of academics rather than in the real world.

New FET article: More eyes on Auckland's upzoning experiment Unpacking the famous Auckland story by looking at the size of its new dwellings fresheconomicthinking.com/p/more-eyes-on…

Apple is expected to sell about 90 million AirPods this year. That would generate more than $20 billion in revenue for the company. These were some of the headlines when the AirPods were first unveiled 8 years ago.

I don’t find this to be a compelling explanation. High home prices are a global phenomenon from São Paulo to San Francisco—these places have wildly varying governance and regulations. Housing is homothetic. Incomes are unequal. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Interesting. Rent controls will not deter housing investment, US mega-landlord says ft.com/content/8e6197…

From a guest post over at FET "the claim that upzoning facilitated additional dwellings that have driven down rents across Auckland sounds impressive but is probably overstated."

When rents were going up all I heard was "it's supply and demand blah, blah, blah". Soon rents will probably be going down and demand continues unabated and we're hardly building any more houses so what happened to my supply and demand story?

Average rent costs (compared to income) are better today than pre-COVID for low-income renters. Similar story for all renters.

Rents have increased in nominal terms BECAUSE incomes have increased. However, incomes have risen unevenly, creating difficult times for some.

Petrol in Brisbane is about $1.60 a litre today. Ten years ago, in 2013-14, petrol averaged $1.53 in Brisbane. Yet a lot of people complain that petrol price inflation is too high.