I just discovered Steve Randy Waldman’s blog called Interfluidity and, more specifically, a post he wrote called: “Home is where the cartel is.” I am now following him.

He starts off by saying that housing is a bitch, which is just him saying that urban housing is a difficult problem to solve. A truism for this audience.

He doesn’t profess to have all of the answers, but he does write a thoughtful piece that covers, among other things: the “market urbanist” (supply-side) solution to solving housing affordability, the reasons why the “housing cartel” will never approve of this, and the inherent contradiction between housing as an investment and housing as a sustainably affordable good.

He also offers up Singapore and Germany as examples of two very different housing markets. It reminded me of a tweet I retweeted this morning which shows Germany as having the 2nd lowest homeownership rate (45%) among OECD countries.

We talk a lot about the greenbelt here in Toronto. Some argue that it’s squeezing the housing market and driving up prices.

But what about the yellowbelt? (Credit to Gil Meslin for the term.)

Here is a land use map of Toronto:

The yellow areas are “neighborhoods.” They, along with parks, ravines, watercourses, and valleys, make up ¾ of the city’s land area. The Official Plan describes these areas as being “stable” – meaning they will see little physical change. Supply cannot adjust to demand.

I get why this is the way it is and I understand how difficult it would be change something like this. But let’s not ignore the impact that this land use constraint has and will continue to have on the housing market. 

It’s the yellowbelt. Thank you Gil for letting me to steal the name.

A new “transparent offer platform” called Haus has just launched in California to serve the residential real estate market. The way it works is that all offers are submitted online. And once an offer has been confirmed, it – along with all of its terms – gets revealed to every other potential buyer. See image below.

I’ve seen a number of different iterations of this same idea, which tells me that this is a well-identified problem in the real estate market. Here’s a snippet from a recent TechCrunch article announcing Haus:

“We think the openness will create a more efficient market and that the number of offers and price will ultimately be dependent on demand,” said Haus GM Sarah Ham. “Bidding wars are a common, almost accepted, part of the real estate process today. But with our approach, buyers know where they stand. Buyers will know what they need to offer to make their offer competitive, but they also won’t negotiate against themselves.”

I completely agree that this is a problem that needs to be solved. It will create a more efficient marketplace. However, in this market, I suspect that the current information asymmetries largely benefit sellers, to the detriment of buyers. So I wonder if the supply-side of the marketplace will be willing to participate at scale. What’s really in it for them?

Side note: Haus is the latest project from Expa, which is a “startup studio” that works on its own ideas, as well as partners with other founders. I am very interested in this approach to creation because I think you have to try and make a lot of things if you want to do truly innovative things.