In this episode of the Top of Mind podcast, Mike Simonsen sits down with Dr. Jenny Schuetz, Senior Fellow at Brookings Metro, to talk about the impact of policy on the housing market. Dr. Schuetz provides insights into how policy can help make housing more affordable, which cities and states are doing a good job with housing policy, and reasons to be optimistic about fixing our housing crisis. She also shares some of the key findings from her recent book: Fixer-Upper: How to Repair America’s Broken Housing Systems.

About Jenny Schuetz

Dr. Jenny Schuetz is a Senior Fellow at Brookings Metro and is an expert in urban economics and housing policy. She has written numerous peer-reviewed journal articles on land use regulation, housing prices, urban amenities, and neighborhood change. Dr. Schuetz has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the PBS NewsHour, The Indicator podcast, Vox, and Slate.

Dr. Schuetz is the Author of Fixer Upper: How to Repair America's Broken Housing Systems. Topics of recent research include: how statewide zoning reform could improve housing affordability, local strategies to help renters during the COVID-19 crisis, rethinking homeownership incentives to narrow the racial wealth gap, and how housing costs exacerbate economic and racial segregation.

Before joining Brookings, Dr. Schuetz served as a Principal Economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. She was also an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California and a Postdoctoral Fellow at NYU Furman. Dr. Schuetz is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at GWU’s Center for Washington Area Studies and teaches in Georgetown’s urban planning program.

Dr. Schuetz earned a PhD in public policy from Harvard University, a master’s in city planning from MIT, and a bachelor’s with highest distinction in economics and political and social thought from the University of Virginia.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Which policies have contributed the most to the current housing inventory crisis?
• How policy can help make housing more affordable
• The challenges caused by using homes as a source of wealth
• How we should be thinking about climate risk and housing
• Which cities and states are doing a good job with housing policy?
• Reasons to be optimistic about fixing our housing crisis

Featuring Mike Simonsen, CEO of Altos Research

A true data geek, Mike founded Altos Research in 2006 to bring data and insight on the U.S. housing market to those who need it most. The company now serves the largest Wall Street investment firms, banks, and tens of thousands of real estate professionals around the country. Mike's insights on the market have been featured in Forbes, New York Times, Bloomberg, Dallas Morning News, Seattle PI, and many other national media outlets.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Dr. Jenny Schuetz on LinkedIn
• Dr. Jenny Schuetz on Twitter
• Brookings Metro
• Fixer Upper: How to Repair America's Broken Housing Systems by Jenny Schuetz
• Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns by Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern
• Mike Simonsen on LinkedIn
• Altos Research

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See you next week!