Neha Nanda, MD (Medical Director of Infection Prevention and Antimicrobial Stewardship, Keck Medicine of USC) is joined by Scott B. Laurie

(President and Chief Executive Officer, The Olson Company) and Richard K. Green (Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) to discuss the ongoing recovery efforts from COVID-19, how organizations might manage returning to the office, and when everyday life has a chance of achieving a new normal. Nanda also reviews rules of thumb for mask-wearing as well as what vaccine hesitancy may mean for California's herd immunity.

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https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives

The State of California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) estimated that 70,000-110,000 new housing units are needed per year to keep housing prices from rising faster than the national average. What are the most important barriers to new housing construction and what can be done about them?

Scholars Evgeny Burinskiy (Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Development, USC Price), Lois Takahashi (Houston Flournoy Professor of State Government and Director, USC Price in Sacramento), and Richard Green (Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) gather with industry experts Bert Selva (President and Chief Executive Officer, Shea Homes) and Dan Dunmoyer (President and Chief Executive Officer, California Building Industry Association) to discuss results from a new survey of California homebuilders, planning commissioners, and housing advocates.

The survey, supported by a grant from the California Homebuilding Foundation, highlights the differences in perceptions stakeholders have about the development review process. Overall, each stakeholder group universally sees both traffic congestion and affordable housing as a crucial hurdle to overcome as California grows.

More: https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives

Claudia Sahm (Senior Fellow, Jain Family Institute) joins Richard K. Green (Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) to outline the changes in economic policy as the Federal Reserve and Congress have reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sahm, who was inside the Federal Reserve during the Great Recession and recovery, has since devised the Sahm Rule Recession Indicator to help policymakers and economists determine the start of a recession based on unemployment rates.

Sahm points out that economic policy has new goals, new tools are being considered, and change will come with growing pains. As for new goals, Sahm sees interest in concepts like full employment, reducing inequality, and acknowledging racism as harbingers of a new school of thought, and one that is less skittish about inflation as the Fed works to build momentum in economic downturns. The new tools and approaches like the child benefit cash transfers in the latest stimulus package display a shift towards providing direct aid, rather than commonly used tax incentives or other targeted programs. Sahm also acknowledges that change means pain while data catches up to policy for the simple reason that some benefits or programs have never before been attempted in the US.

More: https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives

Originally recorded for “The Bigger Picture” podcast by the USC Bedrosian Center with host Oliva Olson. Falling is the number one cause of injury and the seventh leading cause of death in adults ages 65 and older. In the newly published “Breaking Down Silos to Improve the Health of Older Adults,” Richard Green (Director, USC Lusk Center), Patricia Harris (MD and Geriatric Medicine Specialist, UCLA Health), and Anthony Orlando (Assistant Professor in the Finance, Real Estate, and Law Department, California State Polytechnic University and USC Bedrosian Center Faculty Affiliate) make the case for Medicare coverage of home safety renovations to minimize injurious falls. Olivia Olson speaks with the authors about their recent paper and the changes they hope to see in Medicare coverage.

The Bigger Picture:

 https://bedrosian.usc.edu/category/bigpicture/

Lusk Perspectives: 

https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives

Lois Takahashi (Houston Flournoy Professor of State Government and Director, USC Price in Sacramento) moderates a panel of public and private stakeholders on the roadblocks and success stories of rebuilding housing after fire in California, including Dave Sanson (CEO, DeNova Homes), Geoffrey Ross (Deputy Director, Financial Assistance -- Federal Programs, California Department of Housing and Community Development) and Dan Dunmoyer (President and CEO, California Building Industry Association).

As California currently has a housing crisis due in part to the difficulties of constructing new and large-scale housing in the state, the panel concludes that rebuilding communities impacted by natural disaster remains a challenging process. Sanson points out that though most communities lack the resources to act quickly in rebuilding that requires federal support, a dissonance of unity via local control and NIMBYism also can hamper rebuilding efforts. Ross acknowledges that the federal system is not yet attuned to the unique needs of responding to fire, having focused for some time on flood, tornado, or hurricane relief. Though the question “should we rebuild” in fire-affected areas deserves examining, Dunmoyer identifies that homebuilding is not immune to natural disaster anywhere in California or even the US and emphasizes safe and smart building as a responsible solution.

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Though the end of the pandemic may seem in sight, many questions remain regarding which trends of the past year are permanent. Edward Glaeser (Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University) and Richard Florida (Professor, School of Cities and Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and Co-Founder and Senior Editor, Bloomberg CityLab) join Richard Peiser (Michael D. Spear Professor of Real Estate Development, Harvard University) and Richard Green (Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) to confer on the potential outcomes for land use in the US.

While both Glaeser and Florida agree that cities at large will return to full strength and influence, they also see individual cities as vulnerable. Regarding office work, Glaeser cites studies that indicate maintaining office culture via remote channels performs well, but growing a company remotely brings significant challenges for both management and employee advancement. Florida sees shifts towards remote and remote-flexible work as a potential revolution in the real estate industry, particularly as amenity-rich smaller cities have an opportunity to build hubs using compact urban models similar to the 15-minute city.

More: https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives 

Record date: 2/25/21

Brad Hargreaves (Founder and CEO, Common) joins Richard Green (Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) to discuss how COVID-19 has impacted product typologies of co-living and the role tech plays in managing multifamily properties.

As it varies across the industry, Hargreaves lays out Common’s definition of co-living that distinguishes itself from visions of student housing or roommate matching and management. While co-living makes up a portion of Common’s management portfolio, Hargreaves sees the lowest hanging fruit for most property managers as basic tech upgrades to increase efficiency and centralize efforts like sales, marketing, and leasing to better and more quickly serve tenants. Green fields questions on which cities seem to be making big wins from the increased adoption of remote work, how renters making choices virtually will persist after the pandemic subsides, and what co-living financing really looks like to lenders and borrowers.

More: https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives

William A. Witte (CEO, Related California and Chair, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) and Nadine Watt (CEO, Watt Companies and Vice Chair, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) joins Richard Green (Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate), to discuss their perspective on the broad trends and challenges facing real estate and urban economics in 2021.

The leadership offers viewpoints on California outmigration, how rents are changing in unexpected ways as consumers respond to COVID, and the potential growth (and pitfalls) that remain for Southern California infrastructure. The Lusk Chair and Vice Chair insist that capital availability continues, meanwhile the industry as a whole continues to maintain a “wait and see” strategy to accurately assess how COVID and consumer trends have impacted product types and financial feasibility in the long term.

More talks and resources:

https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives

Dana Goldman (Interim Dean, Price School of Public Policy and Director, USC Schaeffer Center) hosts Richard Green (Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) and Thomas Mitchell (Macarthur Fellow and Co-Director, Program in Real Estate and Community Development Law, Texas A&M) in a conversation about Mitchell’s work on attempting to rectify the many ways that Black and other disadvantaged American families are deprived of their real estate wealth.

Upon the passing of a land-owning family member without a designated will, a great many properties of Black Americans passed property to multiple interest-owning heirs. Often called an “heirs property” or “tenancy in common”, this arrangement makes the estate easy to enter into a forced sale where the property sells for a fraction of its value. Affecting both rural and urban disadvantaged populations, Mitchell’s work has spearheaded both legal and legislative reforms in several states to help alleviate forced sales of a family’s vital source of generational wealth.

Rodney Ramcharan (Professor of Finance and Business Economics, Marshall School of Business) joins Richard K. Green (Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate) to look back at 2009 and the quantitative easing used to inject money into the US economy during the financial crisis. Ramcharan shows that the effects of government intervention in the economy can last a long time, up to six years, with refinance activity providing a key indicator for a business’s future health. Green and Ramcharan discuss how the data gathered since 2009 could inform monetary policy as the effects of the pandemic continue, as well as the varying viewpoints economists have had over the years about the debt ceiling.

More: https://lusk.usc.edu/perspectives