We're joined by our co-authors to discuss a few Lewis Center studies on Measure ULA, a transfer tax in the city of Los Angeles, that made a big splash. This is part 10 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.

Show notes:

• Manville, M., & Smith, M. (2025). The Unintended Consequences of Measure ULA. UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.
• Ward, J., & Phillips, S. (2025). Taxing Tomorrow: Measure ULA's Impact on Multifamily Housing Production and Potential Reforms. RAND Corporation and UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.
• Green, D., Jambulapati, V., Liebersohn, J., & Velayudhan, T. (2025). Fiscal Externalities of Transaction Taxes: Evidence from the Los Angeles Mansion Tax. Available at SSRN 5273034.
• Manville, M., Smith, M., & Phillips, S. (2025). The Consequences of Measure ULA: Some Clarifications. UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.
• Shane’s blog post about the BAE report on the impact of a 15-year waiver on the ULA tax for new multifamily and commercial development.

Enterprise Community Partners has been running a renter wealth-building program since 2022. How’s it going? And what comes next?

Show notes:

• Enterprise Community Partners’ Renter Wealth Creation Fund website.
• The Renter Wealth Creation Fund term sheet.
• UCLA Housing Voice episode 108: Building Wealth by Renting with Shane Phillips and Bob Simpson.
• Phillips, S. (2025). Building Renter Wealth: An Evaluation of Shared Prosperity Rental (SPR) Housing Program Design and Feasibility. UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.
• Executive summary for the SPR report.

Joined by a 20-year veteran of Fannie Mae, Shane shares findings from his work on a proposed new model for building renter wealth: shared prosperity rental housing.

Show notes:

• Phillips, S. (2025). Building Renter Wealth: An Evaluation of Shared Prosperity Rental (SPR) Housing Program Design and Feasibility. UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.
• Executive summary for the SPR report.
• Shane’s 2021 article in The Atlantic, “Renting is Terrible, Owning is Worse.”
• Shane’s blog posts preceding and following the article in The Atlantic.
• Monkkonen, P., Carlton, I., & Macfarlane, K. (2020). One to four: The market potential of fourplexes in California’s single-family neighborhoods. UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.
• The Multifamily Impact Council’s Multifamily Impact Framework.
• Enterprise Community Partners’ Renter Wealth Creation Fund website.
• Colorado Renter Rewards program website.

Fixed-rate mortgages are expensive, but adjustable-rate mortgages are volatile — but do they have to be? Kevin Erdmann pitches an alternative that captures the best qualities of both. This is part 9 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.

Show notes:

• Erdmann, K. (2021). A Suggested Mortgage Amortization Structure: Fixed Amortization, Adjustable Principal. Mercatus Center.
• UCLA Housing Voice episode 106: Mortgage Lending Standards with Kevin Erdmann.

This is the shortened "highlights" version of episode 106. You can listen to the full interview here.

Was the housing market really oversupplied in the mid-2000s? Kevin Erdmann says no, and he explains how this misunderstanding is at the root of present-day affordability problems. This is part 8 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.

Show notes:

• Erdmann, K. (2018). Housing Was Undersupplied during the Great Housing Bubble. Mercatus Center.
• Erdmann, K. (2024). Getting Corporate Money Out of Single-Family Homes Won’t Help the Housing Affordability Crisis. Mercatus Center.
• Erdmann Housing Tracker: Mortgages Outstanding by Credit Score
• Erdmann Housing Tracker: Follow-Up: Mortgages by Credit Score
• Erdmann, K. (2021). A Suggested Mortgage Amortization Structure: Fixed Amortization, Adjustable Principal. Mercatus Center.

Was the housing market really oversupplied in the mid-2000s? Kevin Erdmann says no, and he explains how this misunderstanding is at the root of present-day affordability problems. This is part 8 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.

Show notes:

• Erdmann, K. (2018). Housing Was Undersupplied during the Great Housing Bubble. Mercatus Center.
• Erdmann, K. (2024). Getting Corporate Money Out of Single-Family Homes Won’t Help the Housing Affordability Crisis. Mercatus Center.
• Erdmann Housing Tracker: Mortgages Outstanding by Credit Score
• Erdmann Housing Tracker: Follow-Up: Mortgages by Credit Score
• Erdmann, K. (2021). A Suggested Mortgage Amortization Structure: Fixed Amortization, Adjustable Principal. Mercatus Center.

Shane makes a guest appearance on USC's Lusk Perspectives to talk state housing law, barriers to missing middle housing and condos, managing transportation systems in densifying cities, building wealth for tenants, and more.

Show notes:

• Overview of 40 years of California ADU reform by the California Housing Defense Fund.
• State of Los Angeles County Housing and Neighborhoods. Neighborhood Data for Social Change.
• Shane’s 2021 article in The Atlantic, “Renting is Terrible, Owning is Worse.”
• Shane’s blog posts preceding and following the article in The Atlantic.
• The Lewis Center report on “Shared Prosperity Rental Housing,” published in December 2025 and mentioned at the end of the interview.

Why do many U.S. states build so few condos? Muhammad Alameldin explains the role of construction defect liability laws — and how to fix them. This is part 7 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.

Show notes:

• Alameldin, M., & Karlinsky, S. (2024). Construction Defect Liability in California: How Reform Could Increase Affordable Homeownership Opportunities. UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.
• Economic & Planning Systems. (2025). The Financial Impacts of Construction Defect Liability on Housing Development in California. Terner Center for Housing Innovation and the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR).
• Shoag, D., Romem, I., & Garcia, D. (2023). The First Step Is The Hardest: California’s Sliding Homeownership Ladder. UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

In which types of homes are people safest from fires? Alex Horowitz shares research showing that multifamily is safer than single-family housing, newer homes are much safer than older homes, and that a single stairwell’s just as good as two. This is part 6 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.

Show notes:

• Rodnyansky, S., Horowitz, A., Clifford, L., Su, D., Smith, S., & Trivedi, S. (2025). Small Single-Stairway Apartment Buildings Have Strong Safety Record. Pew Charitable Trusts.
• Clifford, L., Rodnyansky, S., & Horowitz, A. (2025). Modern Multifamily Buildings Provide the Most Fire Protection. Pew Charitable Trusts.
• Baird-Remba, R., & Horowitz, A. (2025). How States and Cities Decimated Americans’ Lowest-Cost Housing Option. Pew Charitable Trusts.
• Wegmann, J., Baqai, A. N., & Conrad, J. (2023). Here Come the Tall Skinny Houses. Cityscape, 25(2), 171-202.
• UCLA Housing Voice episode 97, Single-Stair Buildings and Eco-Districts with Michael Eliason.

We’ve been grappling with trade-offs between stricter building codes and declining affordability for over 100 years. Benjamin Schneider helps us trace the history. This is part 5 of our series on misaligned incentives in housing policy.

Show notes:

• Schneider, B. (2025). The Unfinished Metropolis: Igniting the City-Building Revolution. Island Press.
• Schneider, B. (2025 September 22). 106 Years Ago She Predicted Today’s Housing Crisis. What if we’d Listened? Planetizen. 
• Wood, E. E. (1919). The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner: America's Next Problem. The MacMillan Company.
• Riis, J. A. (1890). How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
• A brief history of tenements in the US.