Alex Horowitz
@alexhrwtz.bsky.social
Mostly housing policy and a little consumer finance at Pew. Personal account.
Were these design standards written by a drop of water trying to get inside?
Joe Cohen@cohenhouse.bsky.social · last mo.LA's new proposed "objective design standards" for historic districts are horrific. They're going to result in it essentially being illegal for new buildings to match the historic character of these districts.
A new @pewresearch.org study finds that infill housing near jobs, stores, and transit costs governments ~$21,000 less per home to serve, cuts long term infrastructure maintenance costs in half, and generates 13% more in annual property tax revenue per acre than sprawl.
One of the misconceptions I hear a lot is that new housing improves affordability because it gets old and cheap eventually. Sure, but that’s not really it. New housing slows rent growth right away by creating new housing options so landlords risk losing tenants if they raise rents.
YIMBY Action@yimbyaction.bsky.social · 2mo agoDoes building more homes make cities more affordable? In our newest episode of Infill, Sonja Trauss and Alex Horowitz of The Pew Charitable Trusts discuss "moving chains," Zillow data, and why cities that build more homes see slower rent growth. 🎧 Tune in now: https://apple.pulse.ly/zbpebqjog4
E24-24, my proposal to raise the IBC’s single-stair apartment building height limit from three stories to four, has passed the final membership vote, and will now officially make it into the 2027 IBC 🎉
Pew has a new 3-minute video spotlighting the story of a real person who was able to move into an affordable home because of the vacancy chain created by the construction of an expensive new, market-rate apartment building. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQYM...
Building More Housing Creates 'Moving Chains' of Affordability
YouTube video by Pew
youtube.com
This is a great video that puts a human face and personal story to the incredible quantitative research on moving chains done by Evan Mast and others. I think it's going to have a big impact. youtube.com/watch?si=pm9t2HI0WtzV1zMp&v=QQYMUMTI7fk&feature=youtu.be
Building More Housing Creates 'Moving Chains' of Affordability
YouTube video by Pew
youtube.com
Excellent report out from Pew today on preapproved residential building plans. Preapproved plan catalogs allow entrepreneurial localities to cut development costs by a few percentage points and provide developers with significant time savings in delivering new housing. 1/
New from me: www.governing.com/urban/parkin... We’ve seen more progress on parking reform than I ever imagined. And yet, some of the places that could benefit from it the most (eh hem, NYC) are still hanging on to parking mandates.
Parking Reform Is Reshaping Housing Policy
But some cities with the best opportunity are leaving it on the table.
governing.com
We’re hiring a housing and cities lead researcher! - Develop and drive pro-housing policy - Focus on state legislation in WA - $106-125k, plus 10% retirement
Lead Researcher, Housing + Cities | Sightline Institute
Lead Researcher, Housing + Cities
sightline.org
Q: What bill passed the Idaho House 63-7 last week and the D.C. Council unanimously today? A: six-story single-stair
alex baca@alexbaca.bsky.social · 4mo agoI do not like to take credit for “wins.” I’m an ~advocate, and decisionmakers who do the things we support are the ultimate movers. That said, it is notable that the D.C. Council voted unanimously for the One Front Door Act today, which would legalize point-access blocks up to six stories here!
The current 6-day Jeopardy champion works at a housing tax credit agency in New Jersey and for his banter with Ken he just looked directly at the camera and said "New York, California, shame on you, build more housing" and folks when I say heroes walk among us
Worth noting that this has indeed been done in the U.S., and is probably better evidence for the safety of single stair egress buildings than multi-country comparisons of fire deaths www.pew.org/en/research-...
Modern Multifamily Buildings Provide the Most Fire Protection
A large body of research has demonstrated that apartment buildings and other types of multifamily housing can provide many benefits to a community, especially when built in high-demand areas where hou...
pew.org
Evan Roberts@evanrobertsnz.bsky.social · 5mo agoA second, much more involved, line of investigation would be a comparative project looking at actual death (coroners/medical examiners) investigations across a range of jurisdictions. In many higher income countries the documentation for investigations is kept for some years afterwards.
Pew: Austin added 120,000 homes in a decade—rezoning near jobs, cutting parking rules, and subsidizing affordable homes through bonds and bonuses. Rents fell 4% while US rents rose 10%. The biggest drops hit older, cheaper buildings where lower-income renters live. www.pew.org/en/research-...
Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents
After decades of explosive growth, Austin, Texas, in the 2010s was a victim of its own success. Lured by high-tech jobs and the city’s hip reputation, too many people were competing for too few…
pew.org
"The kinds of multifamily we build most of, where many homes share a common internal corridor, is actually vastly more dangerous than single-stair buildings which are smaller and have fewer residents per corridor or stair." commonwealthbeacon.org/opinion/the-...
The growing case for single-staircase buildings as one answer to our housing crisis
Nearly every other state in New England — Vermont dating back decades, and Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut more recently — has either changed or committed to changing its building code to allow ...
commonwealthbeacon.org
Austin built 120,000 homes after the pandemic, increasing its supply by almost a third. Rents dropped 4% from 2021 to 2025 — nearly 20% adjusting for inflation. Sorry to Hell Gate and whoever else is mad at Ezra Klein, but building homes brings down rents: www.pew.org/en/research-...
Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents
After decades of explosive growth, Austin, Texas, in the 2010s was a victim of its own success. Lured by high-tech jobs and the city’s hip reputation, too many people were competing for too few homes....
pew.org
New Pew article on the Austin building boom, which outpaced both the US & Texas as a whole, leading to rent declines www.pew.org/en/research-...
Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents
After decades of explosive growth, Austin, Texas, in the 2010s was a victim of its own success. Lured by high-tech jobs and the city’s hip reputation, too many people were competing for too few homes....
pew.org
"From 2010 to 2019, rents in Austin increased nearly 93%—more than in any other major American city. From 2015 to 2024, Austin added 120,000 units to its housing stock—an increase of 30%, more than 3x the overall rate of growth in the US (9%)." @pewresearch.org @alexhrwtz.bsky.social
New research from Pew quantifies the extent of the success of YIMBYism in Austin: after a huge run up in prices over the 2010s, the city dramatically liberalized and kicked off a building boom. Now rents are falling. www.pew.org/en/research-...
Looking forward to talking about manufactured housing next week at this Pew webinar including Rachel Siegel and industry folks: www.pew.org/en/about/eve...
State Titling Policies and the Future of Manufactured Home Financing
Join policymakers, housing advocates, and industry leaders to explore state-level strategies to reduce titling barriers, expand mortgage access, and enable more manufactured homes to qualify for tradi...
pew.org
oh look at that www.pew.org/en/research-...
Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents
After decades of explosive growth, Austin, Texas, in the 2010s was a victim of its own success. Lured by high-tech jobs and the city’s hip reputation, too many people were competing for too few homes....
pew.org
Austin has rightfully gotten attention for making it easier to build and seeing rents drop. The extent of their success is remarkable. They added housing at 3x the rate of the U.S. over the past decade. Rents fell from 2021-2025 even as rents rose in Texas and the U.S.
Have questions about this? Come to #CNU34 & ask us! SAFE & AFFORDABLE: LEGALIZING TALLER SINGLE-STAIR APARTMENT BUILDINGS Speakers: @alexhrwtz.bsky.social, co-author of the Pew Charitable Trusts groundbreaking research on the observed safety of modern single-stair buildings in the US, & yours truly
Small Single-Stairway Apartment Buildings Have Strong Safety Record
Policymakers could increase the supply of multifamily housing in their states and localities by revising outdated building codes that require more than one stairway in small apartment buildings. If en...
pew.org
Stephen Jacob Smith@stephenjacobsmith.com · 5mo agoSingle-stair gets the New York Times treatment. @holz-bau.bsky.social reminds us why they call the last line the kicker: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/b... (gift link)
A reminder that one year in, congestion pricing has clearly been a successful policy: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
27 Million Fewer Car Trips: Life After a Year of Congestion Pricing
How life has changed in the New York area, according to data on traffic, transit and the responses of 600 readers.
nytimes.com
"During the 15 years I was a renter, I never found a single accessible apartment in a building with fewer than six stories. This isn’t a coincidence; it’s a design failure dictated by Washington state’s outdated codes." www.seattletimes.com/opinion/miss...
Missing in the middle of WA's middle housing: Elevators
A bill still in play in the Washington Legislature would make elevators easier and less expensive to install in "middle housing" developments.
seattletimes.com
new from me: a story about VACANCY CHAINS, the idea that underlies the argument that more housing is good even if you can't afford it www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
High-End Construction Really Does Help Everyone
A new rung at the top of the housing ladder permits people lower down to climb up.
theatlantic.com
The bill cuts the stretcher requirement in small bldgs at risk of having no elevator at all (up to 6 stories, 24 units), as well as ordering the building code council to reconsider the issues of elevator hoistway opening protection and two-way visual comms. Tens of thousands in savings per building.
Ryan Packer@typewriteralley.bsky.social · 6mo agoBy a 41-7 vote, the Washington Senate just directed the state's building code council to adopt updated regulations for elevators in buildings with up to six stories or 24 units, "minimally sized to meet federal accessibility requirements." The final version: lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/202...
"But in the US, a morass of construction codes, fire safety requirements, utility rules, and even tax policies, treat even small multifamily buildings fundamentally differently from the way they treat single-family homes." Nice to see the great work of @alexhrwtz.bsky.social and Pew in @vox.com.
The hidden double standards driving our housing crisis
Apartments are safer and more affordable than single-family homes. Why do we treat them like a hazard?
vox.com
Apartments are banned on 95% of residential land in Virginia, and they’re banned on large swaths of commercial land too.
Welcoming Neighbors Network@welcomingneighbors.us · 6mo ago10 years is too long to wait for a home. ⏳ VA is advancing reforms to make it easier for faith-based organizations to build affordable housing, but there's more work ahead to get them across the finish line.
Today on UCLA Housing Voice, I talk with @kevinerdmann.bsky.social about about the mid-2000s housing market pre-crash, resulting changes in federal mortgage lending standards, and their catastrophic effects on homeownership, rental affordability, and production. www.lewis.ucla.edu/2026/01/21/1...
Episode 106: Mortgage Lending Standards with Kevin Erdmann (Incentives Series pt. 8) - UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
We built too much housing in the mid-2000s, right? Kevin Erdmann says no, explaining how this misunderstanding is at the root of unaffordability today.
lewis.ucla.edu
