Today, vacancy rates of commercial buildings are up, and single-family rental vacancies are down. To address these issues, it is important to find ways to spur more rental housing by subsidizing the conversion of commercial properties into climate-conscious multifamily rentals and by improving the function of the single-family rental market.
On November 3, The Hamilton Project convened a webcast to focus directly on the issues facing the rental housing market. The event featured a fireside chat between Mayor Randall Woodfin of Birmingham, Alabama, and Emily Badger of The New York Times.
The webcast also included two discussions featuring Wendy Edelberg (Brookings), Laurie Goodman (Urban Institute), Ingrid Gould Ellen (New York University), Tracy Loh (Brookings), Vincent Reina (Domestic Policy Council), and Stijn Van Niewerburgh (Columbia University School of Business).
The event coincided with the release of two new Hamilton Project policy proposals that examine how investors are changing the single-family housing rental market and how policy can encourage the conversion of brown (less environmentally friendly) office buildings with high vacancy rates to green apartments.
For updates on the event, viewers followed @HamiltonProj and joined the conversation using #RentalHousingMarket to ask questions or emailed [email protected].
11:00 a.m. | Welcome
Wendy Edelberg, Director, The Hamilton Project, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Brookings Institution
11:05 a.m. | Fireside chat
Mayor Randall Woodfin, City of Birmingham, Alabama
Moderator: Emily Badger, Domestic Correspondent, The New York Times
11:40 a.m. | Roundtable discussion: Commercial conversions
Vincent Reina, Senior Advisor for Housing and Urban Policy, Domestic Policy Council, The White House
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate and Professor of Finance, Columbia University School of Business
Moderator: Tracy Loh, Fellow, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking, Brookings Metro
12:15 p.m. | Roundtable discussion: Single-family rentals
Ingrid Gould Ellen, Paulette Goddard Professor of Urban Policy and Planning, New York University
Laurie Goodman, Institute Fellow, Urban Institute
Moderator: Wendy Edelberg, Director, The Hamilton Project, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution
