Sorry your house burned down. Here's a $23,000 HOA bill — due next month

Seems generally in line with the White House's deregulatory executive orders last week to address housing costs. Loosening the GSEs' insurance requirements to accept actual cash value coverage (instead of higher bar of replacement cost...(1/2) www.insurancejournal.com/news/nationa...

Holy cow, rates up to 6.53% today! A borrower putting 20% down on a $600,000 home would pay $168 more now than they would have the day before the U.S. bombed Iran when rates were 5.99%. War is costly in innumerable ways, including the cost of homeownership.

Very thoughtful and substantive set of panels on homeowners insurance in the US. Definitely worth a watch.

Even though Freedom House gave USA a pass this year, downgrading it by only 3 points and still calling it "Free," it's worth noting that Freedom House now considers USA less democratic than Argentina, Belize, Mauritius, Mongolia, Panama, and Romania. And tied with Suriname.

The $200bn bill the Pentagon is presenting for the four-week-old war against Iran is larger than the amount America has spent on the defence of Ukraine in four years www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Very excited to share that earlier this month I started a new position as an Insurance Research and Policy Engagement Manager at Insurance for Good! Thrilled to be joining the folks here to help support the growing of community of practice seeking to leverage...(1/2) www.insuranceforgood.org/about

Home heating oil in New England Feb 11th $3.90/gal. Mar 16th $5.15/gal +32% I use a hell of a lot more heating oil than I use gasoline.

Nice writeup from @heatmap.news on climate dimensions of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act that just passed the Senate. Notable provisions include: - relaxed NEPA review for certain HUD-funded projects; - Whole-Home Repairs Act that would provide loans and... (1/2) heatmap.news/politics/sen...

Big week for housing policy in DC. Two executive orders on housing affordability issued yesterday, touching on a range of policy levers. Includes deregulatory directives to roll back energy efficiency and environmental assessment requirements, also streamline permitting. apnews.com/article/trum...

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/b... Trump proving to China that their long-term strategy to be the leading producer of electricity from wind and solar as well as electric vehicles was a really, really good decision.

Since 2019, lowest-income renters have seen a staggering 60% drop in their residual income; in 2024, the median renter household earning under $30,000 had just $210 left over each month after paying rent and utilities. www.jchs.harvard.edu/americas-ren...

A helpful explainer on the ROAD to Housing Act, which just passed the Senate.

The sheer strategic stupidity of bailing Russia out of its economic hole by launching a war that entirely foreseeably spikes the oil price - and then having no minesweepers in place to deal with the foreseeable fallout. Rank incompetence.

Americans with weaker credit histories, usually from missed payments or high amounts of debt, now pay significantly more for home insurance, regardless of where they live. @nytimes.com @hclairebrown.bsky.social @rjnskl.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Excited to share a new @nber.org paper w/Blonz/Hossain/Mulder/Weill where we show credit scores impact homeowners insurance premiums as much as disaster risk. Here’s what happened in WA when they banned credit scoring:

Everything Trump does between now and November is about keeping a Republican majority in Congress. That’s the whole game. Keep that in mind, and everything else will make sense.

NSF Update (Awards through 2/27/26) Directorates to follow 1/10

Quite a trend. Great reporting from Bloomberg. From a housing supply standpoint, this has a negative impact on the # of units in a neighborhood, even if the total sq. footage of residential space stays the same. Interesting to think about zoning to require a minimum # of apartments per building.

Beautiful day to walk past an active construction site that will eventually host 29 new affordable, all-electric homes in a walkable neighborhood in Cambridge, MA 🚜 🏠 ⚡️

Following this week's nor'easter that knocked out power for hundreds of thousands, reflecting on this recent episode of @heatmap.news's Shift Key that speculated: "we expect the winter to take over [from the summer] as the most electricity-intensive time of year." podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

According to the Insurance Information Institute, from December 2024-December 2025 the price of construction materials rose 6.2%, well above the core inflation rate over the same period. This not only makes building new housing more expensive, it also raises property insurance costs for homeowners.

Informative @rff.org podcast episode with Prof. Miyuki Hino on the frontier of coastal flood monitoring using land-based sensors in North Carolina. As sea levels rise and storms intensify, adoption of sensors like these can help communities "measure what matters." www.resources.org/resources-ra...

New flood model intercomparison just dropped! Cat models used in NFIP pricing (KatRisk/Verisk/RMS) are within 4% of claims. KCC is 13x lower than peers. First Street is ~2x! as high across US. "climate risk products require public validation to be a beneficial service"

With populous states like Florida, Illinois, and New York recently passing renter flood disclosure laws, nearly half the US population now lives in a state requiring landlords to disclose flood risks to prospective tenants. New blog digs into the details and limits of these new requirements 👇

Please consider my departure letter highlighting my friend & now-former colleague @arpitrage.bsky.social 's housing quality rule, brilliantly adapted from an old RGB tenant rep idea. Arpit's proposal would combine tenant protection with sustainable RGB cost-based guidelines for the first time 👇

NEW: @aarmlovi.bsky.social resigned from the Rent Guidelines Board today. This gives @mayor.nyc.gov a total of six seats to play with on the nine-member board. His appointments could deliver his promise of a rent freeze for a million rent-stabilized apartments. www.thecity.nyc/2026/02/17/r...

Informative resource on post-LA fires housing instability. ~70% of respondents (total N=2,443) still in temporary housing in December '25. Among those relying on property insurance to pay for temporary housing, 22% in Pacific Palisades reported they've "already ran out" of displacement coverage.

From the American Academy of Actuaries letter on NCAR: "When the scientific foundation for understanding natural hazard risk is weakened, insurers must assume wider loss distributions and higher tail risk, which translates directly into higher premiums for consumers." actuary.org/wp-content/u...

Heartbreaking and essential reporting. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

AMS is deeply concerned by the repeal of EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, which concluded greenhouse gas emissions harm health and well-being. The science remains clear: human-caused climate change is already causing harmful impacts. Read the full statement: https://bit.ly/4tBwz9w

Remember "range anxiety"? Still there, but the definition has changed: Now it's anxiety of Western carmakers trying to catch up with BYD & Co. thedriven.io/2026/02/12/b...

Trump is shrinking the EPA more quickly & aggressively than ever before, culminating in this week's move to rescind the crucial "endangerment finding" underpinning key regulations of planet-warming pollution. Here's what it all means (a gift link @bloomberg.com): www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

According to the New York Fed, mortgage delinquency rates haven risen to the highest levels in a decade. The rise is steepest among lower-income groups. In the bottom income quartile of mortgage holders, fully 3% are late on mortgage payments. libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/wher...

NEW: There's been another round of layoffs at the lab formerly known as NREL. Weeks after scrubbing “renewable energy” from its name, the National Laboratory of the Rockies in Golden has cut 134 staffers. www.cpr.org/2026/02/09/n...

Some nice views of wind turbine assembly and loading at the Port of New London, CT from Amtrak window seat. According to the New London Port Authority, this terminal supports offshore wind projects that will produce 1,760 MW of power or enough to power 1+ million homes. statepiernewlondon.com

power transformers mentioned in halftime show ⚡️

🌊📊 #Postdoc opening: Coastal Adaptation Governance Research + practitioner partnerships. Interdisciplinary. Decisions, policies, ethics. First review Feb 1 careers.udel.edu/cw/en-us/job... #adaptation #resilience #academicjobs

Nice to see a clear bike lane next to the frozen Charles River. 25°F is still fine bike commuting weather, as long as you’re wearing the right clothes. Kudos to @boston.gov Department of Public Works for clearing!

Average homeowners insurance premiums rose almost 25% from 2019 to 2024 in real terms. Such costs have contributed to a slump in the condo market, with prices at a decade low. @bloomberg.com @stevekoller.bsky.social shorturl.at/Gvss9

Homeowners insurance has understandably been a focus in discussions about rising property insurance costs. This new report from Enterprise Community Partners highlights distinct insurance challenges and risk management strategies in the multifamily context. enterprisecommunity.org/learning-cen...

This is an exciting win-win investment poised to deliver on both affordability and climate objectives for NYCHA residents. NYSERDA's report on the Clean Heat for All pilot shows promising results for scalability, concluding heat pumps "showed strong performance in terms of energy savings... 🧵(1/3)

Come join my team! I'm hiring a Housing Director to support implementation of pro-housing policies by state & local govts (zoning reform, streamlined development process). Looking for someone with substantial local/state govt experience in housing & land use. www.arnoldventures.org/careers/dire...

A strange but true finding about NYC congestion pricing: Drivers’ time savings have overwhelmingly gone to those traveling *outside* the toll zone (i.e., driving from Brooklyn to Queens or within NJ) – not those headed into Manhattan. Me, in Bloomberg 🧵

President Donald Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday that he wants to "drive housing prices up." "Existing housing, people who own their homes, we're going to keep them wealthy. We're going to keep those prices up," Trump said.

An Executive Order from the White House issued yesterday aims to empower DHS Secretary, FEMA Administrator, and SBA Administrator to "preempt State or local permitting processes" in Los Angeles that unduly impede "the timely use of Federal emergency-relief funds". www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

New Paper! We deployed an advanced computer-vision model to segment satellite imagery of street intersections, in order to measure pedestrian crossing distance throughout the 100 largest U.S. cities. Out now, open-access in the Journal of Transport and Land Use: www.jtlu.org/index.php/jt...

“Despite this bit of good news, many housing challenges remain. The number of households experiencing worst case housing needs remains near record highs.” www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/worst-c... via @harvard-jchs.bsky.social

The US government lost more than 10,000 STEM PhDs last year, according to an analysis by Science of newly released OPM data, with 11 departures for every hire. And many OPM calls "voluntary" separations were probably pushed. www.science.org/content/arti...

Very exciting to share that @climatecentral.org is hiring a Climate Data Scientist to join a new climate services effort focused on advancing predictions of risks and hazards on seasonal-to-decadal timescales. The application closes on February 9, 2026 at 5pm ET, & the description can be found here: