This is what I wish we could have done with Rockridge BART or at a park to not deal with freeway noise. Fun, free, and everyone is on wheels all day/night.

I’m in a BYD in Brazil and this car absolutely shits on a Tesla lol

A cure to male loneliness is to allow bros to open Accessory Commercial Units in their garages.

SAO PAULO I WAS UNFAMILIAR WITH YOUR GAME.

Top 5 Food Cities 1. Tokyo 2. Rio de Janeiro 3. Paris 4. Istanbul 5. Mexico City

We need to reform utility charges in California. My electric bill breakdown: • $10 for electricity • $32 just to “deliver” it • $13 in fees and taxes That’s like ordering a $10 meal… Getting charged $32 for the waiter to bring it…plus another 130% in taxes. And we can’t opt out of this system?

What a fantastic piece by @raders.bsky.social and @sacyimby.bsky.social !! I even learned a new fact about Egypt! 🇪🇬

My plane is riding low across the California Coast from San Diego to San Francisco. God, this state is so beautiful. More people should be blessed enough to live between our beaches and mountain ranges.

The internet is in fact terrible now and we should devise ways to fix it. It's not just that the internet itself is terrible, it's what it's doing to society and our actual brains. I do hope Dem presidential hopefuls (and down ballot) really start talking about this. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/o...

Very comprehensive Vox article on building code research and reform efforts across the country, fearing John Zeanah’s report for the Center for Building on low-rise multifamily housing and Michael Eriksen’s academic work on building code costs www.vox.com/future-perfe... (gift link)

In the rest of the world, condominium presale markets are the key to financing mass homeownership. But in the US, they're variously either illegal or heavily constrained. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Any housing developers or real estate finance professionals out there that miss having a W-2? Want to change the California landscape? @cayimby.bsky.social is hiring: cayimby.org/development-...

It's pretty popular in Asia. They call the pre-sale as sale of "flowers" that would result in fruits as project gets built.

Still don't understand condominium pre-sales? Check out this article from NYT explaining how it works in Panama to increase housing supply! www.nytimes.com/interactive/... Coincidentally, California's first step towards this system (AB 1406) passed the Assembly Floor this morning!

California plans to electrify most rail by 2050—except the SD-LA corridor, our second-busiest route. Electric trains cost less to run and enable frequent service competitive with driving. Yet local NIMBYism blocks key upgrades while the state lacks expertise to push them forward.

Biking in San Diego is going to turn me into the Joker. What is this.

Muhammad moves to SD. News headline: SD lets builders build. Correlation or causation??

Someone needs to write a bill fixing this, it’s ridiculous. I have to sell my data to get normal food prices.

News: I officially moved to San Diego. The city just keeps on winning!

If you care about homeownership, this is an influential position for an early career professional: calcareers.ca.gov/CalHrPublic/...

YIPPEEEEEE

NEW HOME PRE-SALES, AB 1406 (WARD), IS MOVING FORWARD!!

Great opportunity to make a huge difference in California transportation policy for a mid-career professional: www.assembly.ca.gov/system/files...

It's just wild that @aceckhouse.bsky.social and I don't have even a masters degree and now we are being asked to guest lecture classes at Stanford Law. CEQA Infill Exemption + Construction Defect Reform getting the law community riled up!

The United States has the fewest elevators in the rich world, with Canada only a bit ahead. We teamed up with @uytaelee.bsky.social of About Here Videos to investigate why, exactly, North America sucks at elevators.

San Diego downtown got it right when it comes to incentivizing development: www.sandiego.gov/development-...

When you don’t build condos for 20 years, there isn’t an influx of units that are high price with low HOAs. Basically, units that are supposed to be much lower cost because of high HOA do not exist in the market. So these older units are now high cost, high HOA. www.wsj.com/economy/hous...

In the topsy-turvy world of California housing policy, building six townhouses instead of a single McMansion will result in hundreds of thousands of "impact" fees that have nothing to do with impacts and "affordability" mandates that guarantee housing unaffordability.

Danish guy gets it

Californians: the state's Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) website is now available for filing requests for data brokers to delete their info on you. Takes just a few minutes! privacy.ca.gov/drop/

During Fiona Hill's testimony to Congress on Oct 14, 2019, she described how Trump and Putin discussed exchanging Ukraine for Venezuela. The quid pro quo was if Trump refuses to help Ukraine fight off a Russian invasion, Putin would not help Venezuela (a Russian ally) resist a US takeover.

That’s it, I’m moving to San Diego!

The Nor Cal Carpenters Union turned out in force for the entitlement hearing. And the partner GC that is building the project is one of the Bay Area's Top 25 GCs, according to the Biz Journal (all of the Bay Area Top 25 by 2024 revenue were Carpenters Union signatories, as a matter of fact)

USPS quietly changed its postmark rules — mail is no longer dated when you drop it off. The “official” date is when it hits automated sorting — sometimes days later Which could have major implications for mail in voting — it’s a clever way to disenfranchise voters that’s going largely overlooked

just as @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social is now being called "the condo guy," I aspire to one day be known as "the depreciation guy"

parking is a nuisance use because it inherently attracts car traffic, which everyone hates

here's plan of 3-bedroom unit daylight on 3 sides. 1,240 s.f. w/ 150 sf loggia (likely higher, these are normally counted at 50%) also note in a pinch, the living room (wohnen) could become a 4th bedroom by adding walls and door intersecting at floating column and that plumbing wall is 👀

California's construction defect liability system was supposed to protect consumers. But a new report suggests it has become a barrier, preventing middle-income families from buying condos and townhomes in California’s expensive cities:

This week UCLA Housing Voice is joined by @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social to talk about construction defect liability, a consumer protection law that can create big barriers to condo development, taking one of the most affordable ownership options off the market. www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/12/17/1...

Another banger from this podcast series. Really cool that @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social is becoming The Condo Guy™️.

Social media isn’t treated like the public health crisis it is. 1 - 7 hours a day disappear for most people, even before accounting for the damage to attention, memory, and mental health. In the 90s, we panicked over a single cigarette costing two minutes of life. Social media is costing us years.

Condos are an affordable homeownership option, but they're rarely built in CA. A major reason is the construction defect liability, which creates excessive legal threats disincentivizing construction. @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social from @cayimby.bsky.social explains www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/12/17/1...

Portland has kept homeownership attainable for middle-class families by broadly legalizing townhomes on single family lots. While California has made progress on this with SB 684 and 1123, more work remains to be done.

Consultants contracted by Minnesota found that an eight-story single-stair building with 6,000 sq. ft. per floor (building 4) has dramatically lower fire risk than a same-height code-compliant two-stair building with a larger floor plate (building 1) www.dli.mn.gov/sites/defaul...

East Bay for Everyone, as co-host with Livable Communities Initiative, is proud to announce the winners of the National Single Stair Design Competition: www.singlestair.com

I am so excited for these two papers to be published next year. Titles TBD. 1. How Home Deposit Reform Could Revive California’s Homeownership Market 2. Solving the Financing Failures Behind the Middle Housing Shortage

Jumped on KCRW (NPR-affiliate) with Frances Anderton to dig into the collapse of the American condominium market. It’s worth a listen. www.kcrw.com/shows/kcrw-r...

We could also just adopt European / actual global standards if the institutions refuse to reform for the greater good.

Accessory Commercial Units!