(More from “The Next City” conference last weekend in Cambridge. I encountered blogus interruptus when my Mac laptop went on strike. I’m doing a series of notebook-dumping posts.)
Chip Case (right), Wellesley College economist and a founder of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, was quite entertaining and not what you might expect from an academic in “the dismal science.”
A Chip Case joke: “I had an economist call me the other day, said he couldn’t sell his house and what should he do. I said, ‘For Christ’s sake you’re an economist! It’s worth — I hate to tell you — what someone’s willing to pay for it!’ “
Chip Case prediction on the commercial real estate: “It’s the next shoe to fall.” Every worker lost (and the U.S. job loss from December 2007 to March 2009 has been 5.1 million), creates an average vacancy of 180 square feet. “That stuff is still being held on the books of banks at par,” he said.
Case response when asked about the so-called “American Dream of Homeownership”?
“It’s largely bulls—.” He went on to say, “Rental is better for a lot of people (unless they bought during a boom).”
John King, urban design writer for the San Francisco Chronicle: What about all the starter-home suburbs?
Case: I don’t know. They’re going to stagnate.
Me (buttonholing Case after his talk): What advice would you give to governments and policymakers on how to deal with stagnating starter home suburbs?
Case: I’d appoint a housing czar, inventory what’s out there, what condition it’s in, and start buying. Buy, and hold until it’s needed.
He then acknowledged state and local governments have no money. “The only government with money is the one that’s printing it.”