Ben Bear

Charlie Munger has a famous quote: "Show me the incentives, and I'll show you the outcome." Both political parties have made homeownership a key priority while decrying the rise of build to rent communities funded by Wall Street. One big driver is that the tax code is nearly…

Salad with a side of fries is an elite combo

This is an actual 📸 of what a $26k buyer credit looks like. $26K = peace of mind + breathing room in your 1st year of homeownership. Our mission: Make the American dream of homeownership accessible + affordable for all. That’s exactly what we’re doing, one closing at a time.

Daniel Lurie has a 73% popularity rate as mayor of San Francisco

St Louis is reducing minimum lot sizes for single-family homes and duplexes by 50%. Given that land is such a big factor in cost, allowing for homes on smaller lots is a zero-cost way of bringing more affordable housing online. Exciting stuff!

The average number of people living in a house has dropped by 34% since 1950 This means that even with no population growth, cities can experience a housing shortage A city of 1M residents in 1950 only needed 263k homes A city of 1M residents today needs 400k homes

2025 is the year sourdough pizza took the crown in both NYC (Ceres) and the Bay Area (June’s/Jules). Aside from being delicious, it’s possible to rationalize as almost healthy which probably leads to more frequent trips. cc ⁦⁦@pitdesi⁩

What a scene this evening in #Pittsburgh with a rainbow over the skyline and the Gateway Clipper Empress coming down the river under the giant Picklesburgh pickle!

Who said “If you’re not first, you’re last?” 😏 Our buyer came in 3rd, and still won. 📍 Los Altos | Closed: $6.415M 💰 $177K saved in commission A clean offer + no 2.5% fee = a better deal for everyone. 🔗 turbohome.com | CalDRE# 02292670 #FlatFeeAgent #BayAreaHomes

Excited to collaborate with @NewsLambert team on the Turbohome-ResiClub homebuyer sentiment survey. Fill it out here: surveymonkey.com/r/S7L3BJ6

Big Fortune 500 builders pay 21% tax on both for rent and for sale housing. Small builders and their investors pay up to 37% on units built for homeownership. Want more small builders and housing overall? Level the tax playing field.

Laws change, housing gets built. There was a lot of hemming and hawing about how bills like SB 9 underperformed. We agree, and tried to fix with SB 677. But in the meantime, entrepreneurial developers like BuildCasa, and pro-housing cities like Sacramento, are making it work.

MAINE OFFICIALLY LEGALIZES *3* HOMES ON EVERY RESIDENTIAL LOT STATEWIDE!!! Look how hard Maine cooked 🤯 - 3 units legal statewide - 4 units legal in “growth areas” - ADUs no longer limited to SFH lots - Lowered min lot size to 5,000 in all cities

There’s been a lot of attention to the CEQA amendments by the legislature yesterday, with some framing it as a repeal or rollback of CEQA. The legislation is a big deal, but it is far from a repeal of CEQA, and the legislature will likely make more changes going forward. 1/44

And the budget bill, signed into law last night, made two key improvements: 1⃣ Cities can no longer condition final map approval on a building being built; they can only condition the sale of individual lots. Much easier to finance! ...

The impossible has become possible: we've passed a clean CEQA infill exemption. This is probably the most important thing California has done on housing in the present YIMBY moment.