Rachel Cohen Booth

People buy homes for 2 reasons: 1) To invest in what is (hopefully) an appreciating asset 2) So that they don't have to move. And this is particularly true for families, or people looking to start them. It's why the charts showing first home purchase age increasing and fertility decline are intuitively connected to everyone. But here’s the thing: most young first-time buyers only stay 5-7 years. While it certainly provides the option to stay longer, it's really worth questioning whether a long term lease, or private market rent stabilization, could achieve similar things. A well-designed 3, 4 or 5 year lease can deliver nearly the same functional outcome. If a family moves in when they first start planning to have kids, you can still expect to be able to stay through early elementary school. A decade is easily enough time to build roots - without the down payment. But lower turnover is real money. Less vacancy, fewer concessions, lower make-ready costs, and more predictable operations all translate into stronger NOI. In severely housing-constrained markets, well-designed PRIVATE rent stabilization (with clear protections for Landlords and Other Tenants from anti-social behavior with clear/easy evictions) could actually align incentives. Families get duration. Developers get lower volatility and more stable cash flow. What’s missing in most urban rental markets isn’t just square footage or even affordability. It’s time certainty. And if you think about it, the "Freeze the Rent" slogan is really, at its core about the same thing. People want to be able to STAY. For the time being at @americanhousing, we are primarily going to build homes and sell them. Since we are a manufacturing, developer and contracting company ... it would be way catastrophic to also be a property management firm. But I'm sure we will get there some day And that's because I think that people who can't afford a downpayment should also be able to have kids and stay in their neighborhoods. And that it would be good for cities (and good for our investors) if they were.

Before Texas took away the ability to do so, changing the sex/name on your ID meant going to court, paying a few hundred bucks, getting a court order, and spending time to go to every relevant office to get documents updated + paying associated fees. Not exactly "falsification"

here's good coverage of the litigation from @KansasReflector x.com/rcobooth/statu…

@eaccocortex @KelseyTuoc @lymanstoneky No, the law we're all discussing here, Senate Bill 244, was passed in February, and took effect immediately. The 2023 law (SB 180) was tied up in court and didn’t clearly mandate license changes, so people could continue updating their licenses until now

@rcobooth @KelseyTuoc @lymanstoneky kansas passed a law in the '23/'24 session requiring that you use sex assigned at birth and didn't start invalidating until '26 everyone suggesting the GOP is being overly burdensome is willfully ignorant or lying. it costs like $10 and they had over 2 years to get it changed

I think it is actually correct that government documents should in all cases refer to biological sex, since biological sex regulates the stuff the state cares most about, i.e. health and healthcare utilization, criminality, etc. Whatever social gender may be, the state should only see sex.

@goatpurple1 I don’t think it’s meaningless but I do agree I don’t think it’s necessary on things like licenses and passports

@rcobooth or 3 position, your DL should list your sex not gender, as gender is basically meaningless term.

There are effectively 2 theories of the case One is that silence on sports and minors made it easier for conservatives to push far broader restrictions. The other is there's no middle ground, and every concession just becomes grounds for the next attack x.com/rcobooth/statu…

@releepseveer Mm it’s really not “objectively” anything. It’s tradeoffs all the way down. I’m giving up some security in rent increases for more security in being able to pay the other bills I have coming down the pike at this stage of my life. It’s easily more affordable than a mortgage rn

@rcobooth I think it’s implicit because buying is objectively more secure. Those who can buy but choose to rent only do so bc they can afford to deal with the uncertainty of potential rent increases and value flexibility over security.

definitely an implicit undercurrent of this debate is the assumption that buying homes is better than renting them. I rent a house and I’m so glad I can. Maybe that math will change one day for me, maybe it won’t

great piece

@brynstole Yes definitely, I just meant rarely or never directly mentioned in any of the coverage of the package

not just an implicit undercurrent; it’s *the* dominant belief shaping at least a century of u.s. housing and banking policy!

Voters want jobs, not checks - "creating good-paying jobs" beats "direct income support" 54-17 as the preferred approach to AI displacement. And voters want a tax specifically on companies that profit from AI to pay for it (over a wealth tax) 49-27.

@KelseyTuoc @lymanstoneky Yes. People now claiming those residents “falsified” their docs as opposed to legally changing them. Changing the policy with no transition period is genuinely burdensome. (I’m currently in process of changing my own identity docs from marriage and it all takes a while!)

@lymanstoneky welcome to the libs! The stance of the Kansas Republican party is that reissuance should absolutely not be automatic or free nor should the old license remain valid until a new one can possibly be obtained

Top housing official asks wedding guests for help with home purchase washingtonpost.com/business/2026/…

@St_Equanimity @voxdotcom No I’m saying she’s getting praise from Dem consultants and HRC, and took a relatively more proactive approach to attacks than Biden/Harris. I agree with you though she was still ultimately vague, which might work for a campaign but elected leaders will need to be clearer

@rcobooth @voxdotcom Interesting that the article praises Spanberger because she didn’t dodge the trans issue. Instead of answering direct questions or giving a policy rebuttal, she merely repeated anodyne statements like “I’m a mom.” That IS a dodge. Democrats adopt that as a strategy going nowhere

New: The legal attacks on transgender Americans are moving fast beyond questions of school sports and youth gender medicine. Democrats are getting caught flatfooted, as they're still debating how to respond to the wedge issues @voxdotcom gift link: vox.com/policy/482762/…

As opponents of trans rights set their eyes on targets well beyond youth gender medicine & school sports, Democrats still haven't figured out what they want to say. They know they need to say more, but there's no real plan right now vox.com/policy/482762/…

lots of anti-trans people on X trying to tell me today that the immediate revocation of 1,700 people's drivers licenses, and proposals to ban the gender-related health care of adults does not amount to an "attack" on trans rights...yeah okay

This has been very frustrating to me. Republican states are moving to retroactively invalidate drivers' licenses the state issued, make it illegal for private businesses to set their own bathroom policies as they see fit, and ban adults from transitioning.

@PTBwrites @SpanbergerForVA well she won so that's one way to measure, but I think there is this effort right now on the left to act like campaign wins is all that needs to happen, and that's clearly not true, especially if your goal is to actually protect trans people from anything

@rcobooth @SpanbergerForVA (in other words, did Spanberger handle them better or did Winsome Sears not have much to offer as a campaigner?...)

There's growing consensus among Democrats that @SpanbergerForVA handled anti-trans attacks far better than the party did in 2024. But she was still ultimately vague, and Democrats will have to figure out where they stand on the escalating restrictions. x.com/voxdotcom/stat…

@HelpWithFacts @SpanbergerForVA well because governing as an elected official and running for office is different, and because these restrictions are moving forward

@rcobooth @SpanbergerForVA If she was “ultimately vague” and won … why do Democrats have to figure out where they stand? Seems like evidence they don’t actually have to