vanessa brown calder

Is there anything worse than a crying baby on a plane? I wish parents would control their children. It’s so disruptive. I refuse to believe a baby cries for 10 hours. At some point this is just bad parenting, right?

This comment is a perfect Rorschach Test for the Build-to-Rent debate. I think we agree with most of the facts here: post financial crisis, builders and financers came to perceive building homes for families to buy as riskier, and so in many cases came to prefer building homes they would control and rent. Lower risk, steady cash flow, etc. etc. The question is whether this is good or not. It doesn't reflect any change in preferences of American families. It doesn't reflect an inability to build in the old way (notwithstanding the many other constraints the bill seeks to address). It's just a question of whether we think it's good or bad that the homebuilding sector has come up with this new business model that leaves it controlling more homes and selling fewer to families that want to buy them. I think it's bad. Kind of like how lots of manufacturers figured out that they could move their factories to China and layoff all of their American workers and hand their technology to the CCP, and this would lead to higher profits for them. They thought this was good. I think it's bad. So if you want to actually go to bat for Build-to-Rent as a useful, welfare-enhancing innovation in the housing market that you want to see surge higher as a share of housing starts, by all means. But please say that forthrightly, rather than using arguments like "economics tells me we will have less supply otherwise" or "who are you to say BTR isn't better?" If you recognize BTR as a primarily financial innovation that is indeed profit maximizing but does not actually improve the housing market for the typical family then please accept the possibility that constraints on it might be a good thing.

Warren says the housing bill does *not* have a drafting error, as Schatz said today Rare Dem leadership split “The policy is to block private equity from taking over the single family home, and that is quite deliberate. There are some folks in private equity who don't like that, but it's a very deliberate choice that is supported on a bipartisan basis by 90 senators.”

It's wild to watch the federal push for more housing collapse in real time b/c of baseless panic about large investors owning homes. Senate just voted 89-9 to advance an effective ban on build-to-rent homes, which would reduce new supply by an est. 50k a year.

After 61 days in the NICU, our Solomon was finally released last week to come start life at home. Thank you for all of your prayers; it was the darkest, scariest, worst two months of my life. But God showed his grace to us in so many ways, and many people banded together to allow me to spend every single day with him in the NICU. We are so grateful to the nurses who loved him like their own; to his physical therapist who is helping him overcome & adapt to his disabilities; to the doctors who performed his surgery; to our priest who baptized him in the hospital; to the friends and family who packed lunches for us, and watched our toddler, and did our laundry, who prayed with and for us and still do. I am grateful in particular for my husband and my mom, who showed me Christlike grace throughout, and for our 3-year-old, who didn't let his joy become dampened by all this fear and sorrow—an example from which we could all stand to learn. "I remain confident of this," Psalm 27 reminds us. "I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." The Lord's goodness has been shown to us every day of these 61. People sometimes denigrate Christians as just those seeking comfort, needing a story to tell themselves. But yes! We are comforted by the Lord. He shows up for us in all kinds of ways, when we're looking—and when we're not. And He looks after the scared and grieving mother, the sick and vulnerable child, the family in need. He did for us, many times over. And many of you did, too, through prayer and acts of kindness. Thank you.