About this episode

This episode explores the connection between housing affordability and finance, challenging the notion that simply building more homes will solve the crisis.

Housing debates today are dominated by one idea: if we just build more homes, prices will fall. But what if that story is incomplete? In this episode, I sit down with Mike Fellman to unpack his report Fixing Housing Means Fixing Finance and explore why housing affordability is as much a finance problem as it is a supply problem. We break down the limits of traditional economic thinking, why upzoning alone doesn't guarantee more housing, and how the cost of capital—and the returns investors expect—ultimately determine what gets built. We also connect these ideas to what's happening here in Canada, where programs like CMHC's MLI Select are quietly reshaping the economics of rental housing by lowering borrowing costs and enabling more development. The result is a more nuanced view of the housing crisis—one th at challenges the idea that we can simply deregulate our way to affordability. https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/fixing-housing-means-fixing-finance-why-we-cant-deregulate-our-way-to-affordability/ Follow John x-twitter: https://x.com/JohnPasalis , Instagram @john.pasalis or email: askjohn@movesmartly.com Follow the show on x-twitter: @MoveSmartly , Instagram…

People in this episode

Host: John Pasalis

Guest: Mike Fellman

Topics covered

• housing affordability
• finance
• economic thinking
• upzoning
• rental housing
• Canada
• housing crisis

Keywords

• housing
• finance
• affordability
• supply problem
• cost of capital
• CMHC
• development
• economic policy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CMHC, Realosophy Realty, Groundwork Collaborative

Books & works: Fixing Housing Means Fixing Finance

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