The mission of the Fisher Center for Real Estate + Urban Economics is to educate students and real estate professionals and to support and conduct research on real estate and financial markets, urban economics, sustainability, land use, and public policy.
News + Announcements
Nancy Wallace on the economics of wildfires in California, at SIEPR (opens in a new tab): Homeowners’ insurance in California “is not a sustainable market” and requires “creative solutions.”
Nancy Wallace featured on NPR’s Planet Money (opens in a new tab) on the wildfire-driven insurance crisis in California.
Nancy Wallace gave the keynote at the Federal Housing Finance Authority’s 2024 Economics Summit on Climate Risk (opens in a new tab), on California wildfire risk.
Nancy Wallace weighs in on the California homeowners insurance crisis, on a panel with California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. (opens in a new tab)
“New development just doesn’t pencil” for workforce housing. Ken Rosen in BisNow (opens in a new tab) on Berkeley’s higher-end development boom.
Amir Kermani and Timothy McQuade use 450 million LinkedIn profiles to track global migration for employment, in a new NBER paper (opens in a new tab).
Rosen Consulting’s report on the disconnect between public and private market real estate values, at the Pension Real Estate Association (opens in a new tab).
Luxury home prices spike in Silicon Valley due to AI boom. “Home prices are very highly correlated with the tech industry.” Ken Rosen in Yahoo Finance (opens in a new tab).
Nancy Wallace addresses the challenges of urban CRE, on Bloomberg TV (opens in a new tab).
“They literally are not paying their mortgages.” Nancy Wallace on the commercial real estate crisis in SF, on the PBS NewsHour (opens in a new tab).
Nancy Wallace spoke at the Commonwealth Club of California’s annual Economic Forecast (opens in a new tab), and is optimistic about the California and Bay Area economy.
Professor Nancy Wallace wins the John Quigley Award from AREUEA for work in real estate & urban economics.
Nancy Wallace and Richard Stanton’s new joint work on why big banks can offer less on deposits, featured in the UCLA Anderson Review (opens in a new tab).
Amir Kermani and Nancy Wallace discuss the potential of a “doom loop” at California Spotlight: From Boom to Doom in San Francisco, October 31st from noon to 1:30 at the UC Berkeley Social Science Matrix (opens in a new tab).
Ken Rosen at AFIRE (opens in a new tab): the old paradigm of low interest rates and cheap and easy investment money is not going to return for the foreseeable future.
No apartment projects broke ground in the first half of 2023 in Silicon Valley. “It’s almost a perfect storm”, says Ken Rosen, in the Mercury News (opens in a new tab).
“The typical building has about half the number of people in it as they normally do.” Ken Rosen interviewed by NPR (opens in a new tab) on working from home and its impact on small businesses.
Falling populations threaten the Bay Area (opens in a new tab), but Ken Rosen is optimistic, long-term. “The Bay Area, which was a magnet for the whole world, is no longer that magnet.”
Nancy Wallace on Silicon Valley Bank: ““This is a monumental failure of risk management on the part of both the bank and the regulators. Interest rate risk is basic banking 101.” Haas Newsroom.
Ken Rosen on the collapse of SVB: “There was a reason others didn’t do what they were doing.” Silicon Valley Business Journal (opens in a new tab).
Ken Rosen on SF in 2023: “I think it’s very possible that the value of the office building may be down 40% — that could have implications for property tax collection and force the city to cut services, which could have a spiraling effect.” SF Business Times (opens in a new tab).
Congratulations to the Berkeley-Haas team for placing second (opens in a new tab) at the in the 2022 UT Austin National Real Estate Challenge. That’s five years in a row the team has made it to the final room!
“Most people didn’t cash in, but they felt better. The froth is gone, so now they feel worse.” Ken Rosen on falling home prices in SF, in Bloomberg (opens in a new tab).
“Save more, spend less….” Ken Rosen on tech layoffs and the broader Bay Area economy, SF Business Times (opens in a new tab).
Ken Rosen predicts that inflation could hit 9% before easing, at the Real Estate & Economics Symposium, Charting 2022: Temporary Disruption or Permanent Transformation?
Amir Kermani’s research on how foreclosures are fueling America’s racial wealth gap, in Mother Jones (opens in a new tab) and the Haas Newsroom.
“The markets aren’t priced for climate change, and the situation is dire.” Nancy Wallace on climate risk and fire.
Congratulations to Nancy Wallace for winning the Williamson Award, Berkeley-Haas’s highest faculty honor.
Unfair property tax assessments cost lower-income Americans billions, in the New York Times (opens in a new tab). Haas PhD Troup Howard’s work using the Fisher Center’s REFM Lab data is highlighted, on the racial disparities in assessments.
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