Real Estate Buyer Preferences

Why Zoning is Civil Rights Work When most people hear the word zoning, they think about technicalities: setbacks, height limits, density allowances. It sounds dry, like something only planners or lawyers care about. But here’s the truth: zoning is not neutral. It’s about who gets to live where, and under what conditions. Which means zoning is civil rights work. A Tool of Exclusion Zoning has long been used to draw invisible lines that separated people by race and class. -Early 20th-century zoning explicitly barred Black families from white neighborhoods until the Supreme Court outlawed it in 1917. -When race-based zoning was struck down, cities pivoted to “exclusionary zoning”, large-lot single-family requirements, bans on apartments, and parking mandates. The effect was the same: keeping certain people out. -Combined with redlining and urban renewal, zoning became a powerful tool for segregation and disinvestment. The legacy is visible today. In many cities, the neighborhoods with the best schools, green space, and transit are zoned for single-family homes only, shutting out renters, working-class families, and first-generation buyers. Why Reform Matters Now When we talk about equity in housing, zoning is often left out of the conversation. But it shapes everything else: -Housing access. If only single-family homes are allowed, and those homes start at $500K, who can afford to move in? -Opportunity. Zoning dictates whether a child grows up near strong schools, jobs, and transit, or in an isolated area with fewer resources. -Affordability. Allowing duplexes, triplexes, and small multi-family homes can open the door to more affordable options without subsidies. In other words, zoning is not just land use policy. It’s opportunity policy. Zoning as Repair If zoning has been used as a tool of exclusion, it can also be a tool of repair. Reform doesn’t mean eliminating single-family homes. It means giving communities more choices: -Legalizing missing middle housing like duplexes, fourplexes, and accessory dwelling units. -Reducing parking requirements that inflate costs and limit walkability. -Supporting mixed-use neighborhoods that connect housing to small businesses, schools, and services. When we talk about housing as a civil rights issue, we can’t only talk about programs and subsidies. We have to talk about the rules that shape the very ground we build on. The Call Take Away Zoning may look like a technical detail, but it determines who belongs where. And that makes it one of the most important levers we have for building equitable cities. Civil rights isn’t only about who can vote or who can ride the bus. It’s also about who gets to live in safe, affordable, opportunity-rich neighborhoods. If we want to live up to our values, zoning reform has to be part of the civil rights agenda. What’s one zoning rule in your city that you think needs to change?

Our new paper on zoning reform and local travel is out! We use generative AI to simulate zoning reforms and examine how changes in land use mix are associated with travel distances. The analysis combines parcel-level land use data with GPS mobility records from more than 400 U.S. cities. We train a generative adversarial network to learn the relationship between land use configurations and the share of trips that occur within a 15-minute walk, and then use the model to simulate zoning reforms that increase land use mix citywide and in targeted neighborhoods. On average, a 20% increase in land use mix is associated with a 7% relative increase in short-distance trips. In about one-quarter of cities, the same increase produces gains up to three times larger. Targeting low-density or single-use neighborhoods yields improvements comparable to citywide reforms. Here is the link to the paper: https://lnkd.in/eAgKg98D Joint work with Charles QC LI Yale School of the Environment Hixon Center for Urban Sustainability

A buyer sent me a house and asked for more info. When I looked it up, I was impressed. The listing agent had done their homework—and then some. Every due diligence document was ready to go. The unique prep work required for a mountain home? Already handled. Questions I usually have to chase down? All answered up front. You might assume this is standard. It’s not. Too often, I run into listings with missing or inaccurate details. Some agents can’t answer basic questions. Others don’t have standard info about the house and need to “get back to me” after reaching out to the seller. This slows everything down—and can cost sellers money (or even an offer) if buyers start questioning things and don’t feel confident in the responses. The difference always comes down to the details. It’s the prep you assume won’t matter—or the questions you didn’t know to ask because you don’t sell homes every day—that can impact your timeline, shake buyer confidence, and affect your final sale price. When listing your home, make sure you work with someone who takes the time to get it right before your home even hits the market. It’s worth it. Every time.

We teamed up with Morgan Friberg at Shovels to analyze 6,000+ permitting and zoning decisions from Q1'26. Three trends stood out: 1/ Cities are writing their own housing checks. This was the most surprising one. Across very different states with very different politics, cities used Q1 to commit municipal capital (bonds, sales-tax revenue, direct land contributions, housing trust funds) to affordable housing. • Ann Arbor issued $35M in bonds for a 330-unit affordable tower • Wichita passed a $120M housing endowment from sales tax • Madison added $4M in GO borrowing for strategic land banking • Albany rewrote inclusionary zoning to feed a Housing Trust Fund • Fresno wrote $22M+ in city checks for two mixed-income projects Seven cities, five states, no two financing structures alike. They share one assumption: waiting for LIHTC or HUD is no longer a viable strategy. 2/ The data center red light came on outside the Sun Belt. If Q3 2025 was the quarter of the green light, Q1 2026 was the reversal. Madison enacted a moratorium. Caledonia Township, MI matched it. Naperville denied a project in a historically tech-friendly corridor. Provo's council voted 7-0 to deny the underlying zoning change for what would have been the first project under its new Data Center Overlay. The pattern: custom overlays, moratoriums while codes get rewritten, and outright denials in legacy industrial sites near residential. Underwriting data centers in 2026 requires a local political strategy, not just a fiber map. 3/ Conversions are now the template, not the exception. Six conversions across five states in a single quarter. Plus a hospital campus. • Walnut Creek: 422 townhomes replacing 330,000 sqft of office (Builder's Remedy) • Provo: 1,383 units replacing a dead mall • Sunnyvale: 329 units replacing six industrial/office buildings • Orange County, FL: ~900-bedroom student housing on underutilized office entitlements • Saint Paul: TIF district financing a downtown hospital campus redevelopment A year ago these projects were notable exceptions. Now they're the baseline. The full Q1 2026 report covers two more themes: stadium districts as mixed-use entitlement vehicles, and cities stretching local regulatory tools well beyond their original purpose. Link in comments.

I'm proud to release a project I've been working on for 18 months: the *first* rigorous study on floorplans & families. ~10K person survey, conjoint analysis & 40page paper on: Do floorplans matter to families, or people who want a baby? Can we make *apartments* more family friendly? Turns out, YES! Having an *extra* bedroom matters MOST to families even in the same square footage. https://lnkd.in/gEcJxXt5 The US builds a *lot* of apartments … and it’s increasing. More than 1/3 of all new housing units in the country are apartments. The greatest share since the 1970’s. So if “family friendly” housing is going to be built at scale it MUST include apartments. My goal was in to create a study with the best chance to nudge the rest of the industry to build more family friendly units. And I think we've shown it is actually in the developer's best interest to build a product that is under supplied: “Baby Maybe” apartments. In terms of the floorplans and survey design … the goal was to try and influence developer behavior as much as possible. In practice, this meant we only used floorplans that *already* existed at scale in the US: So that means nothing European. Only double loaded corridor. We showed people 750, 1100 and 1200sf units with alternate layouts and then asked them which they preferred. As an example, the corner of any mid-rise apartment building is typically a 1200sf. But it's usually laid out as a split 2BR/2BA. But it could easily be done as 3BR/2BA at the identical size and shape. And here’s the % who prefers the 3BR (among very large representative sample) No kids, don’t want: 42% No kids, want more: 46% Have kids, don’t want more: 56% Have kids, want more: 60% This means that even among those residents who don't want kids, the 3BR/2BA option is still undersupplied since >90% of building corners are 2BRs.

Things I'd never put in my bathroom as a realtor... because yes, I've seen them kill deals! And I've seen the same bathroom mistakes kill deals over and over. Here are the things I'd never put in my own bathroom because I know what buyers actually think when they see them: 1. Dark paint colors Navy, charcoal, black accent walls: They make bathrooms feel like caves. Bay Area buyers want bright, spa-like bathrooms that feel clean and open. Dark paint = Instant turnoff during showings. 2. Patterned or busy tile Geometric floor tile, bold backsplash, colorful grout. What feels trendy now looks dated in 3 years when you sell. Buyers see patterned tile and mentally add "$15K to rip this out and replace it." 3. Carpet (Yes, people still do this) Carpeted bathrooms are moisture traps, mold magnets, and instant red flags for Bay Area buyers who expect tile or luxury vinyl throughout. If your bathroom has carpet, rip it out before listing. 4. Wallpaper (Especially bold patterns) Floral wallpaper, textured wallpaper, peel-and-stick trends: they all scream "personal taste" instead of "universal appeal." Buyers don't want to spend their first weekend scraping wallpaper. They'll just lowball you instead. 5. Overly personal decor or clutter Family photos, toiletries everywhere, decorative collections. Buyers need to imagine THEIR life in the space, not be reminded they're in someone else's bathroom. Clear counters. Neutral towels. Minimal staging. 6. Outdated fixtures (brass, gold, mismatched finishes) Mixing chrome faucets with brass towel bars, or keeping builder-grade fixtures from 1995, makes the whole bathroom feel neglected. Updated fixtures = modern home. Mismatched = deferred maintenance. Bottom line: Your bathroom should feel like a clean, neutral, spa-like space, not a design experiment. What feels personal to you feels like a project to buyers. And projects = lower offers. Selling your Bay Area home? Let's talk pre-listing strategy. Realtor DRE #02191250 📧 sannarealtor@gmail.com 📱 (415) 548-3068 #BayArea #Realtor #RealEstate #California

Spatial Mismatch: An Overlooked Urban Planning Challenge When discussing unemployment, we often hear about skills gaps, wages, and workforce participation. But one critical factor that is often overlooked is the idea of spatial mismatch. This refers to the disconnect between where jobs are located and where workers can afford to live. 📍What Is Spatial Mismatch? The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis, which was popularized in the 1960s, highlighted how economic opportunity is as much a function of urban form as it is of labor markets. As job centers have increasingly decentralized (moving from urban cores to suburban areas) many low-income workers, particularly in cities, face growing structural barriers to employment. 🚧 How Urban Planning Shapes This Mismatch: Transit-Oriented Disconnect: Many high-growth job centers are designed around car dependency, with inadequate public transit links for workers in lower-income urban areas. Housing Policy Constraints: Zoning laws often restrict affordable, high-density, or mixed-income housing near employment hubs, forcing workers into long, expensive commutes. Land Use and Sprawl: The suburbanization of jobs, combined with restrictive urban land use policies, reduces proximity between workers and workplaces, exacerbating inequality. 🏙️ The Role of Urban Planning in Fixing the Problem Spatial mismatch is not just a transportation issue, it’s an urban planning challenge that requires a coordinated response: Mixed-Use and Inclusionary Zoning: Allowing diverse housing types near employment centers can reduce commute burdens and enhance economic mobility. High-Capacity Transit Investments: Expanding and modernizing public transit networks can bridge accessibility gaps between urban workers and suburban jobs. Strategic Job Center Development: Incentivizing businesses to locate in transit-accessible urban areas can rebalance economic geography. The intersection of land use, mobility, and workforce access should be a central focus of urban planning. If we want to create sustainable, equitable cities, we need to rethink how we structure access to jobs and not just where we build them. #urbaneconomy #urbanplanning #cities #jobs

Today's apartment shopper is more cautious. Deliberate. They are "Browsers" – a recent study noted that more than half of in-market renters are "browsing without a firm move-in date." They are value-hunting. Cost-conscious. The industry has responded by offering a level of concessions that we haven't seen in years. Maybe ever. This "deliberate" mindset is creating a critical bottleneck for those of us trying to lease apartments. Now also consider that >60% of Google searches end in *zero clicks.* (I have lots of previous posts watching this trend.) That means your property website has to work twice as hard to convert the traffic that you get. The question we often hear is: “How do we get more traffic?” But we really need to pair that with the appropriate follow-up: “How do we convert the traffic we already have?” Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things I see consistently lift conversion for apartment websites: ** Decision helpers ** ✅ A property or floor plan comparison tool ✅ A quick quiz or “matchmaker” wizard ✅ Floor plan pages pre-filtered by primary bed types (all 1s, all 2s, etc.) ✅ Full, indexed pages for every floor plan (or even every unit) ✅ Battle card pages that compare your features and services to key comps (This is massive opportunity that very few leverage.) ** Social proof & storytelling ** ✅ Well-lit, staged photos + virtual tours for each floor plan ✅ Thoughtful, benefit-focused copy (time savings, cost savings, convenience, lifestyle upgrade) ✅ Google reviews + resident testimonials on floor plan pages ✅ Anything that reinforces your service guarantee and customer care ✅ Real people — team and residents, on camera and in photos ✅ Regular, useful blog content that actually showcases your value ** Friction killers ** ✅ A self-serve tour scheduler. Bonus points if: a) it auto-adds to the prospect’s calendar, b) there's a real human follow-up, and c) there's a day-of text with a map link to your door ✅ Smart, behavior-based pop-ups that directly capture leads ✅ Softer CTAs: weekly deals, price alerts, saved floor plans, moving checklists ✅ Short, clean forms (5-7 key fields is your sweet spot) ✅ Psychological triggers used responsibly: “128 shoppers viewed this plan this week” or “Last 2 with an attached garage” It’s all about respect for the shopper and where they're at in their shopping process. Renters are doing their homework. Your site *must* help them see you are the correct answer. 🎯 Make it easy for them to compare options. 🎯 Make it easy to trust you. 🎯 Make it easy to take the next step that feels safe right now. When our websites work twice as hard to be helpful, it's that much easier to turn browsers into qualified prospects. So before you dump more money into your ILS listing or your Google Ads, double check this list and make sure your most active leasing agent is doing its job to build trust and bring shoppers through your doors. Anything else you'd add to this list?

Zoned residential. Still couldn't apply for a building permit. Here's how the listing described it: "Embrace the opportunity to build your custom home on this beautifully wooded lot, nestled among mature trees in a quiet, neighborhood. Just minutes from downtown. The perfect balance of peaceful seclusion and urban convenience. An ideal canvas for your dream home." If you’re an on-your-lot builder, you've seen this listing a hundred times. Nothing about it looks risky. What zoning told us: Single-family residential. Inside city limits, established neighborhood, utilities nearby. Many teams would greenlight this. But when we ran the SiteFacts report, one detail made us slow down. The county assessor had classified the property as "Unbuildable." That word doesn't show up in MLS remarks. It doesn't kill deals outright, easy to dismiss. It shouldn't be. Assessors aren't making zoning calls, they're flagging unresolved risk. We kept digging. The lot sits inside a landslide hazard overlay, tied to documented slope failures from the late 1990s. Not a hypothetical risk. Actual ground movement, recorded cracks, emergency stabilization work installed downslope. The site had a history. Because of that overlay, zoning stopped mattering. Before a building permit could even be submitted, the city required a land use approval for landslide hazard. A lot-level geotechnical investigation, not just a soils report. Proof that grading, drainage, and foundations wouldn't reactivate movement. Possible third-party peer review. Planning review before building review would even start. The lot wasn't misrepresented. The listing wasn't lying, it just wasn't telling the whole story. And when this kind of issue surfaces late, the client doesn't blame the overlay, they look at you. The scariest sites aren't the "weird" ones. They're the beautiful, normal-looking lots where the risk is decades old and buried in records most teams never check. Zoning tells you what might be allowed. SiteFacts tells you if you're actually allowed to start. On-your-lot builders: What’s the red flag you’ve learned to trust, even when the listing sounds perfect?

We tend to talk about housing shortages as if they’re purely a supply problem - build more units and we’ll be fine. But the deeper truth is that the shape of demand has fundamentally shifted. Smaller households, more people living alone, later marriages, longer lifespans… all of it quietly reshaping how much housing we actually need for the same population. And yet, in many places, we’re still trying to solve a 2026 reality with a 1970 zoning playbook. If household size shrinks but our housing types stay frozen (large lots, single-use, one-size-fits-all) we create scarcity by design. Not because we lack land or capacity, but because we’ve limited the kinds of homes that are allowed to exist. 🏡 The opportunity in front of us isn’t just “more housing.” It’s more ways to live. Missing middle. ADUs. Courtyard apartments. Flexible, incremental density that fits within neighborhoods rather than fighting against them. If we get this right, we don’t just solve for affordability... we restore something we’ve lost along the way: proximity, diversity of living, and the kind of neighborhoods that actually feel like places people belong. Zoning reform isn’t just a policy conversation. It’s a human one‼️ #zoning #reform #city #planning #housing #housingcrisis #housingforall