In the News

Los Angeles rental listings site RadPad has added short-term rentals as an option for tenants and landlords.

Traditionally, the site focused on long-term rentals and was primarily in competition with sites like Craigslist and West Side rentals. Now, it joins sites like Airbnb, VRBO and Home Away, in offering homes and apartments for short periods of time.

But, RadPad CEO Jonathan Eppers tells KPCC the short-term listings on the site won't be as short as one day. Rather they'll list week-to-week and month-to-month stays.

Ginnie Mae’s 2015 Game Changer Summit was a great opportunity for practitioners and leaders of the mortgage finance sector to convene and discuss the latest news and developments in the industry. Seven years after the housing crisis, the role of government loan programs remains prominent and 2015 has seen record breaking levels of Ginnie Mae MBS issuance backed by FHA, VA and RHS loans. This panel covers where we are, where we need to go, and what risks we must navigate to get there. Panelists include Michael Frueh, Director of Loan Guaranty Service, U.S.

For months, commercial real estate agent Matt Crabbs had seen almost no interest in his listing for a vacant retail building on La Brea Avenue in Inglewood.

Then suddenly everything changed. In just the last week, he said about six parties have expressed a desire to buy the roughly 17,000-square-foot building, which is listed at nearly $4 million.

"People are sharpening their pencils and seeing what they can do there," he said. "It's incredible."

It is likely that home prices will decline as a result of the recent increase, and that could hurt the sales market, goes the prevailing argument.

But some mortgage industry optimists see a prospect for greater momentum in sales.

Who will be right? The answer could turn on whose assumptions about the direction of prices and wages, and the balance between the two, are correct.

The Lusk Executive Forum is coming to the Bay Area for the first time this year! This event brings together leaders in the real estate investment, development, management, and policy communities for an evening of networking and a comprehensive program that will feature a panel discussion on the state of the industry and keynote remarks by President & CEO of Kilroy Realty, John Kilroy, Jr.

Rodney Ramcharan is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Research Director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. Previously, Dr. Ramcharan worked at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, serving most recently as the first chief of the newly created Systemic Financial Institutions and Markets Section.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - The Chinese stock market saw massive growth from June 2014 through June 2015, with a flood of new investors spending borrowed money on stocks. As has been well chronicled, the bubble popped this summer, and stock values have plummeted. The Shanghai Composite is down nearly 40% from its June peak, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Why is there a need for this rule at this time?

The mandate for the rule existed in the original Fair Housing Act (1968). If you look at the language, HUD was charged with stamping out any illegal discrimination that it saw, and also with affirmatively taking steps to promote integration and access to opportunity. That's in the law that was written in the '60s, so the mandate is not new and the charge isn't new.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has appointed a new senior advisor for housing finance policy to replace Edward Golding who is now overseeing the Federal Housing Administration's single-family and multifamily guarantee programs.

Richard Green comes from the University of Southern California, where he is director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate, which focuses on real estate issues and public policy.

The University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate, a nationally-renowned real estate research center, has appointed Rodney Ramcharan as its research director. Ramcharan has also been named associate professor of real estate and public policy at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.

At the Lusk Center, Ramcharan replaces Gary Painter, who was recently named director of social policy for the USC Sol Price Center for Social Innovation.