Making It Pencil: Can We Get Housing for Middle-Income Households to Work?

For middle-income Californians, housing affordability has worsened significantly in recent years. Yet few policy interventions or housing programs directly target this population.

Building off our previous work modeling the math behind housing development, this analysis illustrates why the market is currently unable to make middle income housing financially feasible. And it examines policy changes that might increase the likelihood of middle-income housing production without requiring direct government subsidy.

Policy changes that were modeled include reducing parking requirements, providing a density bonus, and providing a property tax exemption (currently available to housing developments affordable to lower-income households, but not middle-income ones).

Read the full analysis here.