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Mike Fellman

@mikefellman.bsky.social
102 followers 41 following 96 posts

Economist. Real Estate. Investor. Hispanohablante. Puerto Rico Statehood. Fide FM/USCF NM

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Reposted by Mike Fellman
Groundwork Collaborative @groundwork.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Hot take: The housing crisis is a finance crisis. Developers don't just need permission to build—they need the math to work. Right now, it only works when rents keep rising. Our @jwmason.bsky.social & @mikefellman.bsky.social’s new report explores how we can make stable, lower-rent housing viable.
groundworkcollaborative.org
Fixing Housing Means Fixing Finance: Why We Can’t Deregulate Our Way to Affordability - Groundwork Collaborative
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Reposted by Mike Fellman
JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
I'm very excited that my report on housing affordability for @groundwork.bsky.social, coauthored with @mikefellman.bsky.social, is finally out. Today is a full teaching today for me, but I will try to put a post up about it tomorrow. groundworkcollaborative.org/work/fixing-...
groundworkcollaborative.org
Fixing Housing Means Fixing Finance: Why We Can’t Deregulate Our Way to Affordability - Groundwork Collaborative
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
How can a Danish pension fund even invest in US Treasuries when it's liabilities are in DKK???
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
The Fed bullies the bond market all the time, they just won't for the benefit of Trump.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Denmark or any country's investment in US Treasuries is actually largely irrelevant. Annexing Greenland would still be an outrage.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
M4A works by cramming down on providers. So doctors just move to another state under state level single payor. That said, if the entire country went on M4A, providers would face a ~20 percent pay cut but would have nowhere to go since US docs would still be the highest paid in the world.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
The Convex Housing Supply Curve and Its Causes
In one of my first posts, I explained what supply and demand really mean in economics. The supply and demand curves are functions which map quantities to prices, not quantities themselves.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Vienna's Housing Model Holds Promise and Perils open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Vienna's Social Housing Model Holds Promise and Perils
Vienna was perhaps best known as the seat of the power of the Habsburg Empire, but in modern times it is better known as a large city with an extensive stock of public or government subsidized housing...
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Veteran's Day Post Are VA Home Loans a Good Deal? Mostly yes, with some caveats open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Are VA Home Loans a Good Deal?
Mostly yes, with some caveats
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Explainer: Home Prices and Baumol's Cost Disease
You’ll notice a funny thing when you look at a list of states by median home price.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
By popular demand, my first foray into non-real estate topics. open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
The Rise of Data Centers Could Paradoxically Lower Electricity Rates
But also present risks for existing rate-payers
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Housing production suffers from diseconomies of scale, which helps explains high housing cost. open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Diseconomies of Scale Plague Dense Housing
And make it tough for density to address affordability
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
New Housing Hell open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Zoning Probably Makes Housing Cheaper, And That's a Problem.
By inefficiently allocating housing across space, it reduces the value of the housing stock.
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Reposted by Mike Fellman
JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
I support proposals 2-4 on the NYC ballot, which would make it moderately easier adjust zoning for higher-density housing development. I have to say, seeing how controversial this is among people I know is giving me some new sympathy for the angry YIMBYs online.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
New Housing Hell Tokyo is not a YIMBY dreamland, it's a deflated asset bubble. open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Tokyo is not a YIMBY Dreamland
It's just a deflated bubble
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
New Housing Hell I analyze the impacts of the Texas and California real estate tax regimes on housing production. Spoiler alert: Cali comes out better than critics would expect. open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Evaluating the Impact of Fees, Property Taxes, and Construction Delays in California and Texas
The much anticipated Rand Corporation report comparing multifamily housing in Texas and California came out in April 2025.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
New Housing Hell Vacancy rates a housing shortage do not make. open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Vacancy Rates are a Silly Way to Estimate Housing Shortages
Housing costs have been incredibly salient in the zeitgeist since 2021.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
New Housing Hell Stop comparing rent control in Argentina to US Rent Stabilization open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Stop Comparing Argentina's Rent Control to Rent Stabilization in the United States
Argentina’s President Javier Milei is a libertarian darling who abolished rent control by decree in late 2023 upon taking office.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
New Housing Hell Developers are not the enemy of landlords. Landlords are their customers open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Developers and Landlords Interests Largely Align
Rising rents are needed for private multifamily development to deliver required rates of return and secure financing.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
New Housing Hell open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
San Francisco, YIMBY Success Story?!?!?
Not exactly, but land use rules did not prevent a solid building cycle which flattened rents.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
She already said she would only serve one term. That's already disqualifying and forces Ds to potentially have to defend an open seat in 2032 years.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
New article. SB 79 brings some welcome changes, but don't expect a building boom. open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
SB 79 is Law. Don't Expect Much Building
SB 79 is now law, having been signed by Governor Newsom.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
New Substack Wall Street didn't cause the housing crisis, but YIMBYs still get the economics wrong (per usual) open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
Wall Street did not cause home prices to surge. But the Internet still gets it wrong.
Every few weeks, a viral tweet blaming institutional investors incenses YIMBYs.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
New substack No matter what some YIMBYs say, the quantity of buildable land does not determine its price. open.substack.com/pub/precon/p...
open.substack.com
The Quantity of Buildable Land doe not Determine its Price.
People in the YIMBY movement have at times asserted that upzoning magically reduces land prices, or at least the price of apartment-zoned land.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
But in order for it to be speculation, land prices have to be detached from rents! The simple and straightforward answer is that it is not speculation. Land prices are rising because the rent that the land can generate is rising. It's not that deep.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
But this is an inherent contradiction, since for some on the left, land "speculation " is driving rents higher
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
In other words, land prices detach fully or partially from the returns(rents) that land generates. Land prices are higher than what rents would justify.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
We could define "speculative" demand as any price above which land provides a return which is BELOW a return (adjusting for risk) that equals returns in other asset classes.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Suppose land prices are anchored by the same zero arbitrage equilibrium condition that anchors all asset prices. Here, land must be priced such that it does not provide a higher risk adjusted return than other asset classes
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
JW and I have a paper on housing coming out soon, and we agree on this. I've thought about how land speculation would drive up rents, and I just don't see it. Quick thread
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
Did they lower the price of a single family home in a walkable neighborhood?
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
@jameskerlindsay.bsky.social Why did you take "statehood" out of your intro? Your videos on state emergence are some of your very best!
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Reposted by Mike Fellman
Leigh Caldwell @cognomist.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
You remind me of the UK state’s fetish for signing long-term contracts for public services with private providers to avoid taking debt onto its balance sheet, then having to pay the private companies’ (much higher) finance costs/risk premiums instead of financing it themselves.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Same thing. Money is fungible. Whatever money West didn't have to spend getting on ballot access he could spend attacking Harris.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Mark, you campaigned with Harris but were also giving money to another candidate? Do you realize how fucked up that is?
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
What in the actual fuck? You were on the campaign stage with Harris while simultaneously giving money to other candidates?
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
All through the 19th century, cause célebre cases of Antisemitism would dominate the headlines. European political leaders, be they elected or monarchs, would cynically condemn the injustice while simultaneously passing/supporting antisemitic laws in they own countries.
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Reposted by Mike Fellman
Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
As far as I can tell, not a single Republican in Congress has said a word about Trump using the antisemitic slur "shylock" at a rally yesterday. I wonder how quickly someone like Rep. Elise Stefanik would speak out if someone on a college campus had said it.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Look, I hate Trump but the Social Security Trust Funds are accounting tools. "Insolvency" is a statutory issue. Meaning it's a matter of appropriating the funds. They are an intra-government account. They have no bearing on the economic ability to pay benefits.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
It was discussed at length and the drafters of the 14th understood they were granted citizenship to children born to immigrant parents regardless of their status and said so at the time
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
You wouldn't like German.😆
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
When people ask me who I blame for the Israeli Palestinian conflict, I always surprise them. It's Germany, Russia, and to a much lesser extent, the UK.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
Yes vacancy rates push down rents. It's why investors will never intentionally push up vacancy rates to a point where rents crash and their projects become non-viable. It's not a matter of anti-trust or collusion. Permitting data is public record.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Thanks, private equity. 😅
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Nitpick on an otherwise informative thread, but this graphic implies that Nike can pass on income taxes it pays to consumers which is not true.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
Sorry folks. Electing judges is grotesque.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
The trend line with Poland and Czechia is almost the exact same. That might change going forward.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
Anne, not defending Orban but his strong economic record is a huge reason he has been able to hang onto power. Hungary's GDP per capita PPP has been catching up with Western Europe for 30 years. The gap is closing, and this trend has accelerated under Orban.
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
It's insane that the US would recognize Morrocan sovereignty over Western Sahara, unending decades of precedent, merely in exchange for recognizing Isrsel. As the Sen Inhofe said, it "bargains away the rights of a voiceless people. " 2/2
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Mike Fellman @mikefellman.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Unpopular opinion: The Abraham Accords were a mistake. 1) It rewarded Israel for not annexing territory. Eg, for not doing a bad thing that it should not have done anyways. 2) It allowed Morroco to illegally annex Western Sahara in exchange for formal recognition of Israel. (1/2)
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