                         |
 | |||||||
Wharton News Women in Real EstateThe Wharton MBA and School of Design Real Estate Clubs presented a Women in Real Estate Panel in February, focusing on navigating the real estate industry from a female perspective: Professor Lynne Sagalyn served as moderator with panelists including Anne Klein of Grubb & Ellis; Sarah Peck of Progressive Housing Ventures; Jennie Pries of Morgan Stanley Real Estate; and Rubyann Stewart of Grosvenor Investment Management. The Philadelphia Chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) sponsored the event.Is Learning Another Language Worth It?
"Calculating the exact value of learning a second language has vexed economists," wrote Forbes in their on-line edition(2/22). The article cited a paper of real estate professor Albert Saiz and Elena Zoido in their comparison of wage premiums for American college graduates who spoke Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian and Chinese as a second language. Their findings? ". . . the law of supply and demand prevailed. With its 1.7% wage premium, Spanish was the least valuable, followed by French (2.7%). Knowledge of German, Italian, Russian and Chinese was slightly more valuable, translating into an average 4% income boost. . . . In the same study, Saiz and Zoido found that an extra year of schooling yielded an 8% to 14% wage premium." To make more money, the article advised "savvy college students" to learn Chinese and Arabic. Does the Mortgage Crisis Demand a Government Bailout?Wharton real estate professors Joe Gyourko, Todd Sinai and Susan Wachter all contributed to an article, "Mortgage crisis bailout: Relief for some, Risk for others," in the latest edition of Knowledge@Wharton (3/5). Wachter, who warned a year ago that the subprime mess could push the economy into recession, favors new legislation or regulation to give trusts that control mortgage-backed securities incentives to work with homeowners: "Now it's our problem, and it isn't getting any better. As we speak, it is getting worse." On the other hand, Gyourko warns, "We're going to have to work out these loans, but I think it's not a wise idea to bail out people who made risky, unwise decisions.... I think the banking sector, which made these loans, needs to live with them." Sinai suggests that the best solution to the foreclosure problem would be to offer low-interest, fixed rate loans to everyone. That would give troubled homeowners a chance to refinance without favoring them over other borrowers.Facing Default
"The same sorts of loans that drove the real estate boom now change the nature of foreclosure, giving borrowers incentives to walk away," said Todd Sinai, an associate professor of real estate, in The New York Times (2/29). "'There's a whole lot of people who would've been stuck as renters without these exotic loan products,' Professor Sinai said. 'Now it's like they can do their renting from the bank, and if house values go up, they become the owner. If they go down, you have the choice to give the house back to the bank. You aren't any worse off than renting, and you got a chance to do extremely well. If it's heads I win, tails the bank loses, it's worth the gamble.'" Professor Sinai was also cited in another New York Times article (2/15), "Some Cities Are Spared the Slide in Housing," about smaller housing markets that are holding up very well. Still, "The fly in the ointment for these cities is declining sales volumes, which prompt some experts to argue that median prices are presenting an unduly rosy picture. If fewer houses sell, but the ones that do sell are at the high end of the range, that can skew median prices. . . . In the markets that are doing better, lots of people are not selling their houses, so you don't see the prices going down because they are not selling for a lower price . . . The market is doing a lot worse than what the median prices would show." Summers on Land Use RegulationsWharton professor emerita Anita Summers has been invited to present her findings on "Residential Land Use Regulation in the Philadelphia MSA" to CREW (Council of Real Estate Women) on March 20 at the Union League Club in Philadelphia.International Housing Finance Program in Central Asia and Indonesia
IHFP conducted a housing finance workshop for Central Asia and Azerbaijan. Sixty-five participants gathered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbejan for a week-long workshop on the development of sound housing finance systems and the important role of government regulations and support. Several international systems and experiences were discussed. IHFP faculty Marja Hoek-Smit and Douglas Diamond conducted the course, which was jointly organized with IFC and the World Bank. IHFP assisted the Indonesian Secondary Mortgage Facility in organizing a workshop for private lenders and regulators in Jakarta, Indonesia on the importance of accessing capital markets for mortgage funding in Indonesia and the different ways this might be done. More than 100 senior private and public officials participated.Marja Hoek-Smit participated in the February 11 expert panel on "Slum Upgrading Today: Lessons from Africa and Around the World," which was organized by Penn's School of Design and UIR and was supported by the Provost's Fund for Innovation in International Offerings. She discussed the critical parameters of slum upgrading in different continents based on her international experience in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She highlighted the determining influence of the existing type of land ownership and house tenure patterns on the feasibility and types of slum upgrading. Hoek-Smit was the keynote speaker at the "Housing Washington 2007" conference on "International Housing Policy: Lessons for the US." She continues her housing policy work with the government of Egypt and prepared a white paper on subsidy policy for the Mexican government. Rybczynski Lectures in Canada; Book Garners Praise
Witold Rybczynski, Wharton professor and Martin & Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism, School of Design, lectured at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. "Green Before Green" described research conducted in the 1970s by the Minimum Cost Housing Group, of which he was a member. Planetizen.com, a respected city planning and development website, named his recent book, Last Harvest, one of 10 best books of 2008. Linneman Opposes Federal Bail-Out
Real estate professor Peter Linneman was the final lecturer in the Wachovia Executive Series at Moore College of Art, in December. Speaking about the financial market, Linneman said this is the "most volatile market of the last 10 years…The last time it was this messy was the early 90s and the S&L situation." But, he added, the markets are cyclical, depending on whether "greed or fear" is winning. He predicted greed will triumph again within two years. The subprime lending crisis may not be as dire as it appears, Linneman suggested. The U.S. population grows by about three million a year, and the housing demands will begin to catch up with current surplus within one to two years, he said, adding, "asset prices will go up again within seven years." Linneman was critical of a government bailout of the mortgage industry because of the inequity to borrowers who honored their commitments, but said the political ramifications are too great to "do nothing." "Interestingly, the economy is doing very well," Linneman said. He told the audience that market observers make a mistake when they suggest that consumers will not spend just because they are not spending on houses or automobiles, and offered a quote from economist Milton Friedman: "Do not confuse losses to some in society with losses to society."Wachter Interviewed Extensively on the Housing Market
Sought for her opinions on television and on radio, in January, real estate professor Susan Wachter commented on whether Congress should raise the cap on government sponsored loans as part of its economic stimulus plan on CNBC's the Morning Call; she commented on the current housing scenario in a TV interview on CN8, Money Matters Today; she was interviewed by the Korean Broadcasting Service on the U.S. housing market, the current crisis and its impact on global markets. In December, Dr. Wachter was interviewed on CNBC's Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo on the U.S. housing market and its crisis; she commented on the current housing scenario on CN8 (television), Money Matters Today; in February she was on the same program, discussing the Treasury's Mortgage Rescue Plan and the housing market crisis. Wachter presented to a group at the FDIC on the impact of regulations on mortgage in the housing market at Washington, D.C.; made a presentation on the subprime crisis in the housing market at a Roundtable for New York State and City housing officials in January; presented on mortgage pricing (coauthored with Simon Firestone and Paul Calem) at the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association Annual Meeting, in New Orleans. In December 2007, she presented on "Do Real Estate Agents Compete on Prices" at the Conference on Housing and the Built Environment held at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Boston. In November, she presented on "State and Local Anti-Predatory Lending Laws," at Harvard University in Cambridge; and delivered a keynote address at a conference on "Land and Power: The Impact of Eminent Domain in Urban Communities," at Princeton University.Dr. Wachter was quoted on the Paulson Plan to assist in the recovery of mortgage markets, in "Mortgage Markets Get A Hand," Wall Street Journal, (1/12) "Housing Mess Forces Bush Admin Change," Washington Post, Business Week, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, December 3, 2007; and the Associated Press and Reuters also covered Dr. Wachter's response and comments on the Paulson Plan. She was quoted in various media publications on the role of bank influenced appraisals, including "Foreign Cash Could Help Boost Housing Market," Associated Press, Boston Herald and about 70 other newspapers and websites, in November. Other media citations for Dr. Wachter include: "Suit blows whistle on bank-influenced appraisals," Chicago Daily Herald, Arizona Daily Star, Boston Herald, Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, January 26; "Appraiser Exposes Toxic Debt Tie to Inflated Values," Bloomberg, January 17; "Housing Forecast: Dreary," Philadelphia Inquirer, January 07; "Market's Lousy, There's 'Blood in the Streets'-So, Time To Buy?" Philadelphia Daily News, December 28; "Philadelphia Housing Slowdown to Continue in 2008," Philadelphia Inquirer, December 24; "Subprime Plan May Be Too Little, Too Late," Reuters, Bloomberg, Economic Times (India), South China Morning Post, December 6.
|
