A weekend topic starting with Fox 13. "In his State of the State address, Governor Spencer Cox reiterated something he said last month to some of Utah’s most powerful business and community leaders. 'I believe the single largest threat to our future prosperity is the price of housing. Period,' said Cox. 'Housing attainability is a crisis in Utah and every state in this country.' 'For more than a century,' he continued, 'home ownership has been the cornerstone of the American dream. It is the key to financial independence, and the ability to break away from government support. Homeownership is also the key to family and community.' The Governor said recent polling indicates the two biggest issues for Utahns right now are inflation and the high cost of housing."

"Dejan Eskic at the Kem C. Gardner Institute at the University of Utah said, 'If you pay more than 30%, you're considered cost burdened. And so in Utah, if we look at renters, about half of them are cost burdened, meaning they pay more than 30% of their income on housing. Eskic said 15 percent of Utah renters are now paying 50% of their income to housing. 'So the more burdened your population becomes the less they have an opportunity to spend money elsewhere. So this is why this is a big challenge for us,' said Eskic."

From Newsweek. "More than 90 percent of Americans say they are 'very' or 'somewhat' concerned about the price of food and consumer goods while 89 percent say the same about the cost of housing, according to Pew. These worries partly explain why more than 30 percent say the economy is poor. The consumer price index came in at 3.4 percent last month, a slight uptick from November's read. A significant chunk of the increase came from housing costs, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said. 'The index for shelter continued to rise in December, contributing over half of the monthly all items increase,' they pointed out."

Business Insider. "Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies estimated 12.1 million American households spend more than half their income on rent and utilities. That number grows to 22.4 million households for those spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Even after adjusting for inflation, the number of rentals for less than $1,000 plummeted from 2012 to 2022, according to Harvard's research. Meanwhile, rentals priced over $2,000 have more than doubled during the same timeframe."

KDKA in Pennsylvania. "After the death of big steel, Mon Valley towns like Homestead and Munhall are finally making a comeback, attracting young families to restore houses and call the area home. But they've also attracted a number of big corporate buyers. In recent years, limited liability corporations, hedge funds and private equity firms have bought up hundreds of thousands of houses across the country and turned them into rental units. In Allegheny County, out-of-state buyers have snatched up more than a thousand houses primarily in the eastern suburbs — not dilapidated but not high-end — prime candidates for first-time buyers. Generally, the companies make some minor repairs and put them on the rental market. 'That's part of their business model,' said Sabina Deitrick, associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. 'Cut out the labor. There's no superintendent, there's no maintenance person, there's no one that they know is going to be around.'"

The Tampa Bay Times in Florida. "Is affordable housing actually affordable if taxpayers contribute $500,000 to build each home? St. Petersburg City Council members contemplated a similar question earlier this month. The majority of them answered yes. They greenlit a project that will require more than $12 million in subsidies to build 24 townhomes. Draw a circle with a 1-mile radius around the 22nd Street South property. Inside that circle on Wednesday were 27 homes selling for $500,000 or less, according to Zillow and Realtor.com. A few were brand new. Others were 100-year-old bungalows. Most were smaller. But they were all livable and ready for new owners, the listings said. The total asking price: $9.38 million. The city could have bought all of them and given them to 27 families entirely for free, and had millions of dollars left over to 'activate' the 22nd Street South property."

The Florida Alligator. "The average cost of living in Gainesville is 2% higher than the national average, while the housing cost is 12% higher than the national average. Gainesville residents aren’t alone as living in Florida can be expensive, with Florida’s more heavily populated cities like Miami sitting 21% above the national average cost of living, or Orlando, which sits at 5% above the national average. Jill Dumas was born and raised in Gainesville The 46-year-old Gainesville realtor and homeowner believes the housing crisis is due to high prices and the emergence of Airbnbs, she said. 'I had friends renting on the edge of the Duck Pond, not what I would call a high price neighborhood, for $725, and then starting to come out of COVID-19 it went up to $925, and next thing you know, it’s $1,200.' Dumas said. 'Nobody’s income went up $500 in that time.'"

"Short-term rental units through companies like Airbnb have increased after COVID-19. Alachua County currently averages 2,500 active short-term rental units, which increased by 36.4% from 2022. 'One of the things I’ve seen too is with Airbnb, investors take these spaces like a little apartment, a carriage house, a studio — what was affordable housing for people,' Dumas said. 'What I see happen a lot is that some landlords or investors raise rent so high that people can’t afford it. Those people move out and they put in an Airbnb.'"

Honolulu Civil Beat. "A package of bills expected to be introduced before a Hawaii County Council committee on Tuesday aims to crack down on the number of short-term vacation rentals on the island. Joshua Montgomery, a spokesman for Ohana Aina Association, which represents operators of homestays, farmstays and vacation rentals on the Big Island. doesn’t believe the legislation would lead to more long-term rentals. 'We don’t really have a housing supply problem. We have a money problem. You can go to Zillow right now and see dozens or hundreds of homes that are available for sale. The issue is local families don’t have enough money to buy them,' he said. 'Taking away their economic opportunity like this is not going to help their situation.'"

From News.com.au. "As Australia’s housing crisis continues to worsen, attention is again turning to the country’s one in ten 'empty' homes — and whether more needs to be done to fill them up. There were more than one million “empty” homes in Australia on Census night in 2021, a headline-grabbing figure in the midst of the country’s worsening housing crisis. ANU demographer Dr Liz Allen told ABC Radio Melbourne in 2022 that the number 'punched me in the face.' 'There are a number of reasons for that vacancy rate, but a lot of that is because people have multiple homes.'"

From Global News. "The Bank of Canada held its benchmark interest rate at 5.0 per cent for the fourth consecutive time on Wednesday, with governor Tiff Macklem saying that conversations at the central bank have shifted from whether rates need to rise higher to how long they need to stay at current levels. 'We believe this will provide Canadians with more comfort that home prices in their city have stabilized and the next step will be a return to home price appreciation,' saysPhil Soper, CEO of Royal LePage. 'The decision that consumers need to make is, do I wait for cheaper money or do I get in ahead of rising home prices?'"

From Reuters. "U.S. Federal Reserve officials suspected the fight to lower inflation would be difficult and have been reluctant to declare success even as price increases have slowed. The data from December showed why. Overall consumer price inflation jumped, while a measure of underlying inflation fell. But shelter costs keep rising, as do prices charged for an array of services like auto insurance. For the Fed it is a welcome return to a familiar world. Falling goods prices were a byproduct of trade liberalization in the 2000s and helped anchor low inflation through 2019, until the COVID-19 pandemic threw global supply chains into disarray, consumer goods demand jumped because of the health crisis, and prices soared. At their peak in February 2022, goods prices excluding food and energy products were rising 12.3% annually."

"The pandemic led to soaring home prices in parts of the U.S. and falling rents in others, but overall shelter costs rose only a tepid 1.4% over the 12 months ending February 2021, less than half the typical rate preceding the COVID-19 outbreak. But shelter inflation then accelerated, hitting 8.2% by March of 2023. That reading has been slowing, and Fed officials remain confident shelter cost 'disinflation' will continue. 'I think in the categories of where are the dangers, this issue of housing inflation is the critical piece in the near term,' Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said in an interview."

The Daily Mail. "A CBS anchor admitted that he failed to find a single person outside a New Hampshire grocery store who 'feels good about the economy' after inflation rose to 3.4 percent. While previewing an upcoming segment, 'CBS Mornings' co-host Tony Dokoupil said he and his team couldn't find anybody that was 'feeling good about the economy.' 'People are really bummed out about the economy here in New Hampshire,' he said. 'Even if the overall big picture numbers are going in the right direction, and even if people's own personal experiences in general are going okay, there's a lot of gloom.'"

"Noting the emotional impact of shopping, Dokoupil said, 'Psychologically, you go into a store, if you're paying more for items that you get every week, that really sticks with you, it really annoys you, it gets you down. People were upset about it.' In one interview, Dokoupil attempted to reassure a woman about the government's efforts to curb inflation. However, her response reflected skepticism, with her stating, 'I don't know what pocketbook they're looking at, but it ain't mine,' and revealing that she had taken on a second job.' Another family shared their experience with Dokoupil, detailing the challenges they face as each member works tirelessly to make ends meet in the face of economic pressures."