Who Killed the Starter Home?

By: Marina Rubina and Svetlana Didorenko
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  • Summary

  • Have you seen any starter homes for sale lately? Neither have we. In this podcast, we speak with experts and try to figure out why this humble first home is going extinct. We’ll be exploring if it is the politicians, wielding zoning laws like a murder weapon who killed the starter home? Or maybe the scaredy-cat planners and designers? Or the developers, armed with cookie-cutter plans and corporate indifference? Is it our convoluted tax policy that subsidies homeownership, but puts every tax penalty in the way of creation of the starter homes. Spoiler alert: it’s probably a little of everything. We’ll be peeling back the layers of bureaucracy, bad faith, and bad planning, with stops along the way for affordable housing scandals, ADU success stories, and a passionate plea for building code updates. Join us for a conversation that’s part policy deep-dive, part therapy session for frustrated builders, and entirely a love letter to cities that deserve better.
    Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
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Episodes
  • Radical Growth that killed trust, conversation with Edward Erfurt of Strong Towns

    Radical Growth that killed trust, conversation with Edward Erfurt of Strong Towns
    Feb 28 2025
    In this episode I spoke with Edward Erfurt, the Director of Community Action at Strong Towns. Strong Towns is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping cities and towns of all sizes to be safe, livable, and inviting. Their incremental development advocacy is both practical and inspiring. Edward told me that to find the answer to who killed the starter home, we need to look back about 80 years. The two following episodes will also be looking at the motives and consequences of this old crime. We would like to hear what you think about this conversation or if you have any ideas for how to bring the starter homes back from the brink of extinction, send us a note at starterhomepodcast@gmail.com
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    39 mins
  • Home Rule and Condo Regulations, Conversation with Deb Tantleff

    Home Rule and Condo Regulations, Conversation with Deb Tantleff
    Feb 21 2025
    In this episode I spoke with Deb Tentelff, the founding principal at https://www.tantumre.com. As a practitioner, Deb has developed over $2 billion dollars in construction of over 7,000 residential units throughout the state of NJ. She is also a housing advocate and chair of the NJ Builders Association. Deb and I spoke about the barriers developers have to overcome trying to build new homes. I also asked Deb to explain why so few condos are created for the entry level market. It is a depressing story of good intentions leading to terrible consequences. I hope you find this conversation educational - I certainly did. Do let us know what you think, what other topics you would like to hear or if you have any ideas for how to bring the starter homes back from the brink of extinction, send us a note at starterhomepodcast@gmail.com
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    54 mins
  • Attack on small, creative local. Conversation with Aaron Lubeck

    Attack on small, creative local. Conversation with Aaron Lubeck
    Feb 2 2025
    Aaron Lubeck wears many hats in the world of housing and urban development. He is a builder, planner, writer, policy advocate and educator. Check out his work at aaronlubeck.substack.com and southernurbanism.org. We talked about strategies to help towns create buildings and communities that are unique and require no subsidy to be affordable. You should also hear Aaron's great explanation of the threshold of abuse for small local developers and how that is different from the large corporate development groups. Let us know what you think, what other topics you would like to hear or if you have any ideas for how to bring the starter homes back from the brink of extinction, send us a note at starterhomepodcast@gmail.com
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    54 mins

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