WEBVTT - Housing Is a Problem Even in a State With Declining Population 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:14.000 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.640 Hello and welcome to another episode of The Outlaws podcast. 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:23.960 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.920 So, Tracy, I get why, like a city like New 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:30.240 York City, it's housing is really expensive. It's really difficult 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:31.600 to build. I mean, there's not a lot of space 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:33.479 right in New York City. Like, I don't really blame 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:35.680 New York City for not building a lot of new housing, 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:37.879 Like where would you put it exactly right? 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.680 Manhattan is an island, seems somewhat limited. Plus it has 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:42.720 a giant park taking up a good chunk of it. 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.279 So what's that It seems NIMBYs are keeping it so 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.320 that we can't develop on a central park. But yeah, 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.200 like I sort of get my housing is really strand 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:53.519 in New York City. I don't blame anyone really for it, 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.240 but it always seems like in the more rural locations, 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.960 especially where there's not a lot of population growth, it 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.480 should be really easy to you know, just build more 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.960 houses or you know, use the houses that people left 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.800 when they moved. And yet our impression is from past trips, 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.480 et cetera, that there's a lot of strand on rural 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:12.120 housing as well. 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.360 That's right. So we've done a few field trips to 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.560 places like North Carolina and we learn that even in 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.760 an area that certainly is not as densely populated as Manhattan, 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.920 there are housing issues. And now we are up here 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.560 in Alaska, which you know, if there's one thing I 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.720 know about Alaska, it's that it is big. It's big, 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.560 but twice the size of Texas. Is that the stat that. 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.800 People do think like that, it's incredible, something like that, 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:37.920 There's got to be some empty space to build houses, 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:38.800 you would. 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.200 Think, right, And yet we're up here and one of 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.440 the things that people keep talking about over and over 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.520 again is this idea of housing strains within Alaska in 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.360 Anchorage too, which is where we are right now. 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:52.240 Yeah, totally, and we have heard that multiple times. And 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:55.760 so whatever the issue is that sort of the story 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.200 that we tell about Manhattan, there must be something more 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.400 to it, because it's not just a man or of 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.240 no space, because even places that are swimming in space 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.320 have strands, and so I want to understand what that is. 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.560 We've been up in Alaska. Listeners will remember our episode 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:11.640 we did with Mary Daily and maybe some other ones 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.480 that came out by the time this episode is coming out. 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.119 But there's no way to understand a state without understanding 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:19.000 its housing economy. 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.200 Absolutely not, and also just because it's Alaska. The other 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:24.440 thing I'm really interested in, and I think you might 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.600 be interested in it too as a relatively new homeowner, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.359 is just the idea of maintenance on a house in Alaska. 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.639 It must be insane, right, Like, imagine how often you're 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.320 replacing a roof in a place like that gets like, 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:38.880 you know, feet and feet and feet of snowfall every year. 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:41.720 No, totally, all right, Well, we do, in fact have 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:46.200 the perfect guests. We are at the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:48.240 We're going to be speaking with Jimmy ord He is 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.160 the director of Research and Rural Development, as well as 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:55.800 Daniel Delfino, director of Planning and program Development. So Jimmy 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.280 and Daniel, thank you so much for coming on odd Lots. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:01.040 Oh, thank you. This is Daniel. It's nice to be here. 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.160 We appreciate the invitation to chat with your highly sophisticated group. 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:06.720 This is Jimmy, happy to be here. 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.120 Well, thank you both for having us at your office. 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.560 What are you just for listeners? What do you do. 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:13.880 And what is the Alaska Housing Finance. 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.400 Corporation Alaska's in fliance corporation. This is Jimmy. We are 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:22.760 an organization that addresses safe, quality, affordable housing in Alaska. 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.399 That's our mission. In the early nineties in the state 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.600 of Alaska, they took the different housing departments and the 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.520 Housing Finance Agency and they put them under one roof. 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.760 So in many other states you can have housing departments 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.760 maybe in the Department of Commerce, or under revenue or 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.680 under some other function of the state where we get 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.520 to walk across the hall and talk to our counterparts 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.960 in the mortgage department or the finance department, public Housing division. 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.840 So we're an organization that is all things housing in 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.400 the spate of Alaska. It's really helped with collaboration and 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.280 getting programs and services out the door. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:07.320 So Joe and I tried to do this in the 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.160 intro a little bit, But why don't you contextualize for 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.680 us what are the actual housing issues in the state 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.960 of Alaska. How would you describe some of the problems 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:18.040 that you're trying to solve. 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:22.520 So there are a lot you said earlier, go into 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.800 the details. The housing issues used to be a lot 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.600 simpler when I started in two thousand and eight. It's 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:29.800 kind of like the algebra problems that evolve the more 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:30.440 Matthew take. 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:32.000 You solve for C. 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.800 And you're only dealing with one unknown variable, and you're 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:38.679 able to triangulate that and solve it pretty simply. And 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.200 it's like, Okay, now you have two unknone variables, and 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:45.000 you use a substitution rule, and now you get up 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.160 to three or four unknown variables, and now all of 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:48.680 a sudden you have to start using one of your 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:52.080 equations and it just gets to this level of complexity 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.120 where you need a computer. And that's kind of what 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.839 we're dealing with in terms of the issues as they've 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.479 kind of emerged over the state. We have some places 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.840 that are dealing with population grain. We have some places 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.320 that are dealing with an aging contracting base where the 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:10.520 people are retiring and there's no new people coming up 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.200 behind them. We have other communities that are struggling with 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:15.960 the cost of housing development. I mean, you mentioned the 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.040 cost of housing and the intro There are a lot 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.599 of things that drive housing costs and housing Cholen just 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.159 guess and we'll get into here. But they have the 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.919 housing stock itself when I started, it used to be 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.359 you had apartments, you had houses, and you had hotels. 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.320 Now all the three things are effectively linked thanks to 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:33.280 the emergence of vacation renals and a lot of our 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:37.440 communities where the hospitality industry is now inextricably linked to 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:41.320 the housing industry because you have inventory that is taking 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.240 a multipurpose nature throughout the year. So there are a 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.760 lot of things moving all at once. And the old 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:49.440 days of being able to focus on one or two 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.760 issues and try and understand how it's affecting the housing 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:55.000 market at large, those are largely gone, and we're left 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.280 in this layer of complexity that's very difficult to conceptualize 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.240 and even harder to communicate to other people but that 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:01.520 don't live and breathe this stuff. 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:04.160 And adding to that, Daniel, I just want to make 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:08.120 sure folks understand the vastness of the state of Alaska. 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:12.000 Like you talked about there in the introduction, Imagine a 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:16.080 state where you can get on a plane and fly 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:21.360 three hours west and still be in Alaska, Okay. So 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.839 there's so much in this state that is going to 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:30.640 be varied because of the location and the community. And 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.159 you have communities in rural Alaska that have several dozen 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:39.000 people in them and they still need housing and services, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.800 and the cost to make sure that they have safe, quality, 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.120 affordable housing is going to be extreme. So they have 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.120 to ensure that the housing that they're building is appropriate 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.120 for that space and climate. Now, if you were going 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:57.440 to start in southeast Alaska and you wanted to travel 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.880 to the North Slope, you're going to leave a wet rainforest, 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.599 marine climate and you're going to head to the North Slope, 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.720 which is up in Nukyavik area, and you're going to 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:16.760 see extreme temperature changes from fifty to sixty foos zero, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:22.360 you know, to fifty sixty degrees fahrenheit above freezing, you know. 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.560 So it's quite a state, and when you're thinking of 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.040 housing in that space, it's not a magic silver bullet. 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:30.960 One of the things that you'll find as you go 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.480 on this journey from Southeast Alasta up to Uktyavik is 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:36.640 if you flip a coin, probably about half of the 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.360 merchants that you find online that you may take for 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:40.600 granted on Amazon won't ship to you in Alaska. So, 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.360 when you talked about some of the housing challenges, people 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:45.640 don't all do business in Alaska, and those that do 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.840 tend to charge us gouging prices to get things up here. 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.080 Jimmy mentioned flying three hours to western Alaska to get 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.000 to one of the communities. We did that last year 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.400 for a board meeting. And when you get to that place, 0:07:57.480 --> 0:07:59.360 when you go down the runway, you see a plane 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:00.880 off to the side of the runway and it's a 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.920 plane that broke down that just stayed there. There are 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.880 things in that harbor that have rusted out because they 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:09.960 don't they don't come out and pick them up. I mean, 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.400 there are certain things that people take for granted, like 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.120 a shipping services that you're going to be able to 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:16.600 get new parts in, You're going to be able to 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.440 take things away that are dilapidated in your community. That 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:21.840 aren't a reality for a lot of the people that 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.280 we work with in this state. A lot of our neighbors, 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:26.320 especially in the places off the road system, which is 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.240 the majority of our communities, don't have a lot of 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:30.960 the things that most people take for granted. 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.600 So, never having been there, I can only imagine the 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.240 sort of weirdness and difficulties of trying to, you know, 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.880 commerce in housing, et cetera. In some of these extreme, 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.640 far flung locations. Let's just start though, with like the 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:49.040 relatively major urban centers. You know, we're in Anchorage right now, 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.960 the biggest city in the state. Like, what's happened on 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.800 the affordability front here and what's happened on the construction 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:56.640 front here over the last several years. 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.920 Sure, so I take a shot this one on affordability. 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:05.160 I've seen a bifurcation in the market. The interest rates 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:06.920 a couple of years ago were down in the twos 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.240 for people that wanted to refinance, and the homeowner market 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.640 was going gangbusters, and the prices when interest rates were 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.240 low reflected that there was a huge price acceleration in 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.040 the cost of homes. Fast forward to now. Instead of 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:22.960 at two percent interest rate, I think our rate that 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.040 we publish for first time home buyers on our website 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.720 checked it this morning at six point two percent. So 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.840 a couple of years ago things were much cheaper. Same 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.160 thing for renters, cheaper for renters. It's just the growth rates. 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.280 When I talk about the lines going up at different 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:40.560 angles homeowners and Anchorage, the cost has gone up by 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.120 over sixty percent in the last couple of years. Versus 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.480 close to thirty percent for renters, So both have it bad, 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.120 it's just one one has a much steeper curve. So 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.320 what we're seeing is a lot of folks could not 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.240 afford to buy their own home again at today's interest rates, 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:57.800 and that's affecting their willingness to sell them because they 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.120 can't afford to buy something new in another community or 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.320 even within the same community at the interust rates that 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.320 they charge. So you have folks that are maybe stuck 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.440 or less mobile in homes that are really expensive. Now 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.360 you have renters that don't have people freeing up a 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.160 home ownership sock. So it's getting a little bit more 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.560 congested there. And a lot of things are moving in 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.720 terms of the development. The inflation chaos that we were 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.000 seeing in the construction industry where no one would do 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.000 guaranteed maximum price contract anymore and it was all time 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.960 and materials. Some of that craziness in terms of the 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.720 escalations that we're seeing year of year, like twenty thirty percent, 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:35.880 that seems to have died down. It's still expensive, don't 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:39.200 get me wrong, but that's moderated a little bit. What 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.640 hasn't changed is the availability of land. I mean you 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.080 look around and you see, Wow, you're huge. You see 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.400 we bragle all the time, where twice of as big 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.280 as Texas. Why can't you build housing everywhere? Well, the 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.560 land here isn't the easiest to build on. Like you 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:54.240 can look at a hill and it will be considered 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.280 a federal wetland because there will be a specific type 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.680 of plant that's on the side of the hill, or 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.120 the hill is owned by the federal government or some 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:05.280 other entities. So what you see versus what's available to develop. 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.760 There can be a disconnect in some communities. And Anchorage 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.000 is one of our older communities, so it's been built 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:12.600 out with a lot of the easy and the good 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.640 land taken first. There are other places to build outside 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:18.200 of Anchorage, and we do see that sprawling a little 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:20.520 bit more outside of the main community. But for the 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.839 communities that have been developing for twenty or thirty years, 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.400 they're starting to reach the more mature stage where they're 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.520 running into the harder things to develop given what's left. 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.360 Yeah, So what I hear you saying, Daniel, is that 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:37.040 in many ways Anchorage is somewhat similar to other larger 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.679 communities throughout the country where they're facing cost of construction, 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:42.720 labor shortage is. 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:43.400 The lock and effect. 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:45.440 Yeah, but I still prefer to live here. 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:05.840 Okay. One thing that I know is unusual about Alaska 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:09.080 and Anchorage specifically, is that you have a large turnover 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.200 of the population. Right you have a lot of people 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.719 who are leaving every year, and you have a lot 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.040 of people who are coming in. And on the whole, 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:19.400 you have seen I think a slight maybe not for 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:21.320 Anchorage per se. You'll have to correct me, but there's 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.640 been an overall population decline in the state for sure. 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:29.720 How does that turnover in the population and the idea 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:31.760 that you know, for the most part you have seen 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:35.000 a decline in total numbers, How does that feed into 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:35.960 the housing situation? 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.400 Not the way that you might think. Okay, So in 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.560 twenty ten, shually after I started, we were talking about 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.840 a housing plan here and Anchorage, and there were projections 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:47.599 that Anchorage was going to grow. As far as I 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.000 could see, We're going to have all these people coming in. 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:54.160 Six years later, the population peaked and then it started falling. 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.600 So it's like, okay, we peaked in twenty sixteen, and 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.760 then we started going down to a base around twenty 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.280 twenty twenty twenty one, and then we start coming back up. 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.920 So we have about two thousand more people now in 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:13.320 the last recorded population year than we did in twenty sixteen. Well, 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:18.000 the vacancies have gone up, and it's when we see 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.680 that people leave, you would expect, Okay, the vacancy rates 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.320 should go up, right, That's not happening. So it's like 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:27.520 some of the things when I talked earlier about you 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.080 used to have one variable or two variables explaining things, 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.480 and now we have a sort of multipurpose inventory. Why 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:34.720 is that there are people? To me a huge question 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.120 are people changing their living arrangements? Do we have housing stock? 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.200 Because I mean, if you go from the supplying demand, 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.480 if you reduce the supply, you can you can get 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:44.719 back to a tighter vacancy rate by doing that, even 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.959 if the demand is falling. I don't know if that's happening. 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.320 We're trying to track the vacation rental data as best 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.040 we can. We go through a company. I don't want 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:54.760 to name a company in case I guess meant some 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.080 commercial issue here, but we get proprietary reports where we 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.000 track the growth in vacation rental listings across the state, 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.040 and we see that those have gone up, They've almost 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.520 doubled since I want to say, twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.360 when we started tracking them. Is that just the data 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:13.040 set being completed, or is that legitimate growth? I mean, 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.440 these are questions that we're asking because these are new issues. 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.280 If it's legitimate growth, and the vacation rental stock did 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.120 actually double, and now we're looking at seven thousands that 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:23.200 have come online across the state in the last couple 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:27.240 of years, that's a big number. If that's just counting 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:30.040 what the data set wasn't recording in the earlier years, 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.640 then I don't know. So we're seeing a lot of 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.200 these things that offer explanations, but there's still such new 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.200 issues in the data and in housing in general that 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.200 we're really reluctant to come out forward and say determined skill, 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:44.400 Yes it's this, Yes it's that. But we do see 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.040 things that don't make sense because usually housing is a 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.040 function of people. If you have less people, you should 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.800 probably be less housing, and that's not what we're seeing 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:52.680 in the data. 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.840 And so Joe, it's unironically our fault as some of 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.960 the visitors coming to inncreation in hotels though, Yeah, okay, 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:02.000 but we might go to Aridamba later this weekend. 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:02.640 That's true. 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.880 I'm sorry, seven thirty nine for the state and a 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.360 couple of years ago, and now we're at seven forty one. Yeah, 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:11.360 so two thousand more people. 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.200 I came to Alaska in the late nineties, and I 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:16.920 feel that that was the number back then. It just 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.160 it just hasn't really changed that much. And so to 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.400 your point, Tracy, where you have people moving to the state, 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.000 they work for a period of time and then and 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.120 then they move out. You know, they've they've kind of come, 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:31.440 they've experienced the wildness of Alaska, and then they're moving 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:32.760 on to do a different things. 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:35.560 Yeah, and we used to be a countercyclical state and 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:37.520 that the people would come up here when there was 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:39.720 a downturn in the Lower forty eight as we refer 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:40.920 to the rest of the country. 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.400 We've probably heard the term lower forty eight more in 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:44.680 the last three or four days. 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.440 They had not a pejorative. It's just a geographical distinction 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:48.360 where we are. 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:51.800 No one calls Alaska the like Upper one. 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:53.680 The Upper one, the forty nine state. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.119 That would sound elitas. 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.400 Okay, So my other question in terms of housing stock 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:02.560 in a place like Anchorage. Was just how much is 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:08.240 lost through like sheer attrition, I guess, and like depreciation depreciation, 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.520 And I could kind of I could see arguing this 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.960 both ways. So on the one hand, because construction costs 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.240 are so high here, if you have a house, even 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.400 if it's aging and falling apart, you probably want to 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:19.040 hold on to it, try to fix it up and 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.240 keep it. But on the other hand, just looking at 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:24.920 the environment here, just looking at the weather, you must 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.800 have rapidly, rapidly depreciating housing stock. 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.640 That's one of the biggest challenges that Anchorage housing faces 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:36.240 is its resilience. Most of the housing and Anchorage was 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.080 built during the seventies and eighties when Alaska. You may 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.600 have heard of this thing called the Alaska Pipeline, right, Yeah, 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.720 And a lot of the housing was thrown up with 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.720 two by four construction based on construction techniques and practices 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:54.160 that were appropriate for somewhere down south. How's that for 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.480 not saying lore for you? And what that means is. 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:00.800 We're this third part of the United States here, and 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:03.360 when we go back to New York, the housing's really 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.399 not built appropriately for this climate. I mean it was 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:11.359 built where you don't have a consideration for the long 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:16.720 term sustainability and resilience of that housing. So we find 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.960 ourselves in a situation where when people come in and 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.119 they're a homeowner to a new house, they have to 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:27.040 spend a lot of their resources improving that existing house because, 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.000 like Daniel said, we don't have that much land to 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.879 build in new places in the Anchorage area, So a 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.080 lot of what we have to do is fix the 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.280 current housing stock that we do have. So an investment 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:43.200 in energy efficiency installation, making sure you have an appropriate 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:46.920 heating system, making sure that the windows and doors are 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.680 in the right place is what we focus our time 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.320 and effort on to make sure that a housing is appropriate. 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.240 Can we talk a little bit more about this essentially 0:17:55.320 --> 0:18:00.040 supply side, like how many active developers are there in 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.239 terms of like companies that do housing development, and then 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:07.320 the specific supply chain constraints that the inherent nature of 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.680 Alaska poses to construction and repair. 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.400 Sure, so I'll take a shot at this the development community. 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.000 It's a very dangerous thing for a person like me 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.000 that works in US or a quasi government agency to 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.679 try and speculate about the true population developers because There 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:23.800 are all kinds of people that I don't talk to 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.000 that do very important things in the state. We operate 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.879 about ten different housing programs that build or buy things 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:31.959 that people will live in that's consistent with their mission 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.560 across the state. We have roughly seventy partners that we 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.920 work with across the state that are various nonprofits. Will 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.239 have maybe thirty or forty different developments going on at 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.280 an't given time across the state. So I mean, is 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:47.880 it ten, is it twenty? It depends on the year. 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.400 And what are we talking about? Are we talking about 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.720 people that work with government money like the lowcome Housing 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.120 tax credit program or grants or are we talking about 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.639 individual home builders. Is it a person who's building a 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.320 multiplex downtown that it's going to be an eight figure 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:04.200 development or more, or is it a person who's building 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.639 a duplex? So who's a developer? It's sort of a 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.159 loaded question, sort of like when people ask us how 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.520 much does it cost to develop per door? When we're 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:17.479 reporting what we're doing on the public side with building 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.439 housing in its we're looking at a complete budget. So 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:22.399 when we say it costs three hundred and fifty thousand 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.400 dollars a door to deliver new housing to a community 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.840 in the state. We're talking about the cost of acquisition, 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.720 the cost of construction, paying an architect, picking a developer fee, 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.200 all these other things. If you're talking to a contractor 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.199 who might also consider themselves a developer, they might just 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.480 be reporting the vertical construction costs and they're keeping things off. 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.680 So the language when we define these terms really affects 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.600 the answer. So the developers that we work i'd say 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.639 about ten to twenty work with our agency to develop 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.919 multi family housing through our grant programs. There are a 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.160 ton of people that build housing all across the state 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.879 that I think would equally be called developers by other people, 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.680 including their banks and their community partners. So it really 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:01.879 depends on who you talk to. 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.840 So just on this note, I take the point about 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.600