Are Apartments a Better Answer to the Housing Crisis

(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/qWPGn)
Apartment buildings could pave the way for a renaissance in affordable housing. Rental apartments could once again provide quality low-cost housing as they have in California for over a century. Apartments, more so than condominiums or other for sale attached housing, are often better suited to the needs of low and moderate income families. As we stated in the "Myth of Affordable Housing," are we really doing families with low to moderate incomes any favors by encouraging them to buy housing that is poorly built, expensive to maintain, and impossible to sell? With all of the latent liabilities that have been discovered in attached housing in recent years, what benefit is there to saddling families with impossible maintenance burdens? When we sell housing with hidden defects and even normal maintenance costs that greatly exceed expectations, are we really conveying an asset? More likely, we have asked these families to assume a crushing liability. This article examines why apartments are a better housing solution than for sale multi-family units.