File Under: Stakholder Relations

With corporate balance sheets flush and housing affordability low in many developed countries, it was only a matter of time before someone started building homes for their workforce.  The UK retailer Tesco is subsidizing an affordable housing development intended to benefit its staff.  Expect to see more of this if both housing and labor markets remain tight.

Housing affordability is becoming a major constraint for businesses in California, where only about 24% of people have enough income to buy the median-priced home, down from 49% at the start of 2003.  Data from the California Association of Realtors is here - these numbers used to look even worse, but they appear to have changed the method of calculation and have moved to quarterly, rather than monthly reporting.