PONDERINGS*

*ponder (verb | pon·der ˈpän-dər; pondered; pondering ˈpän-d(ə-)riŋ): to think about or reflect on; to weigh in the mind, evaluate, or appraise.

Those who know me understand I have difficulty distilling my thoughts into a one-paragraph “elevator speech.” It seems to me that, as a country, we spend an inordinate amount of time — teeth gnashing and talking past one another — on what are clearly four of our most pressing national issues:

  1. Immigration reform

  2. Education

  3. Health care

  4. Housing

These are big, complicated, “hairy” issues with layers of challenges. While I have opinions (and occasionally may share them), the one issue I am even remotely qualified to discuss is housing. In that regard, I’ve concluded there are three facets I’d like to explore and advance with my thoughts and ideas:

  1. A new method to provide funding to communities to advance housing production (HOTC)

  2. A planning tool to help ex-urban counties plan for an equitable approach to preserving agriculture while accommodating development (Agriculture Greenways & TDRs)

  3. An “inside baseball” look at the future of the Realtor trade associations

This site simply represents my thoughts and bare bones ideas. I’m aiming to be constructive and offer solutions — but they need more fleshing out. Surely there are more, and probably better, alternative ideas. If you don’t like mine, fine — I’d like to hear your constructive ideas to help resolve these issues.

You can always click off the site. But if you want to engage in a discussion, I’m happy to accommodate. Just get in touch.

Patrick Grabill Patrick Grabill

Housing Opportunity Tax Credit Incentive Plan

The Housing Opportunity Tax Credit (HOTC) is a proposed, temporary program that uses tax incentives to spur private investment in building and revitalizing housing, especially for middle-income households.

It aims to increase supply quickly without raising taxes or creating a permanent government program.

Read More

  • Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.

    — Aldous Huxley

  • Status quo sucks. It's a very comfortable place for people who don't want to think.

    — George Carlin

  • Wealth without work.

    — Mahatma Gandhi in Young India (1925)

  • It's easier to fool people than it is to convince them they've been fooled.

    — Mark Twain

  • Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

    — Groucho Marx

  • The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value of none of them know anything about the subject.

    — Marcus Aurelius

  • It is not the strongest of species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

    — Charles Darwin

  • Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

    — George Carlin

  • You will never reach your destination if you stop throwing stones at every dog that barks.

    — Winston Churchill

  • The truth has no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.

    — Mark Twain

  • The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

    — Thomas Edison

  • Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

    — Martin Luther

  • First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

    — Mahatma Gandhi