Heading to MACo’s Summer Conference? Of course you are,
and The Conduit Street Podcast’s The Briefing Room has your drive covered.
As county leaders, partners, and policy professionals make their way to MACoCon this week, The Briefing Room is trading a new episode for a chance to catch up on our latest deep-dive series. Over the last six episodes, MACo’s Dom Butchko and Baltimore County Director of Housing & Community Development Terry Hickey have taken listeners inside the complicated world of housing finance, examining not simply why Maryland needs more housing, but what it actually takes to get that housing financed, approved, and built.
The series starts with the basics of making a project “pencil out” before moving through the public and private sides of the capital stack, the economic and policy pressures adding to development costs, and the opportunities and limitations of converting existing office space into housing. So, whether you have a couple of hours on the road to Ocean City or want to brush up on Maryland’s housing conversation before conference gets underway, consider this your Briefing Room housing finance playlist.
Episode 1: Before the Bricks, the Financial Realities of Housing
Before a project can break ground, the numbers have to work.
Dom and Terry open the series by unpacking how affordable housing deals are assembled and how public programs, private capital, construction costs, regulatory requirements, and community considerations all shape whether a project can move forward.
The episode lays the foundation for the series, examining where Maryland’s housing finance system is working, where gaps emerge, and the broader structural pressures making it harder to meet the state’s housing needs.
Episode 2: Why Housing Costs More Than Ever
Next stop: the capital stack.
Joined by Brian McLaughlin, entrepreneur and Board Member of the Baltimore Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Dom and Terry examine how interest rates, borrowing costs, inflation, insurance, trade policy, tariffs, and broader economic conditions affect the cost and viability of housing development.
The conversation connects national economic conditions to what developers, lenders, local governments, and communities are experiencing on the ground, and explains why even projects with clear demand can struggle to pencil out.
Episode 3: The State’s Role in Solving Maryland’s Housing Crisis
With the fundamentals established, the series turns to the public side of the capital stack.
Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Secretary Jake Day joins Dom and Terry to explore the state’s role in housing finance, including tax credits, gap financing, housing trust funds, infrastructure investment, and partnerships with local governments.
The conversation offers an inside look at how public investment can help close financing gaps and turn housing projects from plans into reality.
Episode 4: Inside the Private Side of Housing Finance
Public investment is only part of the equation.
Jordan Bishop of JPMorgan Chase joins the series to explain how private lenders evaluate affordable housing projects, how tax credits become construction funding, and how developers assemble complex financing packages involving public and private investment.
The episode also examines why predictable policies matter to lenders and investors and what policymakers can do to create conditions that encourage greater housing production.
Episode 5: Smith Island Cake Effect
Why does housing become so expensive to build? Sometimes, there isn’t one answer.
Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman joins Dom and Terry to unpack the “Smith Island Cake Effect” which is the idea that housing costs can accumulate layer by layer as policies, fees, requirements, and processes are added to a project.
The conversation looks at where those layers reflect deeply considered policy choices, where opportunities for streamlining may exist, and what it could take to increase Maryland’s housing supply at every level.
Episode 6: The Office-to-Housing Challenge
Empty offices. A need for more housing. Converting one into the other sounds simple enough, until you look at the numbers.
Tim Karp of JPMorgan Chase joins Dom and Terry to examine what actually makes an office-to-housing conversion viable. The conversation covers building design, construction costs, financing gaps, tax credits, public incentives, permitting, and the physical characteristics that can make some properties better candidates for residential reuse than others.
For policymakers looking at underused commercial properties in their own communities, the episode offers a practical look at where conversions may work, where they may not, and how they can fit into broader redevelopment strategies.
Six Episodes. One Big Question.
Across the series, one theme comes through clearly: building more housing isn’t just a matter of deciding to build it. The numbers have to work.
Public investment, private capital, interest rates, development requirements, state and local policy, existing infrastructure, and the physical characteristics of a property can all determine whether a project ultimately moves forward. Together, these six conversations offer a primer on the financial forces behind Maryland’s housing challenge, and some of the tools policymakers, lenders, developers, and local governments are using to address it.
So queue up an episode (or six), hit the road, and we’ll see you in Ocean City for MACoCon!
