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That’s the other thing: real estate is not a guaranteed investment. If you invest money in a house and its value goes down, I’m sorry, but that’s the risk you t

by upzone 8y ago

That’s the other thing: real estate is not a guaranteed investment. If you invest money in a house and its value goes down, I’m sorry, but that’s the risk you take. A home is not a guaranteed investment vehicle, despite that being the outcome when NIMBYs vote and craft policy to make it so. Also, I don’t think people’s home values drop all that dramatically when new housing is built. We’ve been putting this off for decades, but we’ve also been artificially inflating housing prices. Maybe your tiny bungalow ISN’T actually worth $500,000. Maybe decades of bad local policy have ballooned the price of your house at the expense of others. And even so, even if building housing makes your house decrease in value, that’s still not a good reason to prevent development. I care much more they cities are healthy and plentiful housing than I do about some Boomers who got lucky with when they bought into the real estate market. The solution is actually remarkably simple: build more housing. We did it before; plenty of other countries with more sensible zoning laws do it. There aren’t enough places for people to live. We can either start killing people, or we can put up some walls. Personally, I’m a fan of buildings. Edit: typos (phone)

dack 8y ago
I agree with you in that I still think the right thing to do is build. I also think it's really easy to say "sorry, you fucked up when you spent all your money on a house" if it's someone else. These aren't all "Boomers who got lucky" - they are also millennials buying their houses today at current rates. I think we have to have more empathy for these people if we want to make progress.
- upzone2 8y ago
  If you can show me that building more housing causes everyone else’s property values to fall, I’ll believe you. Until then, these are the exact same arguments people use to prevent building any housing. Remember, this all rests on the assumption that building housing necessarily depresses property values, and that isn’t a guarantee. You can tell because it goes further than that. It’s hard to build any housing at all. My city had about 100,000 people in it. I know some smart urban planners and they estimate it would take about 20,000 to 30,000 new units to stabilize our rental market. Not drive prices down, just stabilize. But we can’t even build ONE apartment building, let alone tens of thousands of units. Even if more housing would drive property values down (which it doesn’t necessarily), it would take so much housing before it ever got to that point. And once again, we can have empathy and we can build housing. I promise one or two apartment buildings isn’t going to ruin grandma and grandpa’s home value. I promise.
enraged_camel 8y ago
>>That’s the other thing: real estate is not a guaranteed investment. The types of people the parent is describing don't buy real estate as an investment. They buy it as an asset. And for most Americans, their house is their most valuable asset. So can you not spare a shred of sympathy that they are hyper-conscious about what happens to the value of that asset?
- upzone2 8y ago
  Can you not spare a shred of sympathy for people who want to live in the city they work in but can’t because property owners won’t let them? Sorry, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who actively block building new housing because “screw you, got mine”. (Also, building housing doesn’t just tank the value of your home, trust me.)
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    >>Can you not spare a shred of sympathy for people who want to live in the city they work in but can’t because property owners won’t let them? Of course I can. My sympathy goes both ways. >> (Also, building housing doesn’t just tank the value of your home, trust me.) I'm not talking about simply increasing the supply of housing. The specific example we are discussing is a new skyscraper blocking the view from an existing one.
    - upzone2 8y ago
      In which case the property value should be fine. As far as view goes, I believe I addressed that further up (but to recap: thoughts and prayers for people who are so burdened by others having a place to live).

by upzone 8y ago

dack 8y ago

I agree with you in that I still think the right thing to do is build. I also think it's really easy to say "sorry, you fucked up when you spent all your money on a house" if it's someone else. These aren't all "Boomers who got lucky" - they are also millennials buying their houses today at current rates. I think we have to have more empathy for these people if we want to make progress.

upzone2 8y ago
If you can show me that building more housing causes everyone else’s property values to fall, I’ll believe you. Until then, these are the exact same arguments people use to prevent building any housing. Remember, this all rests on the assumption that building housing necessarily depresses property values, and that isn’t a guarantee. You can tell because it goes further than that. It’s hard to build any housing at all. My city had about 100,000 people in it. I know some smart urban planners and they estimate it would take about 20,000 to 30,000 new units to stabilize our rental market. Not drive prices down, just stabilize. But we can’t even build ONE apartment building, let alone tens of thousands of units. Even if more housing would drive property values down (which it doesn’t necessarily), it would take so much housing before it ever got to that point. And once again, we can have empathy and we can build housing. I promise one or two apartment buildings isn’t going to ruin grandma and grandpa’s home value. I promise.

enraged_camel 8y ago

>>That’s the other thing: real estate is not a guaranteed investment. The types of people the parent is describing don't buy real estate as an investment. They buy it as an asset. And for most Americans, their house is their most valuable asset. So can you not spare a shred of sympathy that they are hyper-conscious about what happens to the value of that asset?

upzone2 8y ago
Can you not spare a shred of sympathy for people who want to live in the city they work in but can’t because property owners won’t let them? Sorry, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who actively block building new housing because “screw you, got mine”. (Also, building housing doesn’t just tank the value of your home, trust me.)
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  >>Can you not spare a shred of sympathy for people who want to live in the city they work in but can’t because property owners won’t let them? Of course I can. My sympathy goes both ways. >> (Also, building housing doesn’t just tank the value of your home, trust me.) I'm not talking about simply increasing the supply of housing. The specific example we are discussing is a new skyscraper blocking the view from an existing one.
  - upzone2 8y ago
    In which case the property value should be fine. As far as view goes, I believe I addressed that further up (but to recap: thoughts and prayers for people who are so burdened by others having a place to live).