> Supply side markets work when they defeat the power of hoarding. Pick any market, and if sitting on the item makes you money in the long term, rather than put

> Supply side markets work when they defeat the power of hoarding. Pick any market, and if sitting on the item makes you money in the long term, rather than putting it to use then you have a monopoly problem of some sort. > For a market to work, it must always be the case that using the item to cause some socially useful economic flow to happen is more profitable than sitting on it, or trading your hoard with other hoarders. Ideally you go bust quickly if you sit on it, much as you would with perishable goods. Agreed! > When you apply that view to housing services you find that the power to exclude is the hoard that needs defeating. Keeping an apartment empty and outside the housing services supply market should be cripplingly expensive. Aaand you've lost me. IMO it's not the people keeping an apartment empty and off the market that are the issue - they're suffering a loss for this, equivalent to the rent. No, the people 'hoarding' are, essentially, the NIMBYs. It costs me nothing to prevent you from building 1000 apartments to replace a parking lot in Downtown LA, but that lowers the value of my house (reduced demand) so I'm going to make it as legally difficult as possible - that sort of thing.