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There is only so much you can increase the supply without being hours away from the jobs. Plus the rich can just buy any new supply quickly and we are back to t

There is only so much you can increase the supply without being hours away from the jobs. Plus the rich can just buy any new supply quickly and we are back to the same.

jeffbee 6y ago
Hrmm. Speaking of my town, Berkeley, California, the housing supply has been almost static since 1950, the number of jobs in town is now double the number of employed people (prior to pandemic), and virtually all land is zoned for detached single-family dwellings. Increasing the supply in this town would be as easy as the stroke of a pen, and would bring people closer to, not further from their jobs.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> There is only so much you can increase the supply without being hours away from the jobs. Nonsense. We can build 100 story buildings but there is nowhere in the world you can find a hundred square miles covered in nothing but 100 story buildings. > Plus the rich can just buy any new supply quickly and we are back to the same. So the rich are going to buy the new supply and do what with it? If they rent it out, supply still goes up. They have to compete with each other for tenants. If they don't, wow -- huge profit opportunity building hundred story buildings and selling them to rich idiots who are willing to pay top dollar for something they get no returns from. Do that until they run out of money.
- fzeroracer 6y ago
  The rich can buy out the new supply and either use it for things like AirBnB (which then just displaces people who need an actual place to stay) or they sit on the property and grow their investment over time because of how limited land is in metro areas. See: Warehousing [1]. Or they just keep those additional units in said building empty, because it would be more of a pain to convert them to residential units when mixed commercial earns easy revenue. The idea that the rich get no profit from sitting on buildings is wrong. [1] https://www.brickunderground.com/rent/why-landlords-leave-apartments-empty https://www.brickunderground.com/rent/why-landlords-leave-ap...
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > The rich can buy out the new supply and either use it for things like AirBnB (which then just displaces people who need an actual place to stay) This is fine, then you don't need as many hotels and can convert those those to permanent housing. It's not as if there is unlimited demand for short term rentals. > or they sit on the property and grow their investment over time because of how limited land is in metro areas. Which only works because construction is not actually happening, so sitting on the properties is profitable because the value appreciates over time. Build enough that values at least stop increasing and that stops being profitable. Notice also that your article is talking about a vacancy rate of 3.45%. If you increased the housing supply by 50%, do you really think they're going to buy all of it and let it sit vacant? And the best actual reason the article lists for why landlords do this is that their building is rent-controlled and they correspondingly want to convert it to condos and sell it, because that's more profitable, but first they need to get rid of the existing tenants, which implies not replacing them when they leave/die. So the reason the building is half empty for decades is the economic implications of rent control, not some plot by landlords to lose money.
    - fzeroracer 6y ago
      The crux of your argument seems to be that property grows in value because there's not enough housing, which seems like a reasonable assumption but is just that. Property grows in value because of its proximity to other things of value, not because of the amount of it on the market. If you were to expand the size of NYC to encompass the entirety of New York, housing inside of NYC is going to be vastly more valuable than housing located on the edges of the state. No amount of construction you do is going to devalue that property, and often you can't build upwards because of the rich property owners (see: NIMBY) choosing to use their financial leverage and property ownership to deny that.
      - epistasis 6y ago
        > Property grows in value because of its proximity to other things of value, not because of the amount of it on the market. This is not an either/or situation, both of these impact the price of property! Calling inadequate supply a reason for high prices "just an assumption" is not borne out by any actual analysis of any market, anywhere, at any point in time. It's not just rich property owners that prevent building up, what you are engaging in here is just as much a reason that we can not provide housing for people, and why there is overcrowding in so many parts of the world.
- ben_w 6y ago
  I love the idea of arcologies. I’m been told one of the reasons that people don’t make 100-story-tall cubes is that the “up” part is so expensive it only makes sense in places whose land-value is really high, e.g. Manhattan. Of course, urban design is a field in its own right so I can’t weight up the pros and cons of each option. Public transport? Zoning? Other? That said, I agree with you: there can’t possibly be no solution to the housing shortages when there is so much land between different cities.
woah 6y ago
You can build multi-story buildings. If there are more apartments than renters then landlords will have to compete to offer lower rent.

There is only so much you can increase the supply without being hours away from the jobs. Plus the rich can just buy any new supply quickly and we are back to the same.

jeffbee 6y ago

Hrmm. Speaking of my town, Berkeley, California, the housing supply has been almost static since 1950, the number of jobs in town is now double the number of employed people (prior to pandemic), and virtually all land is zoned for detached single-family dwellings. Increasing the supply in this town would be as easy as the stroke of a pen, and would bring people closer to, not further from their jobs.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> There is only so much you can increase the supply without being hours away from the jobs. Nonsense. We can build 100 story buildings but there is nowhere in the world you can find a hundred square miles covered in nothing but 100 story buildings. > Plus the rich can just buy any new supply quickly and we are back to the same. So the rich are going to buy the new supply and do what with it? If they rent it out, supply still goes up. They have to compete with each other for tenants. If they don't, wow -- huge profit opportunity building hundred story buildings and selling them to rich idiots who are willing to pay top dollar for something they get no returns from. Do that until they run out of money.

fzeroracer 6y ago
The rich can buy out the new supply and either use it for things like AirBnB (which then just displaces people who need an actual place to stay) or they sit on the property and grow their investment over time because of how limited land is in metro areas. See: Warehousing [1]. Or they just keep those additional units in said building empty, because it would be more of a pain to convert them to residential units when mixed commercial earns easy revenue. The idea that the rich get no profit from sitting on buildings is wrong. [1] https://www.brickunderground.com/rent/why-landlords-leave-apartments-empty https://www.brickunderground.com/rent/why-landlords-leave-ap...
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > The rich can buy out the new supply and either use it for things like AirBnB (which then just displaces people who need an actual place to stay) This is fine, then you don't need as many hotels and can convert those those to permanent housing. It's not as if there is unlimited demand for short term rentals. > or they sit on the property and grow their investment over time because of how limited land is in metro areas. Which only works because construction is not actually happening, so sitting on the properties is profitable because the value appreciates over time. Build enough that values at least stop increasing and that stops being profitable. Notice also that your article is talking about a vacancy rate of 3.45%. If you increased the housing supply by 50%, do you really think they're going to buy all of it and let it sit vacant? And the best actual reason the article lists for why landlords do this is that their building is rent-controlled and they correspondingly want to convert it to condos and sell it, because that's more profitable, but first they need to get rid of the existing tenants, which implies not replacing them when they leave/die. So the reason the building is half empty for decades is the economic implications of rent control, not some plot by landlords to lose money.
  - fzeroracer 6y ago
    The crux of your argument seems to be that property grows in value because there's not enough housing, which seems like a reasonable assumption but is just that. Property grows in value because of its proximity to other things of value, not because of the amount of it on the market. If you were to expand the size of NYC to encompass the entirety of New York, housing inside of NYC is going to be vastly more valuable than housing located on the edges of the state. No amount of construction you do is going to devalue that property, and often you can't build upwards because of the rich property owners (see: NIMBY) choosing to use their financial leverage and property ownership to deny that.
    - epistasis 6y ago
      > Property grows in value because of its proximity to other things of value, not because of the amount of it on the market. This is not an either/or situation, both of these impact the price of property! Calling inadequate supply a reason for high prices "just an assumption" is not borne out by any actual analysis of any market, anywhere, at any point in time. It's not just rich property owners that prevent building up, what you are engaging in here is just as much a reason that we can not provide housing for people, and why there is overcrowding in so many parts of the world.
ben_w 6y ago
I love the idea of arcologies. I’m been told one of the reasons that people don’t make 100-story-tall cubes is that the “up” part is so expensive it only makes sense in places whose land-value is really high, e.g. Manhattan. Of course, urban design is a field in its own right so I can’t weight up the pros and cons of each option. Public transport? Zoning? Other? That said, I agree with you: there can’t possibly be no solution to the housing shortages when there is so much land between different cities.

woah 6y ago

You can build multi-story buildings. If there are more apartments than renters then landlords will have to compete to offer lower rent.