4 ms·

I'm suspicious of a plan to help the poor that depends on rich people making a bubble pop. Somehow the rich always manage to put their losses onto the poor.

shuckles 6y ago
No the plan to help the poor is to build enough supply that there is housing for all who desire to live in a place. That aim is eminently possible, and to the extent some of those people need subsidies no matter what, becomes easier when you have a larger tax base. The only realistic plan to help poor people afford healthcare in the United States will necessarily tackle the enormously high costs. The opposition isn’t narrowly “rich people” though but instead a wide range of above median income white collar industries.
tormeh 6y ago
You're right, but for the wrong reasons. Aesthetics has always trumped economics when it comes to housing, and the speculators know this. The probability that this will change anytime soon is essentially zero. You're better off moving somewhere where they haven't fucked it up. I'd like to suggest Houston here, but there are still HOAs and similar stuff there.
dan-robertson 6y ago
I don’t think the idea is that there is a bubble or that there will be a pop. The OP is an argument against the theory that new units are speculative investments that lie empty. The suggestion is that if that were the case then there would eventually be enough supply that prices would fall for new or existing stock. That feels appealing to me. It also feels reasonable that converting existing buildings to have more units would be beneficial for a city’s poorer residents in general even if it’s bad for those who are evicted: the people moving into the newer more expensive units would only increase demand (and therefore price) for the other older units if new units weren’t available, pushing up prices for existing residents. I’m unconvinced by the idea that the rich will decide to move to a city based on whether or not there is a pencil tower. A counter argument I find compelling is that if people are buying property as a way of laundering money or stashing cash overseas then they may not care so much about the quality of the investment and that this breaks some of the assumptions about market efficiency.
imtringued 6y ago
It's not an argument in favor of creating a bubble and letting it pop. The argument is that even in the most extreme scenario that building more housing will lower the cost of housing in the long term. Even expensive housing will make the rest of the housing market affordable.

shuckles 6y ago

No the plan to help the poor is to build enough supply that there is housing for all who desire to live in a place. That aim is eminently possible, and to the extent some of those people need subsidies no matter what, becomes easier when you have a larger tax base. The only realistic plan to help poor people afford healthcare in the United States will necessarily tackle the enormously high costs. The opposition isn’t narrowly “rich people” though but instead a wide range of above median income white collar industries.

tormeh 6y ago

You're right, but for the wrong reasons. Aesthetics has always trumped economics when it comes to housing, and the speculators know this. The probability that this will change anytime soon is essentially zero. You're better off moving somewhere where they haven't fucked it up. I'd like to suggest Houston here, but there are still HOAs and similar stuff there.

dan-robertson 6y ago

I don’t think the idea is that there is a bubble or that there will be a pop. The OP is an argument against the theory that new units are speculative investments that lie empty. The suggestion is that if that were the case then there would eventually be enough supply that prices would fall for new or existing stock. That feels appealing to me. It also feels reasonable that converting existing buildings to have more units would be beneficial for a city’s poorer residents in general even if it’s bad for those who are evicted: the people moving into the newer more expensive units would only increase demand (and therefore price) for the other older units if new units weren’t available, pushing up prices for existing residents. I’m unconvinced by the idea that the rich will decide to move to a city based on whether or not there is a pencil tower. A counter argument I find compelling is that if people are buying property as a way of laundering money or stashing cash overseas then they may not care so much about the quality of the investment and that this breaks some of the assumptions about market efficiency.

imtringued 6y ago

It's not an argument in favor of creating a bubble and letting it pop. The argument is that even in the most extreme scenario that building more housing will lower the cost of housing in the long term. Even expensive housing will make the rest of the housing market affordable.