4 ms·

>Housing can’t be both affordable and a good investment. The price of a home should therefore equal its replacement cost. I read this as "not (A and B), theref

>Housing can’t be both affordable and a good investment. The price of a home should therefore equal its replacement cost. I read this as "not (A and B), therefore C", where A, B, and C are logically independent propositions, and not (A and B) is unproven and highly doubtful. Your argument is missing a few steps there.

Pfhreak 5y ago
Not (A and B) seems obvious to me. If something is a good investment vehicle, it's going to be purchased by speculators. If speculators are competing over a finite resource, the price of the resource will rise above the current utility value of that resource. Speculators have more available capital than an ordinary/median person. Housing is more affordable the lower its price. It's unreasonable to price housing below the cost to manufacture that housing. (I disagree with this assertion, but it's implied in the parent comment.) Therefore, housing is most affordable when closest to the replacement cost. If a house will never sell for greater than the replacement cost, then it is no longer a good investment. If speculators can push housing above the minimum cost, it is no longer maximally affordable. Therefore not (A and B).