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> > They will watch the market fall > The market won't fall, that is the entire point. It reasonably cannot fall, since the only politics that could make it fa
by webmaven 5y ago
> > They will watch the market fall
> The market won't fall, that is the entire point. It reasonably cannot fall, since the only politics that could make it fall (buildout of rural infrastructure, overriding NIMBY shit) won't ever pass. Inertia is massive.
That's probably overoptimistic. There are political circumstances that could cause metropolitan property values to fall on annual or even decadal timescales.
Consider, for example, the possibility of policies that have the effect of curtailing real estate investment by those exfiltrating funds from various regimes.
Or policies that made every school a good school, ending the (sometimes huge) price premium homes in 'good' school districts get.
- bradleyjg 5y agoSuppose house prices fall by twenty percent. People will be furious that their can’t lose investment is losing. People in this case being an outright majority of all adult citizens and disproportionately likely to be voters. Politicians will do everything in their power to reverse the trend and keep the good times going. Someday they may find it impossible, but I find it hard to believe we are close to that.
- webmaven 5y agoThat 'outright majority' though is being eroded as more people are priced out of the market. If the percentage of renters continues to grow (and property ownership keeps concentrating), you could see that math get flipped on its head (though there is an intermediate stage where 'likely to donate' outweighs 'likely to vote' to keep things as they are). There are other possible policy scenarios, though. Sane densification of suburbia for example seems more likely than massive rural infra buildout.