4 ms·

I want Biden to use brute force to make homes a commodity like they were 50 years ago or prior. Create a bunch of jobs to just compete directly with the privat

I want Biden to use brute force to make homes a commodity like they were 50 years ago or prior. Create a bunch of jobs to just compete directly with the private sector and plummet home building costs into the ground. Work with some great designers across the nation and create a renaissance of home design. Dirt cheap 1500 sq. ft homes. None of this 300k nonsense. Cut it directly in half or more. Take undeveloped land by eminent domain unless the owners can document that they’re going to do something with it, and just build a shit ton of homes WWII style, and allocate unfathomable amounts of taxpayer funds from existing appropriation categories into that instead. I want a home for under $150,000. I want REITs outlawed from buying them. And I want investors national and foreign prohibited from purchasing them. I want a new golden age of home ownership to combat the slow march to neo-feudalism. Won’t ever happen, but I’ll dream.

jmole 5y ago
Where do you put them though? Good land is hard to come by & most of what you're describing here is already done by commodity housing developers in the outskirts of (e.g.) many big cities in Texas. New housing creates new infrastructure problems, and our government is insanely bad at dealing with these kinds of things. Here's my equally unlikely but also naively aspirational plan: inflate the US dollar until housing is affordable again.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- oyashirochama 5y ago
  You joke about that being equally unlikely. But looking at the current inflation rate it is much more likely to be held true compared to any other economic plans or lack there-of.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > But looking at the current inflation rate it is much more likely to be held true compared to any other economic plans or lack there-of. No, its not; even if you naively project the current inflation rate into the future instead of expecting a reversion to the mean, since the current inflation rate is largely driven by housing prices (that is, housing prices are inflating much faster than overall price levels and, more importantly, wages), it would never make housing affordable; in fact it is doing the opposite.
- craftkiller 5y ago
  Chicago has loads of vacant land[1] and unused buildings[2] not far from the city center. Also, the land for "the 78" is still mostly undeveloped[3]. [1] https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7917749/Screen_Shot_2017_02_02_at_10.39.05_AM.png https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7917749/Sc... [2] https://chicago.curbed.com/2016/3/9/11185730/chicago-eminent-domain-old-post-office https://chicago.curbed.com/2016/3/9/11185730/chicago-eminent... [3] https://www.78chicago.com/ https://www.78chicago.com/
- 1123581321 5y ago
  Apologies if you’re joking, but inflation increases housing prices and reduces the effective minimum wage.
  - jmole 5y ago
    housing prices (and asset prices in general) are already in a bubble - you can either deflate that bubble (unlikely to happen given the state of things), or you inflate the rest of the economy to match.
dzhiurgis 5y ago
As a renter looking to buy I want that too, but most people are already property owners. Which means if all property prices drop their equity will fall below 0 causing way more problems than before.
underseacables 5y ago
If the government starts taking homes from one person and giving them to another, there will be war. This is not Germany 1933, i’m not saying that’s what you’re talking about, but it sounds like it. Taking from one and giving to the other is not a solution.
- pope_meat 5y ago
  Maybe, maybe, although if a neighbor was going around gathering a posse because the government took his extra homes?...well I don't think I'd pick up arms for that cause.
- FrankenTan 5y ago
  That already happens and it's about to happen to millions of people in the US: it's called eviction.
  - underseacables 5y ago
    No, I think you’re confusing literal taking by the government, with a private action of eviction backed by government enforcement. The government generally isn’t the one to initiate an eviction action, it’s the owner, bank, etc.
- andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  I guess you don’t realize that eminent domain already happens today and very frequently.
  - balefrost 5y ago
    Intended (in the US at least) to be exercised only in the public interest, like to build a dam for flood control or a railroad right-of-way to facilitate commerce. I fully recognize that "public interest" can be twisted in all sorts of ways, but I agree with the GP comment that taking land from some people to give it directly to other people does not conform to my understanding of the spirit of the eminent domain law.
  - 5y ago
LinuxBender 5y ago
Take undeveloped land by eminent domain Swap that part out with Government owned land and I think you would get more support. The U.S. Federal Government owns a tremendous amount of land in each state [1] with varying degrees of usability for urban development. [1] - https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state

jmole 5y ago

Where do you put them though? Good land is hard to come by & most of what you're describing here is already done by commodity housing developers in the outskirts of (e.g.) many big cities in Texas. New housing creates new infrastructure problems, and our government is insanely bad at dealing with these kinds of things. Here's my equally unlikely but also naively aspirational plan: inflate the US dollar until housing is affordable again.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
oyashirochama 5y ago
You joke about that being equally unlikely. But looking at the current inflation rate it is much more likely to be held true compared to any other economic plans or lack there-of.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > But looking at the current inflation rate it is much more likely to be held true compared to any other economic plans or lack there-of. No, its not; even if you naively project the current inflation rate into the future instead of expecting a reversion to the mean, since the current inflation rate is largely driven by housing prices (that is, housing prices are inflating much faster than overall price levels and, more importantly, wages), it would never make housing affordable; in fact it is doing the opposite.
craftkiller 5y ago
Chicago has loads of vacant land[1] and unused buildings[2] not far from the city center. Also, the land for "the 78" is still mostly undeveloped[3]. [1] https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7917749/Screen_Shot_2017_02_02_at_10.39.05_AM.png https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7917749/Sc... [2] https://chicago.curbed.com/2016/3/9/11185730/chicago-eminent-domain-old-post-office https://chicago.curbed.com/2016/3/9/11185730/chicago-eminent... [3] https://www.78chicago.com/ https://www.78chicago.com/
1123581321 5y ago
Apologies if you’re joking, but inflation increases housing prices and reduces the effective minimum wage.
- jmole 5y ago
  housing prices (and asset prices in general) are already in a bubble - you can either deflate that bubble (unlikely to happen given the state of things), or you inflate the rest of the economy to match.

dzhiurgis 5y ago

As a renter looking to buy I want that too, but most people are already property owners. Which means if all property prices drop their equity will fall below 0 causing way more problems than before.

underseacables 5y ago

If the government starts taking homes from one person and giving them to another, there will be war. This is not Germany 1933, i’m not saying that’s what you’re talking about, but it sounds like it. Taking from one and giving to the other is not a solution.

pope_meat 5y ago
Maybe, maybe, although if a neighbor was going around gathering a posse because the government took his extra homes?...well I don't think I'd pick up arms for that cause.
FrankenTan 5y ago
That already happens and it's about to happen to millions of people in the US: it's called eviction.
- underseacables 5y ago
  No, I think you’re confusing literal taking by the government, with a private action of eviction backed by government enforcement. The government generally isn’t the one to initiate an eviction action, it’s the owner, bank, etc.
andrewmcwatters 5y ago
I guess you don’t realize that eminent domain already happens today and very frequently.
- balefrost 5y ago
  Intended (in the US at least) to be exercised only in the public interest, like to build a dam for flood control or a railroad right-of-way to facilitate commerce. I fully recognize that "public interest" can be twisted in all sorts of ways, but I agree with the GP comment that taking land from some people to give it directly to other people does not conform to my understanding of the spirit of the eminent domain law.
- 5y ago

LinuxBender 5y ago

Take undeveloped land by eminent domain Swap that part out with Government owned land and I think you would get more support. The U.S. Federal Government owns a tremendous amount of land in each state [1] with varying degrees of usability for urban development. [1] - https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_land_ownership_by_state