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> Housing is much more affordable in places where supply is allowed to grow without government interference I just don't believe this. I'm sorry. The differenc

> Housing is much more affordable in places where supply is allowed to grow without government interference I just don't believe this. I'm sorry. The difference between texas (which part, for one thing) and vancouver isn't down to real estate regulation. There are plenty of places in BC where you can buy a home for texas prices, and real estate regulation isn't that different city to city.

civilized 5y ago
I don't understand. The world is complicated, but some things are simple. Gravity makes things fall. Increasing supply reduces price. How is this a dubious idea? If developers are getting rich off building more, that means housing is crazy scarce, so scarce that people will fill the pockets of anyone who builds it. That means you need to build Way More Housing. Econ 101. If you give a starving person a carrot and they were still starving after eating it, would you say that feeding has failed? Quantity matters! A lot!
- jimbob45 5y ago
  If there were 500 million homes in the US and all 500 million were owned by one corporation who rented them out to the population, would you say the solution is: A. Build more houses (and cross your fingers that the corporation doesn’t snatch those up too) B. Criminalize renting to some degree
  - civilized 5y ago
    If the corporation is making that much money from its renting monopoly then the developer should just keep the property it builds and rent it out. If five developers do this, you'll start to see price competition and prices will go down. The rich hoarders and speculators will get screwed badly. As they should be. Except... they will beg the government to do something, tell some heart-rending narrative about those nasty rich developers, the government will do something, and they'll get to stay rich. I may see a different villain here than you do.
    - jimbob45 5y ago
      I don’t think you’re wrong that there’s a solution that the free market would provide (maybe not yours but I’m a believer in the invisible hand). However, that’s no good for preventing another situation like this in the long-run and there’s no benefit to allowing renting other than destroying the environment and shifting some bank account numbers. This is all separate from high-efficiency renting (i.e. apartments) because that uses the land well.
      - civilized 5y ago
        What are you talking about? You just described a situation that has never happened. Nothing remotely like it has ever happened in a free market country. And now we need to prevent "another" situation like this in the long run? I'm so confused.
        kennywinker 5y ago
        Monopolies have never happened in the US? Tell that to Standard Oil.
        civilized 5y ago
        So because there was an oil monopoly around 1900, we need to prevent a "similar" housing monopoly in 2021? No, I stand by my post. Nothing remotely like the situation you describe has ever happened. It is not the case that, because an oil monopoly happened in 1900, we need to be hypervigilant to hypothetical monopolies in other industries where nothing remotely like that has ever happened.
        kennywinker 5y ago
        Before the rise of the Chicago school approach to antitrust, government regularly took action to prevent monopolization. Oddly enough, the size of the world's largest corporations has been skyrocketing in that same period. So yes - we should be hypervigilant to hypothetical monopolies in every industry - especially when we have governments decidedly uninterested in preventing them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Rise_of_the_Chicago_School_(1970s%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Ri...
  - imtringued 5y ago
    >B. Criminalize renting to some degree You mean anti monopoly laws? Let them pay monopoly taxes if their market share is bigger than 50% in any given city.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  One of the disconnects here is that the demand is not uniform. There is demand on housing from people who live here and want to continue to live here. There is also demand on housing from people who want to invest and make money. I believe that the second category has actually been the major driving force of housing prices. Yes one thing we could do is bulldoze the city and build thousands of condo-towers, and maybe we'd drown the demand from investors and actually succeed in bringing down the prices. Or maybe we could just kneecap housing investors, and not have to terraform our city into a dystopian hellscape to please the market.
  - civilized 5y ago
    I still think supply would help without bulldozing the city, but increasing property taxes would also help. I'm a bit of a Georgian anyway.
  - novok 5y ago
    You saying that new construction condo towers being a "dystopian hellscape" is quite telling.
    - civilized 5y ago
      "I'm not a NIMBY, I just want to preserve our neighborhood character" - 100% of NIMBYs
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      I don’t need to defend my non nimby credentials here, but to be clear i said “hellscape” because i lived in condos for about ten years and 500-1200sqft on the 20th floor is just not a place most people can raise a family and build a full life.
      - novok 5y ago
        Nobody said condos had to be 1200 sqft or walls & floors without sound isolation ;)
  - 5y ago

civilized 5y ago

I don't understand. The world is complicated, but some things are simple. Gravity makes things fall. Increasing supply reduces price. How is this a dubious idea? If developers are getting rich off building more, that means housing is crazy scarce, so scarce that people will fill the pockets of anyone who builds it. That means you need to build Way More Housing. Econ 101. If you give a starving person a carrot and they were still starving after eating it, would you say that feeding has failed? Quantity matters! A lot!

jimbob45 5y ago
If there were 500 million homes in the US and all 500 million were owned by one corporation who rented them out to the population, would you say the solution is: A. Build more houses (and cross your fingers that the corporation doesn’t snatch those up too) B. Criminalize renting to some degree
- civilized 5y ago
  If the corporation is making that much money from its renting monopoly then the developer should just keep the property it builds and rent it out. If five developers do this, you'll start to see price competition and prices will go down. The rich hoarders and speculators will get screwed badly. As they should be. Except... they will beg the government to do something, tell some heart-rending narrative about those nasty rich developers, the government will do something, and they'll get to stay rich. I may see a different villain here than you do.
  - jimbob45 5y ago
    I don’t think you’re wrong that there’s a solution that the free market would provide (maybe not yours but I’m a believer in the invisible hand). However, that’s no good for preventing another situation like this in the long-run and there’s no benefit to allowing renting other than destroying the environment and shifting some bank account numbers. This is all separate from high-efficiency renting (i.e. apartments) because that uses the land well.
    - civilized 5y ago
      What are you talking about? You just described a situation that has never happened. Nothing remotely like it has ever happened in a free market country. And now we need to prevent "another" situation like this in the long run? I'm so confused.
      - kennywinker 5y ago
        Monopolies have never happened in the US? Tell that to Standard Oil.
        civilized 5y ago
        So because there was an oil monopoly around 1900, we need to prevent a "similar" housing monopoly in 2021? No, I stand by my post. Nothing remotely like the situation you describe has ever happened. It is not the case that, because an oil monopoly happened in 1900, we need to be hypervigilant to hypothetical monopolies in other industries where nothing remotely like that has ever happened.
        kennywinker 5y ago
        Before the rise of the Chicago school approach to antitrust, government regularly took action to prevent monopolization. Oddly enough, the size of the world's largest corporations has been skyrocketing in that same period. So yes - we should be hypervigilant to hypothetical monopolies in every industry - especially when we have governments decidedly uninterested in preventing them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Rise_of_the_Chicago_School_(1970s%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Ri...
- imtringued 5y ago
  >B. Criminalize renting to some degree You mean anti monopoly laws? Let them pay monopoly taxes if their market share is bigger than 50% in any given city.
kennywinker 5y ago
One of the disconnects here is that the demand is not uniform. There is demand on housing from people who live here and want to continue to live here. There is also demand on housing from people who want to invest and make money. I believe that the second category has actually been the major driving force of housing prices. Yes one thing we could do is bulldoze the city and build thousands of condo-towers, and maybe we'd drown the demand from investors and actually succeed in bringing down the prices. Or maybe we could just kneecap housing investors, and not have to terraform our city into a dystopian hellscape to please the market.
- civilized 5y ago
  I still think supply would help without bulldozing the city, but increasing property taxes would also help. I'm a bit of a Georgian anyway.
- novok 5y ago
  You saying that new construction condo towers being a "dystopian hellscape" is quite telling.
  - civilized 5y ago
    "I'm not a NIMBY, I just want to preserve our neighborhood character" - 100% of NIMBYs
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    I don’t need to defend my non nimby credentials here, but to be clear i said “hellscape” because i lived in condos for about ten years and 500-1200sqft on the 20th floor is just not a place most people can raise a family and build a full life.
    - novok 5y ago
      Nobody said condos had to be 1200 sqft or walls & floors without sound isolation ;)
- 5y ago