2 ms·
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
by 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 agoI 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 agoYou 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 agoI 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 agoNobody said condos had to be 1200 sqft or walls & floors without sound isolation ;)
- imtringued 5y agoYou're making the mistake of thinking that home owners and investors are distinct groups of people. The overlap between the two is huge.