7 ms·

It's old vs young, new vs established. For most homeowners, their home is their most valuable asset. It's just not possible to simultaneously maintain high prop

It's old vs young, new vs established. For most homeowners, their home is their most valuable asset. It's just not possible to simultaneously maintain high property values and have affordable housing. Given this, any "solution" to housing affordability is "solving" a problem that a sizable and highly influential segment of the population doesn't want solved. On the contrary, you see real government action whenever home prices fall.

dorchadas 5y ago
And that's what I think OP was alluding to about it being "inextricably connected to capitalism". As long as we treat housing like an asset, we'll have this problem. And I don't see how there's any other way to treat housing under a capitalist system.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  The problem isn't a result of treating housing as an asset, it's a structural regulatory problem. Housing is treated as an asset in Tokyo, but they don't have the same regulatory constraints on zoning, so they don't have outrageous housing prices.
- imtringued 5y ago
  You mean an asset with a guaranteed return at the expense of late arrivals who must buy the asset from you. The vast majority of rent seeking is based around coercion. When people advocate for free markets nature seeps through. After all, coercion is completely natural. We don't have heaven on earth so why would a free market lead to the ultimate manifestation of heaven? Get rid of the coercion and you get rid of the problems.
WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
That's a good point. By some measures it isn't just the wealthy keeping the poor vulnerable; it's everyone who isn't poor. In this case, middle class voters. In the US, our shortsightedness has begun threatening the lower-middle class. People with some cash in the bank are facing homelessness, due to a historic lack of housing. The housing shortage came following dozens of contributors including NIMBY, AirBnB, single-use zoning, tunnel-vision'd pols/voters, corp house buyers, etc. Pointing to a single factor delays solutions.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  It's not really multiple factors. There was only one. Restrictive zoning. That constrained supply. Everything else is just the various parties fighting over the now-insufficient housing supply.
  - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
    Single use zoning lives due to NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel vision. The former stays forever while the latter is in play.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      It's not just "NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel vision." Corporations that own houses don't want their value to decline. People renting properties out on AirBNB don't want their value to decline. They're just different categories of existing property owners who want property values to stay high or increase more. The mechanism they all use for that is restrictive zoning. To win that you have to defeat them all. That's why it's hard to do. Having failed to actually solve the problem, some people have had the idea to foist it onto someone else. Restrict who you can rent to, so people can't buy a property and use it for vacation rentals, on the theory that it will shift supply to long-term rentals. Then that makes the problem worse for short-term rentals, creating an incentive for regulatory arbitrage by AirBNB. Then long-term renters condemn AirBNB for thwarting their attempt to shift costs onto people who can't vote in the jurisdiction with the zoning problem. All of that is bike shedding and friendly fire. The only real solution is to increase the housing supply.
      - imtringued 5y ago
        Strangely enough Americans demonize building more houses while in Germany it is the obvious solution.
      - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
        > It's not just "NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel vision." That would be why I made the point repeatedly that it isn't any one factor that got us here and cautioned against trying to frame it that way.

dorchadas 5y ago

And that's what I think OP was alluding to about it being "inextricably connected to capitalism". As long as we treat housing like an asset, we'll have this problem. And I don't see how there's any other way to treat housing under a capitalist system.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
The problem isn't a result of treating housing as an asset, it's a structural regulatory problem. Housing is treated as an asset in Tokyo, but they don't have the same regulatory constraints on zoning, so they don't have outrageous housing prices.
imtringued 5y ago
You mean an asset with a guaranteed return at the expense of late arrivals who must buy the asset from you. The vast majority of rent seeking is based around coercion. When people advocate for free markets nature seeps through. After all, coercion is completely natural. We don't have heaven on earth so why would a free market lead to the ultimate manifestation of heaven? Get rid of the coercion and you get rid of the problems.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

That's a good point. By some measures it isn't just the wealthy keeping the poor vulnerable; it's everyone who isn't poor. In this case, middle class voters. In the US, our shortsightedness has begun threatening the lower-middle class. People with some cash in the bank are facing homelessness, due to a historic lack of housing. The housing shortage came following dozens of contributors including NIMBY, AirBnB, single-use zoning, tunnel-vision'd pols/voters, corp house buyers, etc. Pointing to a single factor delays solutions.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
It's not really multiple factors. There was only one. Restrictive zoning. That constrained supply. Everything else is just the various parties fighting over the now-insufficient housing supply.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  Single use zoning lives due to NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel vision. The former stays forever while the latter is in play.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    It's not just "NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel vision." Corporations that own houses don't want their value to decline. People renting properties out on AirBNB don't want their value to decline. They're just different categories of existing property owners who want property values to stay high or increase more. The mechanism they all use for that is restrictive zoning. To win that you have to defeat them all. That's why it's hard to do. Having failed to actually solve the problem, some people have had the idea to foist it onto someone else. Restrict who you can rent to, so people can't buy a property and use it for vacation rentals, on the theory that it will shift supply to long-term rentals. Then that makes the problem worse for short-term rentals, creating an incentive for regulatory arbitrage by AirBNB. Then long-term renters condemn AirBNB for thwarting their attempt to shift costs onto people who can't vote in the jurisdiction with the zoning problem. All of that is bike shedding and friendly fire. The only real solution is to increase the housing supply.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      Strangely enough Americans demonize building more houses while in Germany it is the obvious solution.
    - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
      > It's not just "NIMBY and voter/pol tunnel vision." That would be why I made the point repeatedly that it isn't any one factor that got us here and cautioned against trying to frame it that way.