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Because building housing is effectively illegal in much of the US. Single family zoning, NIMBYism, moral panics over public transit, suburbanism... the list go

Because building housing is effectively illegal in much of the US. Single family zoning, NIMBYism, moral panics over public transit, suburbanism... the list goes on and on. Building duplexes is a start but Seattle should look a lot more like Brooklyn than like Idaho Falls: 6 story apartment buildings everywhere. Density. Public transit galore with very restricted parking. Only then would housing prices be reasonable.

belligeront 5y ago
And if you wait to long to allow building, you get stuck in a negative feedback loop where people who work in the building trades get priced out of a city, so construction costs spiral out of control too.
inglor_cz 5y ago
It is not just the US, though. Prices are crazy almost everywhere. I was born in a city that lost 40 000 people over the last generation. From 320 000 people to 280 000 people. A Central European rust belt city called Ostrava. And the real estate prices there made a huge jump in the last three years. Not as huge as in Prague, but +50 per cent nonetheless. Lots of those apartments are actually empty and cannot attract tenants, because there just isn't enough demand on the rental market. But they still sell like hot buns at a bakery. I believe this is caused by the fear of inflation combined with relatively low mortgage interest rates. People don't want to have cash in hand.
- mcguire 5y ago
  A hypothesis: In the US: Interest rates. Interest rates are low, so mortgage rates are low, so there is a crap-ton of money going after what is effectively a fixed resource. Outside the US: Investments. A lot of people have made a shit-ton of money from low-interest-rate investments like the stock market in the last decade. These people are looking for places to put said money, including real estate in out of the way places. Once again, a lot of money going after fixed resources.
  - hparadiz 5y ago
    Residences that are empty for more than 1 year should be taxed triple.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    "Interest rates are low, so mortgage rates are low, so there is a crap-ton of money going after what is effectively a fixed resource." This is a case in Europe, too, especially in the Eurozone, where interest rates are kept very low by the ECB to keep heavily indebted countries afloat.
- medvezhenok 5y ago
  "GROSS: So whether or not the king's using these properties or whether his children are using the properties, it seems that real estate is a popular way of sheltering money. And why is that? Because among the issues surrounding that is that when wealthy people from abroad buy up really expensive real estate and don't actually use it, it tends to kind of freak out real estate prices in that area. I know London's going through that. I think New York has gone through that. So can you talk a little bit about sheltering money in real estate? MILLER: Yeah. It's a huge, huge issue, a global issue. And you're right, Terry, it distorts the real estate market when you have individuals - Saudi billionaires, Russian oligarchs or whoever - buying real estate as a way of basically moving money that they made from other sources into hard assets in Western countries that are attractive because of their stability. I mean, it works for them. it's basically - they've acquired an asset that they know is going to be reliable. It's going to be there. Their money - they're not going to lose." https://www.npr.org/2021/10/14/1046008243/the-pandora-papers-expose-the-secret-financial-dealings-of-the-global-elite https://www.npr.org/2021/10/14/1046008243/the-pandora-papers...
starik36 5y ago
> Brooklyn...Density...Only then would housing prices be reasonable. Housing prices are NOT reasonable in Brooklyn. > NIMBYism I really dislike it when people immediately jump to this. There are simply a whole lot more people living in Seattle than a generation ago. The math dictates that the housing would be more expensive.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- crowbahr 5y ago
  1. Housing prices are more reasonable in Brooklyn than in Seattle. 2. Housing prices in Seattle would be more reasonable than they currently are with more supply of housing. 3. NIMBYism is absolutely the problem in Seattle. Upzone everything to have a minimum density requirement of 4 family, instead of insisting that 70%+ of the city stay in single family zoning. Don't want a duplex in your back yard? Tough. Move. If the entirety of the city core were as dense as average Brooklyn you would have sufficient supply to meet demand. As is you can buy a fixer up apartment in Brooklyn for half the price of a burnt out shell in Seattle. 4. There are more people than ever and they're all coming back from the desolation known as suburbia: Cities simply have to densify in response. You can't keep your city the same size forever.
  - starik36 5y ago
    1. "Slightly" more reasonable. Let's not tell tales. 3. Having lived in NYC, I can tell you that living in Seattle is far more pleasant than Brooklyn with its massive over population. 4. "Cities simply have to densify in response." Your solution is to make it unpleasant for everyone. Got it. There are many other solutions - don't jump to the easiest one.
    - crowbahr 5y ago
      > Having lived in NYC, I can tell you that living in Seattle is far more pleasant than Brooklyn with its massive over population. Having also lived in both I deal with needles and aggressive homeless people far less often here than I ever did in Seattle. I have functional public transit. I can also even walk places for food, groceries and entertainment. Don't be such a NIMBY: You're clearly against people having affordable housing. Just move to some shithole suburb and get out of the cities.
ryathal 5y ago
Housing prices are fairly constant/slowly rising based on payment amount for a 30 year mortgage. The problem is the interest rate has really dropped to crazy low levels. A few years ago a $1,500 payment meant ~$310,000 purchase price, today that same payment is ~$350,000. The drop in interest rates is responsible for a majority of the recent price increases for the vast majority of the country outside the most in demand cities in the country.

belligeront 5y ago

And if you wait to long to allow building, you get stuck in a negative feedback loop where people who work in the building trades get priced out of a city, so construction costs spiral out of control too.

inglor_cz 5y ago

It is not just the US, though. Prices are crazy almost everywhere. I was born in a city that lost 40 000 people over the last generation. From 320 000 people to 280 000 people. A Central European rust belt city called Ostrava. And the real estate prices there made a huge jump in the last three years. Not as huge as in Prague, but +50 per cent nonetheless. Lots of those apartments are actually empty and cannot attract tenants, because there just isn't enough demand on the rental market. But they still sell like hot buns at a bakery. I believe this is caused by the fear of inflation combined with relatively low mortgage interest rates. People don't want to have cash in hand.

mcguire 5y ago
A hypothesis: In the US: Interest rates. Interest rates are low, so mortgage rates are low, so there is a crap-ton of money going after what is effectively a fixed resource. Outside the US: Investments. A lot of people have made a shit-ton of money from low-interest-rate investments like the stock market in the last decade. These people are looking for places to put said money, including real estate in out of the way places. Once again, a lot of money going after fixed resources.
- hparadiz 5y ago
  Residences that are empty for more than 1 year should be taxed triple.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  "Interest rates are low, so mortgage rates are low, so there is a crap-ton of money going after what is effectively a fixed resource." This is a case in Europe, too, especially in the Eurozone, where interest rates are kept very low by the ECB to keep heavily indebted countries afloat.
medvezhenok 5y ago
"GROSS: So whether or not the king's using these properties or whether his children are using the properties, it seems that real estate is a popular way of sheltering money. And why is that? Because among the issues surrounding that is that when wealthy people from abroad buy up really expensive real estate and don't actually use it, it tends to kind of freak out real estate prices in that area. I know London's going through that. I think New York has gone through that. So can you talk a little bit about sheltering money in real estate? MILLER: Yeah. It's a huge, huge issue, a global issue. And you're right, Terry, it distorts the real estate market when you have individuals - Saudi billionaires, Russian oligarchs or whoever - buying real estate as a way of basically moving money that they made from other sources into hard assets in Western countries that are attractive because of their stability. I mean, it works for them. it's basically - they've acquired an asset that they know is going to be reliable. It's going to be there. Their money - they're not going to lose." https://www.npr.org/2021/10/14/1046008243/the-pandora-papers-expose-the-secret-financial-dealings-of-the-global-elite https://www.npr.org/2021/10/14/1046008243/the-pandora-papers...

starik36 5y ago

> Brooklyn...Density...Only then would housing prices be reasonable. Housing prices are NOT reasonable in Brooklyn. > NIMBYism I really dislike it when people immediately jump to this. There are simply a whole lot more people living in Seattle than a generation ago. The math dictates that the housing would be more expensive.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
crowbahr 5y ago
1. Housing prices are more reasonable in Brooklyn than in Seattle. 2. Housing prices in Seattle would be more reasonable than they currently are with more supply of housing. 3. NIMBYism is absolutely the problem in Seattle. Upzone everything to have a minimum density requirement of 4 family, instead of insisting that 70%+ of the city stay in single family zoning. Don't want a duplex in your back yard? Tough. Move. If the entirety of the city core were as dense as average Brooklyn you would have sufficient supply to meet demand. As is you can buy a fixer up apartment in Brooklyn for half the price of a burnt out shell in Seattle. 4. There are more people than ever and they're all coming back from the desolation known as suburbia: Cities simply have to densify in response. You can't keep your city the same size forever.
- starik36 5y ago
  1. "Slightly" more reasonable. Let's not tell tales. 3. Having lived in NYC, I can tell you that living in Seattle is far more pleasant than Brooklyn with its massive over population. 4. "Cities simply have to densify in response." Your solution is to make it unpleasant for everyone. Got it. There are many other solutions - don't jump to the easiest one.
  - crowbahr 5y ago
    > Having lived in NYC, I can tell you that living in Seattle is far more pleasant than Brooklyn with its massive over population. Having also lived in both I deal with needles and aggressive homeless people far less often here than I ever did in Seattle. I have functional public transit. I can also even walk places for food, groceries and entertainment. Don't be such a NIMBY: You're clearly against people having affordable housing. Just move to some shithole suburb and get out of the cities.

ryathal 5y ago

Housing prices are fairly constant/slowly rising based on payment amount for a 30 year mortgage. The problem is the interest rate has really dropped to crazy low levels. A few years ago a $1,500 payment meant ~$310,000 purchase price, today that same payment is ~$350,000. The drop in interest rates is responsible for a majority of the recent price increases for the vast majority of the country outside the most in demand cities in the country.