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Handing out vouchers will increase the demand causing prices to rise. If you give people $10,000 to buy a house, congrats! You just made houses $10,000 more exp

Handing out vouchers will increase the demand causing prices to rise. If you give people $10,000 to buy a house, congrats! You just made houses $10,000 more expensive. Do you live in a skyscraper? Does anyone want to live in a skyscraper? I don't.

caconym_ 5y ago
> Handing out vouchers will increase the demand causing prices to rise. If you give people $10,000 to buy a house, congrats! You just made houses $10,000 more expensive. To be fair, I think you are glossing over the fact that only handing out said vouchers to lower-income people will cause their buying power in the market to proportionally increase relative to wealthier buyers. However, you are absolutely right that this strategy will increase demand without increasing supply, and overall drive prices higher. I should clarify that I don't think it's a good idea; in fact, I think it's an absolutely absurd idea for precisely this reason. How anyone can suggest making housing more affordable by taking actions that will obviously make it more expensive is beyond me. This sort of thing probably only makes sense in the eyes of wealthy urban "liberals" who want to appear virtuous while maintaining their property values, and from far-left perspectives with no qualms about making life worse for the middle class to achieve their social justice-oriented goals for a relatively small fraction of the population. > Do you live in a skyscraper? Does anyone want to live in a skyscraper? I don't. I'm not sure of the relevance here.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
I’d love to live in a skyscraper (99th floor?) but those are pretty expensive. 30 stories is about the limit for economical concrete construction, and those are hardly considered skyscrapers.
projektfu 5y ago
There is a wide spectrum in density between single family detached houses and skyscrapers. I used to live in an 18-story 20s-era building and loved it. I can't remember if it had 2 or 4 units per floor. The ranch house with the two big yards and no commercial center within a mile was probably the worst place I lived.
pertymcpert 5y ago
> Does anyone want to live in a skyscraper? This tells me you haven’t been to China.
- Schiendelman 5y ago
  Or Seattle, for that matter. A huge proportion of our new housing is 40 stories and full.

caconym_ 5y ago

> Handing out vouchers will increase the demand causing prices to rise. If you give people $10,000 to buy a house, congrats! You just made houses $10,000 more expensive. To be fair, I think you are glossing over the fact that only handing out said vouchers to lower-income people will cause their buying power in the market to proportionally increase relative to wealthier buyers. However, you are absolutely right that this strategy will increase demand without increasing supply, and overall drive prices higher. I should clarify that I don't think it's a good idea; in fact, I think it's an absolutely absurd idea for precisely this reason. How anyone can suggest making housing more affordable by taking actions that will obviously make it more expensive is beyond me. This sort of thing probably only makes sense in the eyes of wealthy urban "liberals" who want to appear virtuous while maintaining their property values, and from far-left perspectives with no qualms about making life worse for the middle class to achieve their social justice-oriented goals for a relatively small fraction of the population. > Do you live in a skyscraper? Does anyone want to live in a skyscraper? I don't. I'm not sure of the relevance here.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

I’d love to live in a skyscraper (99th floor?) but those are pretty expensive. 30 stories is about the limit for economical concrete construction, and those are hardly considered skyscrapers.

projektfu 5y ago

There is a wide spectrum in density between single family detached houses and skyscrapers. I used to live in an 18-story 20s-era building and loved it. I can't remember if it had 2 or 4 units per floor. The ranch house with the two big yards and no commercial center within a mile was probably the worst place I lived.

pertymcpert 5y ago

> Does anyone want to live in a skyscraper? This tells me you haven’t been to China.

Schiendelman 5y ago
Or Seattle, for that matter. A huge proportion of our new housing is 40 stories and full.