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No matter what we do on the supply side it will be eaten up by the unlimited demand from people coming here. Unless we slow down immigration housing will always

No matter what we do on the supply side it will be eaten up by the unlimited demand from people coming here. Unless we slow down immigration housing will always be too expensive. This only further hurts people living here by chasing them out of their homes and taking control of their communities away from them. We can't solve the problems of every country in the world by destroying our own. That only makes things worse for everyone.

bwestergard 4y ago
Current immigration is a strong positive contributor to GDP growth. All things equal, it should allow for more construction and lower (real) housing prices under the right regulatory regime.
- nukemaster 4y ago
andrepd 4y ago
If your thesis is true then increases with immigration should be correlated with increases in housing prices, right? But this is not at all what is empirically verified. It's not a supply-side problem (or not only or even majorly a supply-side problem). We can see this because the housing bubble is occurring in widely different places with widely different construction rules: both very restrictive and very lax. This is fundamentally a finance bubble.
jjitz 4y ago
Or maybe just like, build more houses
JRGC1 4y ago
You're half way there... no matter what we do on the supply side, it will be eaten up by the unlimited demand from investors. while housing outperforms other investments or until regulators curtail the activity, housing will remain expensive.
refurb 4y ago
This isn't true in the least. Housing is entirely local. The US has plenty of cheap land to build housing. People choose to live where the jobs are or where QOL is high. High prices reflect that. And that's good - it's a signal we should be building housing and opening new businesses elsewhere.
lom 4y ago
I think we would have an a lot larger issue if the 2.8 million immigrants who work in construction[1] suddenly fell away. Even if it would potentially (but probably not) relieve demand a tiny bit. [1] https://eyeonhousing.org/2021/03/immigrants-in-construction-rising-numbers-falling-share/ https://eyeonhousing.org/2021/03/immigrants-in-construction-...
ekianjo 4y ago
> Unless we slow down immigration housing will always be too expensive. Tokyo has a huge demand in accommodation and guess what, they keep building a lot of apartment buildings and it works.
- nukemaster 4y ago
bigtex88 4y ago
Have you driven around America? It is absolutely massive, and the amount of empty land is mind-boggling. Chill out with the racist "we're running out of room" diatribes. We are decidedly not running out of room.

bwestergard 4y ago

Current immigration is a strong positive contributor to GDP growth. All things equal, it should allow for more construction and lower (real) housing prices under the right regulatory regime.

nukemaster 4y ago

andrepd 4y ago

If your thesis is true then increases with immigration should be correlated with increases in housing prices, right? But this is not at all what is empirically verified. It's not a supply-side problem (or not only or even majorly a supply-side problem). We can see this because the housing bubble is occurring in widely different places with widely different construction rules: both very restrictive and very lax. This is fundamentally a finance bubble.

jjitz 4y ago

Or maybe just like, build more houses

JRGC1 4y ago

You're half way there... no matter what we do on the supply side, it will be eaten up by the unlimited demand from investors. while housing outperforms other investments or until regulators curtail the activity, housing will remain expensive.

refurb 4y ago

This isn't true in the least. Housing is entirely local. The US has plenty of cheap land to build housing. People choose to live where the jobs are or where QOL is high. High prices reflect that. And that's good - it's a signal we should be building housing and opening new businesses elsewhere.

lom 4y ago

I think we would have an a lot larger issue if the 2.8 million immigrants who work in construction[1] suddenly fell away. Even if it would potentially (but probably not) relieve demand a tiny bit. [1] https://eyeonhousing.org/2021/03/immigrants-in-construction-rising-numbers-falling-share/ https://eyeonhousing.org/2021/03/immigrants-in-construction-...

ekianjo 4y ago

> Unless we slow down immigration housing will always be too expensive. Tokyo has a huge demand in accommodation and guess what, they keep building a lot of apartment buildings and it works.

nukemaster 4y ago

bigtex88 4y ago

Have you driven around America? It is absolutely massive, and the amount of empty land is mind-boggling. Chill out with the racist "we're running out of room" diatribes. We are decidedly not running out of room.