7 ms·

White House releases plan to boost housing supply

28 points by harambae 4y ago

mikece 4y ago
"Solutions brought to you by the government" tend to do the opposite of what they intended. I shall remain skeptical.
- codefreeordie 4y ago
  Well, I wouldn't say they do the opposite of what's intended, they just do the opposite of whatever lie they told you to get you to accept it. In this instance, the proposal is to dramatically increase the price of housing by giving away free money to people that they can only use if they buy housing
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    > Well, I wouldn't say they do the opposite of what's intended, they just do the opposite of whatever lie they told you to get you to accept it. They also have the nasty side effect of doing far more than anyone intended. Like that time they gave away subsidized loans for college and then acted surprised when the price of college increased.
    - codefreeordie 4y ago
      Ya, then they promised to forgive all of the loans so that people would be willing to take out even bigger ones to drive prices up even higher. The purpose, of course, was a massive transfer of wealth to the colleges and universities which were an important political ally and perpetual source of newly-indoctrinated voters. But people wouldn't have supported "giving a trillion dollars to the elite colleges that support the party"
      - gizmo686 4y ago
        The only promise the government made to forgive loans is the public service loan forgiveness program, which was designed to encourage people to work in underserved areas without offering a large enough salary to attract talent on the normal market. Essentially it is a weird subsidy for undesired jobs. Some politicians promised a more generic student loan forgiveness, but politicians promise a bunch of things.
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      That wasn’t the goal? They gave out subsidized loans so more people could go to college… and guess what, more people went to college.
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      I think you have causation backwards. The price of college kept going up, so the government started offering loans.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  You know, the people who say this and the people who want to defund the police ought to get together sometime; you'd think they'd be natural allies, but no.
- jefurii 4y ago
  How about "Solutions brought to you by giant corporations"? At least you can vote politicians out of office.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    If Google or Comcast puts me on their shit list it's just a big inconvenience. If government puts me on their shit list I wind up in a cage. If your local power company thinks still you owe them $50 after you move out of a rental you might get harassed by collectors and have your credit dinged. If your local government thinks you owe them $50 there's a good chance eventually wind up with a warrant out for your arrest. It gets even worse when you consider how often these kinds of entities make paper pushing errors. The entity we entrust with the power to use violence shouldn't be sticking its fingers in anything where we aren't willing to accept more violence.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    You can vote corporations out of business. You just vote with your wallet. Very effective.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      When giant corporations own or buy 90% of everything then voting with your wallet is not effective at all.
      - ridgered4 4y ago
        Plus if they're large enough the government will bail them out when they fail assuring there's less room for a better replacement to sprout up.
    - tstrimple 4y ago
      Clearly works well. See Nestle.
      - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
- russdpale 4y ago
  Except the dust bowl, or polio, or gps, or the bill of rights, or...
ThalesX 4y ago
> The administration released a “Housing Supply Action Plan” that officials said would produce more housing supply, including affordable units, in the next five years. Aaaand it's priced in. > The White House also urged lawmakers to pass Biden’s 2023 budget request, which includes a proposal for $10 billion in HUD grants to increase accessibility to affordable housing. "The House on Tuesday night passed a $40 billion military and humanitarian aid package" (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/us/politics/congress-ukraine-aid-questions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/us/politics/congress-ukra...) ... how anyone can treat politics seriously is beyond me. (edit: would love some actual replies into A - how the market is not going to price this in and B - how a package 1 / 4 of some foreign aid is really going to help up)
- nwah1 4y ago
  You are right. This package is simultaneously ineffective and of a trivial size compared to the US housing market. The primary result, as per usual, is to shift taxpayer dollars towards landowners and mortgage lenders. The primary way to actually improve the housing market is to shift taxes away from improvements and onto land value. This would remove the disincentive to build and add a disincentive to engage in idle speculation. Secondarily, we should remove the local regulatory hurdles that constrain supply, such as restrictive zoning, mandatory parking minimums, etc.
chizhik-pyzhik 4y ago
Nice! While this doesn't go as far as I'd hope, it's good to see increasing housing supply being taken up as an actual political goal. Multifamily housing has entered the overton window.
JohnClark1337 4y ago
"in the next 5 years" This means that when it goes south Biden can let the next president handle the fallout.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  I mean, it takes time to build structures. If the US only did what could be done in one term, it'd be shortsighted and get nothing done. Similar to how some companies let the quest for quarterly profits overcome all.
m0llusk 4y ago
This proposal seems weak and likely to backfire. The biggest problem with housing is not enough being built where it is needed. There is no particular lack of clever financing so that part really doesn't bring much to bear on the problem. Affordable housing units are dominated by old stock which is one reason why we need to maintain the rate of construction. Some kind of federal guidelines for limiting regulations and hearings might address the friction that builders experience.
myshpa 4y ago
We dedicate globally 40 mil. km2 of land to meat & dairy production, 39 mil. km2 to forests and just 1.5 mil. km2 to urban and built-up lands [0]. Switching to plant-based foods (at least removing beef & dairy from our diets) would free up 30 mil. km2 of land. We can have enough plant-based dairy and proteins to feed the population many times over, simultaneously decrease our carbon footprint, stop anthropogenic extinction and increase housing availability. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-1536x971.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-g...
- rfd4sgmk8u 4y ago
  I was a vegan for 10 years, now I only eat meat. I bought into the sustainability argument for a long time. I will not return to a plant based food diet -- and many people will agree with me, often quite aggressively. Eating beef is so important that I will spend my last dollar buying that expensive hamburger. What I am trying to say is your line of coercion is a waste of time and doomed to fail. You cannot force dietary habits on people with an argument of sustainability. I don't care if the planet ends, I just want my damn steak, and that is a primal urge far stronger than sustainability ethics.
- tengbretson 4y ago
  You think the housing problem we're facing would be alleviated by putting apartment buildings in my cattle pasture?
- everforward 4y ago
  While there are arguments like that for going vegetarian, it doesn't really apply here. The US still has plenty of land that could be used for housing that currently isn't used at all. Last I checked, I think there's even currently enough housing for everyone in the US. The problem is that the land and houses aren't where people want to live, because of jobs or family or etc. E.g. Detroit has a bunch of cheap and open housing. Rural areas could probably have 10x the current population density without touching agriculture. Carbon footprint arguments are fair, but a change in diet is unlikely to change the cost of living in San Francisco, New York, LA, etc.
teakettle42 4y ago
“Affordable housing” is a just euphemism for subsidizing employers’ low wages at the taxpayers’ expense. This plan is even worse, in that they’ll also provide “rental and downpayment assistance”, causing home prices to skyrocket in exactly the same way as college tuition.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  I find it funny that the average American liberal might be (rightfully) outraged that a Walmart employee is on food stamps, complaining that the government is subsidizing Walmart paying below living wages - but then turn around and advocate for the government to build affordable housing for the same worker.
  - f1yght 4y ago
    There's still a short term housing affordability issue even if we do address supply issues. Social or subsidized housing are still good along with increasing the availability of higher density housing near jobs and services.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    Affordable housing has a supply problem. Food doesn't.
  - slow_GDE 4y ago
txsoftwaredev 4y ago
Anything the government touches ends up costing more.
- russdpale 4y ago
  That isn't even remotely close to being true. In fact we know that each dollar the government spends usually generates income somewhere else down the line. The government is not a business.
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    No, it's a nonprofit, and the people getting all the networking and perks are at the helm.
  - everforward 4y ago
    > In fact we know that each dollar the government spends usually generates income somewhere else down the line. That's kind of a non-sequitor; downstream income has nothing to do with the cost of the good. Somebody could quadruple the price of steel, but people down the line will still make income. Student loans is a great example here. Government comes in, gives everyone financing, and the price of college just so happens to rise to the level of financing the government will offer. I don't see a way this ends well. If they offer it to everyone, housing prices simply factor that in. If they only offer it to the very poor, it just collapses two existing housing brackets into one (the very poor can spend like they're only kind of poor, making very poor cease to exist as a category and lumping the existing "very poor" housing into the "kind of poor" category). We need more housing or lower demand. That's the solution. Anything else is just shuffling around hardships.
ParksNet 4y ago
There are 200,000 people entering America from the Southern Border, each month, illegally. That's a lot of houses 'gotta be built: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/13/migrant-encounters-at-u-s-mexico-border-are-at-a-21-year-high/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/13/migrant-enc... Why not just enforce existing laws against illegal entry to the country, and deport the 10-20 million already inside the USA? That would free up a lot of real estate.
- rfd4sgmk8u 4y ago
  You are probably not going to get any sympathy for your hard line attitude here, this is hacker news, not daily stormer. You might want to grow some compassion too. The tech industry was built and maintained by immigrants, and all families are immigrants to new lands at some point in their history. Look around, you will see there are folks that are doing things that you will not do for money. If you want those things to stop and collapse society, keeping pushing for deportation of the labor pool.

28 points by harambae 4y ago

mikece 4y ago

"Solutions brought to you by the government" tend to do the opposite of what they intended. I shall remain skeptical.

codefreeordie 4y ago
Well, I wouldn't say they do the opposite of what's intended, they just do the opposite of whatever lie they told you to get you to accept it. In this instance, the proposal is to dramatically increase the price of housing by giving away free money to people that they can only use if they buy housing
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  > Well, I wouldn't say they do the opposite of what's intended, they just do the opposite of whatever lie they told you to get you to accept it. They also have the nasty side effect of doing far more than anyone intended. Like that time they gave away subsidized loans for college and then acted surprised when the price of college increased.
  - codefreeordie 4y ago
    Ya, then they promised to forgive all of the loans so that people would be willing to take out even bigger ones to drive prices up even higher. The purpose, of course, was a massive transfer of wealth to the colleges and universities which were an important political ally and perpetual source of newly-indoctrinated voters. But people wouldn't have supported "giving a trillion dollars to the elite colleges that support the party"
    - gizmo686 4y ago
      The only promise the government made to forgive loans is the public service loan forgiveness program, which was designed to encourage people to work in underserved areas without offering a large enough salary to attract talent on the normal market. Essentially it is a weird subsidy for undesired jobs. Some politicians promised a more generic student loan forgiveness, but politicians promise a bunch of things.
  - wbsss4412 4y ago
    That wasn’t the goal? They gave out subsidized loans so more people could go to college… and guess what, more people went to college.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    I think you have causation backwards. The price of college kept going up, so the government started offering loans.
hotpotamus 4y ago
You know, the people who say this and the people who want to defund the police ought to get together sometime; you'd think they'd be natural allies, but no.
jefurii 4y ago
How about "Solutions brought to you by giant corporations"? At least you can vote politicians out of office.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  If Google or Comcast puts me on their shit list it's just a big inconvenience. If government puts me on their shit list I wind up in a cage. If your local power company thinks still you owe them $50 after you move out of a rental you might get harassed by collectors and have your credit dinged. If your local government thinks you owe them $50 there's a good chance eventually wind up with a warrant out for your arrest. It gets even worse when you consider how often these kinds of entities make paper pushing errors. The entity we entrust with the power to use violence shouldn't be sticking its fingers in anything where we aren't willing to accept more violence.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  You can vote corporations out of business. You just vote with your wallet. Very effective.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    When giant corporations own or buy 90% of everything then voting with your wallet is not effective at all.
    - ridgered4 4y ago
      Plus if they're large enough the government will bail them out when they fail assuring there's less room for a better replacement to sprout up.
  - tstrimple 4y ago
    Clearly works well. See Nestle.
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
russdpale 4y ago
Except the dust bowl, or polio, or gps, or the bill of rights, or...

ThalesX 4y ago

> The administration released a “Housing Supply Action Plan” that officials said would produce more housing supply, including affordable units, in the next five years. Aaaand it's priced in. > The White House also urged lawmakers to pass Biden’s 2023 budget request, which includes a proposal for $10 billion in HUD grants to increase accessibility to affordable housing. "The House on Tuesday night passed a $40 billion military and humanitarian aid package" (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/us/politics/congress-ukraine-aid-questions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/us/politics/congress-ukra...) ... how anyone can treat politics seriously is beyond me. (edit: would love some actual replies into A - how the market is not going to price this in and B - how a package 1 / 4 of some foreign aid is really going to help up)

nwah1 4y ago
You are right. This package is simultaneously ineffective and of a trivial size compared to the US housing market. The primary result, as per usual, is to shift taxpayer dollars towards landowners and mortgage lenders. The primary way to actually improve the housing market is to shift taxes away from improvements and onto land value. This would remove the disincentive to build and add a disincentive to engage in idle speculation. Secondarily, we should remove the local regulatory hurdles that constrain supply, such as restrictive zoning, mandatory parking minimums, etc.

chizhik-pyzhik 4y ago

Nice! While this doesn't go as far as I'd hope, it's good to see increasing housing supply being taken up as an actual political goal. Multifamily housing has entered the overton window.

JohnClark1337 4y ago

"in the next 5 years" This means that when it goes south Biden can let the next president handle the fallout.

HWR_14 4y ago
I mean, it takes time to build structures. If the US only did what could be done in one term, it'd be shortsighted and get nothing done. Similar to how some companies let the quest for quarterly profits overcome all.

m0llusk 4y ago

This proposal seems weak and likely to backfire. The biggest problem with housing is not enough being built where it is needed. There is no particular lack of clever financing so that part really doesn't bring much to bear on the problem. Affordable housing units are dominated by old stock which is one reason why we need to maintain the rate of construction. Some kind of federal guidelines for limiting regulations and hearings might address the friction that builders experience.

myshpa 4y ago

We dedicate globally 40 mil. km2 of land to meat & dairy production, 39 mil. km2 to forests and just 1.5 mil. km2 to urban and built-up lands [0]. Switching to plant-based foods (at least removing beef & dairy from our diets) would free up 30 mil. km2 of land. We can have enough plant-based dairy and proteins to feed the population many times over, simultaneously decrease our carbon footprint, stop anthropogenic extinction and increase housing availability. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-1536x971.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-g...

rfd4sgmk8u 4y ago
I was a vegan for 10 years, now I only eat meat. I bought into the sustainability argument for a long time. I will not return to a plant based food diet -- and many people will agree with me, often quite aggressively. Eating beef is so important that I will spend my last dollar buying that expensive hamburger. What I am trying to say is your line of coercion is a waste of time and doomed to fail. You cannot force dietary habits on people with an argument of sustainability. I don't care if the planet ends, I just want my damn steak, and that is a primal urge far stronger than sustainability ethics.
tengbretson 4y ago
You think the housing problem we're facing would be alleviated by putting apartment buildings in my cattle pasture?
everforward 4y ago
While there are arguments like that for going vegetarian, it doesn't really apply here. The US still has plenty of land that could be used for housing that currently isn't used at all. Last I checked, I think there's even currently enough housing for everyone in the US. The problem is that the land and houses aren't where people want to live, because of jobs or family or etc. E.g. Detroit has a bunch of cheap and open housing. Rural areas could probably have 10x the current population density without touching agriculture. Carbon footprint arguments are fair, but a change in diet is unlikely to change the cost of living in San Francisco, New York, LA, etc.

teakettle42 4y ago

“Affordable housing” is a just euphemism for subsidizing employers’ low wages at the taxpayers’ expense. This plan is even worse, in that they’ll also provide “rental and downpayment assistance”, causing home prices to skyrocket in exactly the same way as college tuition.

oh_sigh 4y ago
I find it funny that the average American liberal might be (rightfully) outraged that a Walmart employee is on food stamps, complaining that the government is subsidizing Walmart paying below living wages - but then turn around and advocate for the government to build affordable housing for the same worker.
- f1yght 4y ago
  There's still a short term housing affordability issue even if we do address supply issues. Social or subsidized housing are still good along with increasing the availability of higher density housing near jobs and services.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Affordable housing has a supply problem. Food doesn't.
- slow_GDE 4y ago

txsoftwaredev 4y ago

Anything the government touches ends up costing more.

russdpale 4y ago
That isn't even remotely close to being true. In fact we know that each dollar the government spends usually generates income somewhere else down the line. The government is not a business.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  No, it's a nonprofit, and the people getting all the networking and perks are at the helm.
- everforward 4y ago
  > In fact we know that each dollar the government spends usually generates income somewhere else down the line. That's kind of a non-sequitor; downstream income has nothing to do with the cost of the good. Somebody could quadruple the price of steel, but people down the line will still make income. Student loans is a great example here. Government comes in, gives everyone financing, and the price of college just so happens to rise to the level of financing the government will offer. I don't see a way this ends well. If they offer it to everyone, housing prices simply factor that in. If they only offer it to the very poor, it just collapses two existing housing brackets into one (the very poor can spend like they're only kind of poor, making very poor cease to exist as a category and lumping the existing "very poor" housing into the "kind of poor" category). We need more housing or lower demand. That's the solution. Anything else is just shuffling around hardships.

ParksNet 4y ago

There are 200,000 people entering America from the Southern Border, each month, illegally. That's a lot of houses 'gotta be built: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/13/migrant-encounters-at-u-s-mexico-border-are-at-a-21-year-high/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/13/migrant-enc... Why not just enforce existing laws against illegal entry to the country, and deport the 10-20 million already inside the USA? That would free up a lot of real estate.

rfd4sgmk8u 4y ago
You are probably not going to get any sympathy for your hard line attitude here, this is hacker news, not daily stormer. You might want to grow some compassion too. The tech industry was built and maintained by immigrants, and all families are immigrants to new lands at some point in their history. Look around, you will see there are folks that are doing things that you will not do for money. If you want those things to stop and collapse society, keeping pushing for deportation of the labor pool.