3 ms·

Never in the history of modern housing has new housing never not been an overwhelmingly consumed by the people at the top of the income/wealth distribution. Eve

Never in the history of modern housing has new housing never not been an overwhelmingly consumed by the people at the top of the income/wealth distribution. Even in the home building explosion of the 50s and 60s, new homes were purchased by the upper middle class. But the point is that todays new luxury homes become tomorrow’s working class bargains. The analogies to the car market are instructive. Wealthy people, by insisting on paying top dollar for the latest style and technology, indirectly subsidize the poor. Their constant rotation to the latest and greatest creates a huge surplus of used cars/homes that are almost just as good (even if not as high status) as their new counterparts. Or at least this is how it worked until the NIMBYs took over and blocked the demand for new luxury housing.

HarryHirsch 4y ago
5000 sqft doctor's palaces are working class bargains 30 years hence? Only if you live in Doctor Zhivago's world. We don't need hand-down/trickle-down, we need 1200 sqft entry-level housing built in line with demand. In large tracts of the nation this is not happening.
waylandsmithers 4y ago
My problem with the car analogy though is that there is no "car developer" who can buy a 2002 Lexus and make it new again. In my hometown the "working class bargain" doesn't exist because those 50s and 60s homes are bought by developers before they hit the market (in many cases being sold by estate beneficiaries who don't care what happens to grandma's house anyway and just want the cash) and turned into luxury homes again.