4 ms·

I agree that nimbyism is harmful, however I also think that the organizations owning large portfolios of properties can generally find a way to maintain scarcit

• JamesBarney 4y ago
  How? If you own 10% of the rental units in San Francisco, how do you enforce scarcity except by trying to prevent construction?
  • jfghi 4y ago
    I’d claim that if a person owns 10 percent they can afford to fill 9 percent of those and push up prices such that it becomes a net gain. It seems as though housing is priced on the edges of supply and demand and that a slight excess of either can shift prices for the future units being bought or rented. I once spoke with a general manager of a large hotel that explained to me how certain levels of vacancy were targeted for this reason. I feel as though the methodology would be somewhat analogous. Further, there is statistical modeling for sale that indicates what can be afforded in geographic locations. I’d claim that additional housing would be priced to what’s affordable rather than attempting to outbid the lowest listing as housing is a price-inelastic good.
    • JamesBarney 4y ago
      If we in increased or decreases the number of units in San Francisco by 0.1%, i.e. added added 400 units. How much would that affect price? We can then reason backwards on what's the minimum sized landlord that would benefit from artificially restricting supply.