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> but for some reason that route is never explored. The reason you are looking for is called corruption. There is a very strong lobby of landlords and the ric

> but for some reason that route is never explored. The reason you are looking for is called corruption. There is a very strong lobby of landlords and the rich treating residential housing as a store of value. It offers better returns than keeping money in the bank and it is safer, especially if you are from a country where your assets could be in danger - it's much harder for foreign states to take control of the property, sell it and recover the monies. Here in the UK we have the same problem. Good percentage of the ruling party (and opposition) are landlords, there is a ton of foreign money coming in buying up properties left and right and they don't even care if they are rented out, because empty property gives good enough return. We even have banks start to move in this business as well. It has gone completely mad. But since big money is all over it and our security services are not interested in looking into it, nothing is going to change it will only get worse.

joshuaissac 4y ago
> The reason you are looking for is called corruption. It could just be democracy. Homeowners are an important vote bank and they generally want house prices to rise. A government that substantially increased housing supply would cause house prices to drop, which would make homeowners unhappy.
- im_down_w_otp 4y ago
  I try to remind people in the US that there’s exactly one constituency that wants affordable houses. People who don’t have houses yet. Everybody else wants housing to continue to be a growth investment, and thus increasingly unaffordable. Developers want to make & sell more expensive things. Lenders want to make more & bigger loans. Existing owners want the value of their most valuable asset to go “up & to the right”. That’s a very big hurdle to overcome politically. Even worse in the US where real estate investments are a central pillar of the broader economy, and if the “growth investment” patina of it starts to fade, then a cascading catastrophe will likely follow. The situation might be untenable as prices keep going up, but there are so many incentives working against any kind of intervention, that I never expect one to occur.
  - VirusNewbie 4y ago
    If someone owns a condo and wants to buy a mansion, does it make sense for them to hope all real estate appreciates in price vs depreciates?
    - im_down_w_otp 4y ago
      If they want to maximize the sale price of their condo? Yes. They’ll just have to relocate to a different housing market to buy that mansion. You just described every Californian who upsized by moving out of state. They definitely wanted their condo, bungalow, or shack to get top dollar in their market.
  - maeil 4y ago
    > Everybody else wants housing to continue to be a growth investment Acting like non-NIMBYs don't exist is harmful and does a massive disservice to them. They do exist and they need to be praised instead of ignored.
  - prawn 4y ago
    I agree with the generalisation, but as a homeowner in another Western country, I'm unsettled by the "up & to the right": creates a less affordable environment for my children, and leads to a less stable place to live. I'd guess you generally get a safer community with more people invested in it and fewer people in desperate situations. Further, affordable housing (as in, literally affordable, and not under some means-tested scheme) means more opportunities for me to buy further properties.
- varispeed 4y ago
  There is no democracy if most parties have the same policies regarding this and the weaker parties can be easily influenced to drop anything against the status quo.
mihaaly 4y ago
I wonder why the rich and those in charge of regulating and steering policy think it will not end bad for them too when masses could not afford the housing on the highly inflated prices fuelled by passive money drawn out of economy into "investment" (more like sleeping) properties, hence crashing housing prices all around making them loose a lot. And that all that living cost hikes will not exacerbate things further accelerating this crash as people need to spend sooo much on housing less remains there for the functional parts of the economy? They hope they die before this comes or what?! They will not be in charge and could sip gin and tonic silently in a big warm garden somewhere before this happens? But what about their children and their other young family members? What will they do with properties woth nothing in a dissolving society where it will not be good or perhaps not even safe living due to unrest of the poor? A frequently repeting worry in articles and analysis here and there is the gigantic wealth accumulated for few stucked away suffocating the rest of the society and raising desperation yet what I can see people seem to mumble "it's ok so far, it's ok so far" to themselves while falling alongside a high rise building. Do they hope for a soft landing with this behaviour? They hope that printing cash in increased speed pumped into even more passive wealth here and there through the sliding middle and lower classes will last forever?
- varispeed 4y ago
  The solution for this will be CBDC - electronic programmable money and social credit score. The class of the ultra rich that has developed and controls the governments will use the poor as means of production - since they already own most of the economy, there is no longer any need for markets in the traditional sense, that we know. At one point if you have 100 billion, it doesn't matter if you have 101 or 200. The capitalism has reached its end and the rich are preparing us for the so called fourth industrial revolution.
  - mihaaly 4y ago
    It did not work in the history of isolated submissive societies, it will not work in the period of highly interacting and highly conscious global societies. For their sake I hope the title of one Aerosmith song will not become reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK__9UIN5gk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK__9UIN5gk
tannhaeuser 4y ago
The situation in the UK and in Sweden appears to be very different, though. Sweden's rent control was certainly welcomed as pro-tenant policy, except (as noted by GP) has led to a black/secondary market of sub-letting and selling existing rent-controlled contracts at enormous prices, while keeping economical incentives for new construction low. That's really basic economic literacy and even suggested by OECD to the Swedish government. Of course, that doesn't stop eg Berlin leftist parties to suggest rent controls (read: to buy votes).

joshuaissac 4y ago

> The reason you are looking for is called corruption. It could just be democracy. Homeowners are an important vote bank and they generally want house prices to rise. A government that substantially increased housing supply would cause house prices to drop, which would make homeowners unhappy.

im_down_w_otp 4y ago
I try to remind people in the US that there’s exactly one constituency that wants affordable houses. People who don’t have houses yet. Everybody else wants housing to continue to be a growth investment, and thus increasingly unaffordable. Developers want to make & sell more expensive things. Lenders want to make more & bigger loans. Existing owners want the value of their most valuable asset to go “up & to the right”. That’s a very big hurdle to overcome politically. Even worse in the US where real estate investments are a central pillar of the broader economy, and if the “growth investment” patina of it starts to fade, then a cascading catastrophe will likely follow. The situation might be untenable as prices keep going up, but there are so many incentives working against any kind of intervention, that I never expect one to occur.
- VirusNewbie 4y ago
  If someone owns a condo and wants to buy a mansion, does it make sense for them to hope all real estate appreciates in price vs depreciates?
  - im_down_w_otp 4y ago
    If they want to maximize the sale price of their condo? Yes. They’ll just have to relocate to a different housing market to buy that mansion. You just described every Californian who upsized by moving out of state. They definitely wanted their condo, bungalow, or shack to get top dollar in their market.
- maeil 4y ago
  > Everybody else wants housing to continue to be a growth investment Acting like non-NIMBYs don't exist is harmful and does a massive disservice to them. They do exist and they need to be praised instead of ignored.
- prawn 4y ago
  I agree with the generalisation, but as a homeowner in another Western country, I'm unsettled by the "up & to the right": creates a less affordable environment for my children, and leads to a less stable place to live. I'd guess you generally get a safer community with more people invested in it and fewer people in desperate situations. Further, affordable housing (as in, literally affordable, and not under some means-tested scheme) means more opportunities for me to buy further properties.
varispeed 4y ago
There is no democracy if most parties have the same policies regarding this and the weaker parties can be easily influenced to drop anything against the status quo.

mihaaly 4y ago

I wonder why the rich and those in charge of regulating and steering policy think it will not end bad for them too when masses could not afford the housing on the highly inflated prices fuelled by passive money drawn out of economy into "investment" (more like sleeping) properties, hence crashing housing prices all around making them loose a lot. And that all that living cost hikes will not exacerbate things further accelerating this crash as people need to spend sooo much on housing less remains there for the functional parts of the economy? They hope they die before this comes or what?! They will not be in charge and could sip gin and tonic silently in a big warm garden somewhere before this happens? But what about their children and their other young family members? What will they do with properties woth nothing in a dissolving society where it will not be good or perhaps not even safe living due to unrest of the poor? A frequently repeting worry in articles and analysis here and there is the gigantic wealth accumulated for few stucked away suffocating the rest of the society and raising desperation yet what I can see people seem to mumble "it's ok so far, it's ok so far" to themselves while falling alongside a high rise building. Do they hope for a soft landing with this behaviour? They hope that printing cash in increased speed pumped into even more passive wealth here and there through the sliding middle and lower classes will last forever?

varispeed 4y ago
The solution for this will be CBDC - electronic programmable money and social credit score. The class of the ultra rich that has developed and controls the governments will use the poor as means of production - since they already own most of the economy, there is no longer any need for markets in the traditional sense, that we know. At one point if you have 100 billion, it doesn't matter if you have 101 or 200. The capitalism has reached its end and the rich are preparing us for the so called fourth industrial revolution.
- mihaaly 4y ago
  It did not work in the history of isolated submissive societies, it will not work in the period of highly interacting and highly conscious global societies. For their sake I hope the title of one Aerosmith song will not become reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK__9UIN5gk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK__9UIN5gk

tannhaeuser 4y ago

The situation in the UK and in Sweden appears to be very different, though. Sweden's rent control was certainly welcomed as pro-tenant policy, except (as noted by GP) has led to a black/secondary market of sub-letting and selling existing rent-controlled contracts at enormous prices, while keeping economical incentives for new construction low. That's really basic economic literacy and even suggested by OECD to the Swedish government. Of course, that doesn't stop eg Berlin leftist parties to suggest rent controls (read: to buy votes).