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You're talking about the wealth effect, but there's no reason you can't emulate that effect using stocks as the vehicle instead of housing. It is government pol

You're talking about the wealth effect, but there's no reason you can't emulate that effect using stocks as the vehicle instead of housing. It is government policy, specifically additional tax breaks and SFZ, that drives capital into housing. The existence of the wealth effect isn't a coherent economic argument that justifies NIMBY policies.

robocat 4y ago
The economic driver is status signals that you can show off to your peers. A home also has a multitude of opportunities to show off your status: art, appliances, garden, furniture, location, alterations, soirées, blah blah blah. Well known historically. For most people, owning stocks cannot be as prestigious as owning a home. I agree it is for some investors, but they are the exception. Owning a stock has very limited opportunities for visibility or extra status variables.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Nothing changes on that front with the repeal of SFZ. Housing will still be a status signal because luxurious single detached homes will still exist in most locales. Even in a hypothetical world where there's no single detached homes, which may occur in extreme density situations such as in Singapore or Hong Kong, there are still luxurious condos located in exclusive areas which act as a status signal all the same.
  - robocat 4y ago
    > Hong Kong Decades ago I was there for a few months, and it was rare to see somebody’s apartment. Nothing like NZ where you often end up visiting work colleagues homes. Also at that time there were plenty of people that were working there only temporarily. Can you tell me how the dynamics in HK work out these days? What different things make a middle-class apartment in HK a prestigious item worth competing about, that is visible to peers? Are apartments in HK something that people spend their working lives saving for for status, or mostly for function? Singapore is weird, because are not the vast majority of homes owned by the state - I know there’s something odd about Singapore apartments but I don’t know the details. Not disagreeing: I have seen flash-as apartments in London during multiple work-stints and vacations there, and postcode does matter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boltons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boltons I just don’t know anything about HK.

robocat 4y ago

The economic driver is status signals that you can show off to your peers. A home also has a multitude of opportunities to show off your status: art, appliances, garden, furniture, location, alterations, soirées, blah blah blah. Well known historically. For most people, owning stocks cannot be as prestigious as owning a home. I agree it is for some investors, but they are the exception. Owning a stock has very limited opportunities for visibility or extra status variables.

hackerlight 4y ago
Nothing changes on that front with the repeal of SFZ. Housing will still be a status signal because luxurious single detached homes will still exist in most locales. Even in a hypothetical world where there's no single detached homes, which may occur in extreme density situations such as in Singapore or Hong Kong, there are still luxurious condos located in exclusive areas which act as a status signal all the same.
- robocat 4y ago
  > Hong Kong Decades ago I was there for a few months, and it was rare to see somebody’s apartment. Nothing like NZ where you often end up visiting work colleagues homes. Also at that time there were plenty of people that were working there only temporarily. Can you tell me how the dynamics in HK work out these days? What different things make a middle-class apartment in HK a prestigious item worth competing about, that is visible to peers? Are apartments in HK something that people spend their working lives saving for for status, or mostly for function? Singapore is weird, because are not the vast majority of homes owned by the state - I know there’s something odd about Singapore apartments but I don’t know the details. Not disagreeing: I have seen flash-as apartments in London during multiple work-stints and vacations there, and postcode does matter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boltons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boltons I just don’t know anything about HK.