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The investors entering the market today will make prices go up today, but have the effect of reducing prices in the future (either or renters or buyers, dependi
by hollerith 3y ago
The investors entering the market today will make prices go up today, but have the effect of reducing prices in the future (either or renters or buyers, depending on how to investor chooses to recover his investment). Investment in housing in past decades has reduced the price families need to pay now. There a zero investors in housing who are not out to either provide housing for rent or to eventually sell housing.
>because this isn't what we see happening.
What we see happening has alternative explanations, for example: there are millions of very-high-paying jobs in the Bay Area, which is course is generally a good thing, but it has the undesirable effect of making it hard or impossible for families that do not have one of these very-high-paying jobs to live here because there are strong barriers to the creation of new housing, which forces the people with the high-paying jobs to spend more than want to spend on housing, which (happily for them) they are able to do (because of their high income) but which sadly makes it impossible or very onerous for lower-income families to live in the Bay Area. Most of these barriers are in the form of regulations imposed by local governments. Where I live for example in Marin County, growth is controlled (kept below the level investors as a group would prefer to have it at) in part by denying new housing projects the ability to connect to the Marin Municipal Water District, I have heard.
- thunky 3y ago> The investors entering the market today will make prices go up today, but have the effect of reducing prices in the future The flaw in this argument is that it assumes markets are perfectly efficient, when in reality they are affected by several factors. > there are strong barriers to the creation of new housing Right, this is one of those factors. Others include land limitations, interest rates, government incentives and backstops. Plus even if you're right that decades from now housing will be more affordable that's of little use today.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hollerith 3y agoI've been talking about the helpfulness or harmfulness of investors' buying housing, which your comment does not address AFAICT.