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Strained housing affordability is a ‘manufactured crisis’ created by bad zoning
- archo 3y agohttps://archive.is/oq9Jg https://archive.is/oq9Jg
- alexfromapex 3y agoIt’s created by unregulated investment in family housing.
- dmm 3y agoIt's created by federal mortgage subsidies. If everybody's mortgage payment went up with interest rates more people would sell and drive down prices.
- nine_zeros 3y agoThat, and property tax assessment shenanigans, and corporations buying sfhs and townhomes, and foreign investors, and tax deduction on mortgage interest, and nimby blockades on construction. A future generation will look back at this society as stupid. All the wealth of the world but cannot even give people the basics.
- nomel 3y agoMost everyone has fixed rates in California. 10% in 2022: https://themortgagereports.com/93472/adjustable-rate-mortgage-trends-2022 https://themortgagereports.com/93472/adjustable-rate-mortgag...
- jeezfrk 3y agoFixed rate loans have existed forever. Private contracts are constantly filled with them. It's private enterprise cashing in as usual for those with the best credit. Not government intervention.
- supertrope 3y agoWithout Fannie Mae and Freddie Max interest rates on 30 year mortgages would be higher or everyone would have to use an ARM. On most mortgages the bank just follows these government associated agencies’ underwriting rules and immediately sells the mortgages to them.
- lotsoweiners 3y agoAnd then all of the cash buyers who are unaffected by mortgage rates would own all of the properties.
- postalrat 3y agoUnregulated investment? Is that why it costs so much to build anything? Or what exactly does it mean?
- omeze 3y agoif a house is such a good investment why arent these investors building more to mint millions ezpz?
- adammarples 3y agoDiluting their own market
- Schiendelman 3y agoTo follow your line of thought would require massive collusion between every investor to agree on how much each person builds to avoid dilution. That is so complex as to be functionally impossible. The far easier explanation is the one in the article.
- adammarples 3y agoThere isn't really collusion, all the developers know which side their bread is buttered on. All the major developers in the UK are the biggest Conservative party donors and they run on restricted development, nimbyism, and keeping house prices high no matter what.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoArticle is essentially about Los Angeles, not really about housing across the US.
- KingMachiavelli 3y agoIt's the same story in many US metro areas; SF and Denver among many others.
- Schiendelman 3y agoNearly every growing metro in the US can be described the same way.
- throw9away6 3y agoIt’s not just zoning. Even with free land and no permit fees I don’t think it would possible to build a 1000sf house in Seattle for under 200k due to materials and labor costs. Cheap housing is often only possible due to illegal practices such as hiring migrants below minimum wages and not building to code.
- epylar 3y agoThe labor cost might come down if there were cheaper housing.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> don’t think it would possible to build a 1000sf house in Seattle for under 200k due to materials and labor costs Single family? Maybe. (There is a lot of red tape in materials, too.) Building for a proper city? Much, much cheaper. Those are the economics of densification.
- Justsignedup 3y agoSingle family homes are a ponzi scheme. You can't gather enough revenue to maintain the roads and such. It's actually how we got in trouble to begin with. We need to build 4-6 family homes everywhere.