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>have you ever tried building a house? it's one of the least free markets there is. The "free market" in the context of housing was meant in a satirical way he
by FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>have you ever tried building a house? it's one of the least free markets there is.
The "free market" in the context of housing was meant in a satirical way hence the TM symbol. Of course that market is 100% fixed by design but we get parroted the story where it's 100% "free" as if the government has no control over the levers that wholly impact it's pricing (zoning and building regulations, immigration, interest rates, banking and loan duration regulations, banning overseas investors, banning AirBnBs, property taxes, etc)
- iraqmtpizza 3y agowell, there are genuinely dumb people out there who think that housing is a market failure. like homebuilders are unwilling to take necessary risks or something. and they definitely don't mean the risk of going to prison (100%)
- midasuni 3y agoCertainly in the U.K. house builders sit on masses of land but don’t develop it for fear of lowering sold prices. If building a house costs £100k Better to sell 5 at 400k each year for 10 years than sell 50 at 250k https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jan/31/britain-land-housing-crisis-developers-not-building-land-banking https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jan/31/britain-land-...
- iraqmtpizza 3y agoThat's not a failure to take necessary risk or a problem of a too-short time horizon. Quite the opposite. And it is certainly not a tragedy of the commons situation. At least not until you factor in government. What landowners and land speculators clearly don't fear is huge swaths of land suddenly becoming available for building. Or sharply increasing interest rates. Or mass deportations. A market failure is more like how a CEO is often incentivized to maximize the stock price in the short run at the expense of the long-term health of the company. That is how his compensation is structured.