6 ms·

In my impossible fantasy dream world, China and America could avert the "2nd cold war" by having dangerously over-leveraged idled Chinese builders (Evergrande,

In my impossible fantasy dream world, China and America could avert the "2nd cold war" by having dangerously over-leveraged idled Chinese builders (Evergrande, Country Garden, etc.) partner with American construction companies and put their idle/money-burning build capacity to solving America's own real-estate shortages. Each Chinese worker would be required to have an American teammate on the job, bringing a nice profit for everyone involved and building new friendships along the way. One can only dream...

spacecadet 3y ago
If only.
nordsieck 3y ago
> China and America could avert the "2nd cold war" by having dangerously over-leveraged idled Chinese builders (Evergrande, Country Garden, etc.) partner with American construction companies and put their idle/money-burning build capacity to solving America's own real-estate shortages. I don't think that works. If the Chinese builders are idle, it isn't because they don't have work to complete - the entire crisis is because people basically prepaid for their homes and the builders have yet to complete a lot of them (I think there's a strong implication of embezzlement here). And the Chinese government is desperately trying to find a solution that will get complete homes to the people who have paid for them. In any case, I don't think a lack of construction companies and/or workers is the problem. It's that local governments are making it impossible to build. We're not going to get more homes built to attacking something other than the bottleneck.
- smileysteve 3y ago
  Context "Even 1.4 billion people can’t fill all of China’s vacant homes, ex-official admits " https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/business/china-too-many-homes-for-1-4-billion-people-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/business/china-too-many-homes...
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    So one system has too many homes, the other has not enough? I know which I would prefer.
    - acover 3y ago
      Houses in China are 40x your income. In the USA they are 6x
- linuxlizard 3y ago
  I have a modest proposal. We (USA) could send our retirees to China which would fill up some of the overabundance of housing there while releasing housing here. An article floated by a while ago saying Boomers are the fastest growing homeless demographic.
  - tessierashpool 3y ago
    we have an overabundance of housing here too, though. LendingTree research pegged it as 16 million empty homes.
legitster 3y ago
> put their idle/money-burning build capacity to solving America's own real-estate shortages I mean, we could quickly end the US real-estate shortages completely domestically if we were willing to upzone and build insane tenement-style high-rises like the Chinese are willing to do.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  stares in roughly 16 million pre-existing vacant homes
  - matteotom 3y ago
    I know this is a common talking point, but what are you suggesting, specifically? Are you accounting for temporarily vacant homes due to finding new tenants? Or homes that are up for sale? Or whether people actually want to live in the places these homes exist? eg are you suggesting struggling tenants in San Francisco should move to Detroit? What about vacation homes, are you suggesting policies to make it harder to own a second home?
    - forgetfreeman 3y ago
      Things I'd suggest: literally any approach that doesn't divert funding to mega-developers who use the "housing crisis" narrative to drive the problems everyone's complaining about in the first place, and an excellent place to start would be dismantling the hyperconcentration of capital around a handful of major metro areas. How best to accomplish that is left as an exercise, but understand there is no housing crisis. The real crisis centers around the lack of opportunity outside of major metro areas. Folks wouldn't clump this tight if other options were available.
  - zjp 3y ago
    "Hey man, sorry you got priced out of New York but we've got a nice shack in the Dakotas removed from your whole social structure ready for you."
    - 3y ago
TheCaptain4815 3y ago
The issue isn't necessarily a "housing crisis", but more so "prime land" crisis. There's huge enormous swaths of America that lay empty, but no one wants to live/build there.
spankalee 3y ago
The problem right now isn't construction capacity, it's zoning.
- zjp 3y ago
  (50% of the city is zoned for single family and the rest has height and density limits) "The market will not solve the housing crisis!" It's the 'stop hitting yourself' of housing policy.
  - supertrope 3y ago
    When people don't know many facts about an issue but it affects them personally they rely on ideology to form opinions. e.g. They follow what other people on team red or team blue think. Or just apply a pre-conceived notion of regulation being the solution, or de-regulation being the solution. Hence you get counter-productive conclusions like new supply in the form of new luxury apartment construction being the cause of rent inflation.
    - zjp 3y ago
      This is true, mostly. I suspect SF and NYC NIMBYs know full well the legal limits of building in their respective cities.
  - Dig1t 3y ago
    The dumb thing is that the market WOULD solve the problem if it was allowed to. We have a dysfunctional system with too many regulations but instead of the regulations getting blamed, the market gets the blame instead. And the problem never gets solved.
    - zjp 3y ago
      Just one more subsidy bro I promise it'll work this time
    - sofixa 3y ago
      > The dumb thing is that the market WOULD solve the problem if it was allowed to Not only do you not have a way of knowing that for sure, history would indicate otherwise. Housing is fundamentally a good with limited elasticity, therefore the market on it's own without a good dose of regulation could easily become disastrous. For a historical parallel, take a look at what happened in industrialising countries when the market was the one making decisions about housing where it was needed (next to the newly appearing factories/otherwise urbanising areas). The result was people living in horrifically cramped and squalid conditions (alongside other fun ones such as company towns) which was literally one of the main inspirations for socialism and communism. Regulations on housing are a must, but their impact needs to be carefully managed and offset with appropriate incentives, policies and subsidies to make sure housing is of good quality (nobody should live in asbestos and lead paint filled pods under a highway next to a chemical factory) but abundant.
mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
I think you picked the wrong country. Mexico has a growing population, build a government program where they get a path to citizenship (maybe dual) if they come over and legit work in the housing development industry. Incentivize housing developers to hire them legally for projects that build middle-class affordable housing, not McMansions. Incentivize home buyers (for these houses) with lower interest rates and forbid corporate ownership of these houses. Spend some extra money to watch for, catch and prosecute the fraudsters that will be there.

spacecadet 3y ago

If only.

nordsieck 3y ago

> China and America could avert the "2nd cold war" by having dangerously over-leveraged idled Chinese builders (Evergrande, Country Garden, etc.) partner with American construction companies and put their idle/money-burning build capacity to solving America's own real-estate shortages. I don't think that works. If the Chinese builders are idle, it isn't because they don't have work to complete - the entire crisis is because people basically prepaid for their homes and the builders have yet to complete a lot of them (I think there's a strong implication of embezzlement here). And the Chinese government is desperately trying to find a solution that will get complete homes to the people who have paid for them. In any case, I don't think a lack of construction companies and/or workers is the problem. It's that local governments are making it impossible to build. We're not going to get more homes built to attacking something other than the bottleneck.

smileysteve 3y ago
Context "Even 1.4 billion people can’t fill all of China’s vacant homes, ex-official admits " https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/business/china-too-many-homes-for-1-4-billion-people-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/business/china-too-many-homes...
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  So one system has too many homes, the other has not enough? I know which I would prefer.
  - acover 3y ago
    Houses in China are 40x your income. In the USA they are 6x
linuxlizard 3y ago
I have a modest proposal. We (USA) could send our retirees to China which would fill up some of the overabundance of housing there while releasing housing here. An article floated by a while ago saying Boomers are the fastest growing homeless demographic.
- tessierashpool 3y ago
  we have an overabundance of housing here too, though. LendingTree research pegged it as 16 million empty homes.

legitster 3y ago

> put their idle/money-burning build capacity to solving America's own real-estate shortages I mean, we could quickly end the US real-estate shortages completely domestically if we were willing to upzone and build insane tenement-style high-rises like the Chinese are willing to do.

forgetfreeman 3y ago
stares in roughly 16 million pre-existing vacant homes
- matteotom 3y ago
  I know this is a common talking point, but what are you suggesting, specifically? Are you accounting for temporarily vacant homes due to finding new tenants? Or homes that are up for sale? Or whether people actually want to live in the places these homes exist? eg are you suggesting struggling tenants in San Francisco should move to Detroit? What about vacation homes, are you suggesting policies to make it harder to own a second home?
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    Things I'd suggest: literally any approach that doesn't divert funding to mega-developers who use the "housing crisis" narrative to drive the problems everyone's complaining about in the first place, and an excellent place to start would be dismantling the hyperconcentration of capital around a handful of major metro areas. How best to accomplish that is left as an exercise, but understand there is no housing crisis. The real crisis centers around the lack of opportunity outside of major metro areas. Folks wouldn't clump this tight if other options were available.
- zjp 3y ago
  "Hey man, sorry you got priced out of New York but we've got a nice shack in the Dakotas removed from your whole social structure ready for you."
  - 3y ago

TheCaptain4815 3y ago

The issue isn't necessarily a "housing crisis", but more so "prime land" crisis. There's huge enormous swaths of America that lay empty, but no one wants to live/build there.

spankalee 3y ago

The problem right now isn't construction capacity, it's zoning.

zjp 3y ago
(50% of the city is zoned for single family and the rest has height and density limits) "The market will not solve the housing crisis!" It's the 'stop hitting yourself' of housing policy.
- supertrope 3y ago
  When people don't know many facts about an issue but it affects them personally they rely on ideology to form opinions. e.g. They follow what other people on team red or team blue think. Or just apply a pre-conceived notion of regulation being the solution, or de-regulation being the solution. Hence you get counter-productive conclusions like new supply in the form of new luxury apartment construction being the cause of rent inflation.
  - zjp 3y ago
    This is true, mostly. I suspect SF and NYC NIMBYs know full well the legal limits of building in their respective cities.
- Dig1t 3y ago
  The dumb thing is that the market WOULD solve the problem if it was allowed to. We have a dysfunctional system with too many regulations but instead of the regulations getting blamed, the market gets the blame instead. And the problem never gets solved.
  - zjp 3y ago
    Just one more subsidy bro I promise it'll work this time
  - sofixa 3y ago
    > The dumb thing is that the market WOULD solve the problem if it was allowed to Not only do you not have a way of knowing that for sure, history would indicate otherwise. Housing is fundamentally a good with limited elasticity, therefore the market on it's own without a good dose of regulation could easily become disastrous. For a historical parallel, take a look at what happened in industrialising countries when the market was the one making decisions about housing where it was needed (next to the newly appearing factories/otherwise urbanising areas). The result was people living in horrifically cramped and squalid conditions (alongside other fun ones such as company towns) which was literally one of the main inspirations for socialism and communism. Regulations on housing are a must, but their impact needs to be carefully managed and offset with appropriate incentives, policies and subsidies to make sure housing is of good quality (nobody should live in asbestos and lead paint filled pods under a highway next to a chemical factory) but abundant.

mattbrewsbytes 3y ago

I think you picked the wrong country. Mexico has a growing population, build a government program where they get a path to citizenship (maybe dual) if they come over and legit work in the housing development industry. Incentivize housing developers to hire them legally for projects that build middle-class affordable housing, not McMansions. Incentivize home buyers (for these houses) with lower interest rates and forbid corporate ownership of these houses. Spend some extra money to watch for, catch and prosecute the fraudsters that will be there.