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If the house rental market is clearing, and the house ownership market is clearing, it's difficult to take the premise of the article very seriously.

nerdponx 3y ago
Why would that be the case? This is an issue of allocation, you can't read that off of aggregate supply and demand curves.
- TehShrike 3y ago
  If the rental market is clearing, and the ownership market is clearing, that means that the same number of houses are being lived in as there were before the houses were sold. If there aren't enough houses for people to live in as the market could bear, that's an issue of building more houses, not who owns the current houses.
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    > If the rental market is clearing, and the ownership market is clearing, that means that the same number of houses are being lived in as there were before the houses were sold. It's not just about the number of homes. It's also about the prices of those homes. The crisis is not necessarily that people literally can't find a place to rent; it's that they can't afford it.
    - TehShrike 3y ago
      The price of renting/buying is a function of the number of houses available more than it is the type of entity that owns the houses.
      - nerdponx 3y ago
        The article clearly posits that investor-owners tend to charge more than other owners, either in resale price or rent, disproportionate to the value of the improvements they make to the property. That is, the article asserts that investor-owned properties cost more than non-investor-owned properties. Maybe the analysis in the underlying report is flawed (and it very likely could be), but that's the claim. It's not a claim about what might happen, it's a claim about what is happening.
        TehShrike 3y ago
        I don't think "the previous owners were charging less than what the market could bear" has any bearing on my previous statements
        supertimor 3y ago
        The market can “bear it” because the alternative is homelessness.

nerdponx 3y ago

Why would that be the case? This is an issue of allocation, you can't read that off of aggregate supply and demand curves.

TehShrike 3y ago
If the rental market is clearing, and the ownership market is clearing, that means that the same number of houses are being lived in as there were before the houses were sold. If there aren't enough houses for people to live in as the market could bear, that's an issue of building more houses, not who owns the current houses.
- nerdponx 3y ago
  > If the rental market is clearing, and the ownership market is clearing, that means that the same number of houses are being lived in as there were before the houses were sold. It's not just about the number of homes. It's also about the prices of those homes. The crisis is not necessarily that people literally can't find a place to rent; it's that they can't afford it.
  - TehShrike 3y ago
    The price of renting/buying is a function of the number of houses available more than it is the type of entity that owns the houses.
    - nerdponx 3y ago
      The article clearly posits that investor-owners tend to charge more than other owners, either in resale price or rent, disproportionate to the value of the improvements they make to the property. That is, the article asserts that investor-owned properties cost more than non-investor-owned properties. Maybe the analysis in the underlying report is flawed (and it very likely could be), but that's the claim. It's not a claim about what might happen, it's a claim about what is happening.
      - TehShrike 3y ago
        I don't think "the previous owners were charging less than what the market could bear" has any bearing on my previous statements
        supertimor 3y ago
        The market can “bear it” because the alternative is homelessness.