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The housing shortage is larger than you think
- gjgtcbkj 3y agoThere is no housing shortage, there are more vacant homes than total numbers of homeless in the US. It’s just that capitalism creates a permanent underclass.
- johnsimer 3y agoCommunism creates an even worse underclass every time it has been tried.
- trgn 3y agoThe problem of low housing supply is not a problem of capitalism. It's of nimbyism, restrictive zoning, car-dependency. Capitalism's hey-day was late 1800s and cities ballooned like crazy.
- hammock 3y agoAll real estate is local. The areas with the most homeless also have the worst housing shortages
- boeingUH60 3y agoPlenty vacant houses in run-down towns nobody wants to move to. It’s not the same for the top cities.
- matchbok 3y agoPlease take 30 seconds and imagine a world with 0% apartment vacancy and get back to us. lol.
- matteotom 3y agoAre you suggesting a specific policy?
- ianburrell 3y agoDefine "vacant" home. The house next door to me was empty for two months while it was being sold and before new owners moved in. The house across the street from me has been for sale for months. It is impossible to house homeless in houses for sale; the sellers and buyers would never accept it. The same thing happens with apartments. They are vacant for a month between tenants or when finding new tenants. Landlords would never accept temporary tenants who couldn't pay. People holding houses for investment happens, but most rent them out. The few that don't are pretty rare and not enough to affect the housing market.
- dublinben 3y agoHere's a short video on why "vacant homes" are not the solution to the housing crisis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xZXdXxYBGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xZXdXxYBGU
- slothtrop 3y agoLook at the vacancy rate in the most expensive cities, where the homeless are.
- Podgajski 3y agoI’m going to proclaim that there is not a housing shortage. But the problem is in fact, too many individuals owning too many houses. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/two-thirds-wealthy-americans-now-150051439.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/two-thirds-wealthy-americans-... It’s not that we don’t have enough housing, the issue is that we have people that want too many houses for themselves. It’s just greed. I can’t even count on my hands How many people I know that own more than one house and I am homeless. So I’m sure wealthy people pretty much don’t know anyone that doesn’t own a single house.
- Aurornis 3y agoSecond homes tend to be in vacation locations, not where people are trying to buy their primary residence. People aren't buying two homes in the same city alternate between them while keeping young homeowners out.
- AlexandrB 3y agoYes they are. I know such people. Usually the second/third/fourth homes get rented out as AirBnBs.
- hammock 3y agoAnecdotally, of the many people I know who own second homes, ~80% or more are not rented out when the owner is not there. In at least half of the cases Airbnb is expressed prohibited by their community/municipality
- busterarm 3y ago> Second homes tend to be in vacation locations > AirBnBs It's unfortunate that sometimes vacation destinations also can be places where lots of people want to live but the PP was not wrong.
- hotpotamus 3y agoI stand to inherit from such people. They own five homes, are building a sixth, and have plans for 1-2 more at least. 4 are rentals, 1 is a charity to my Uncle who is mentally unwell and unable to provide his own living. They don't think they have that much money.
- rpmisms 3y agoWe need to ban private equity home ownership.
- davidw 3y agoWe need to build more homes. When we do that, buying and holding homes ceases to become an interesting investment, and private equity gets out of it, just like private equity does not buy and hold used Toyota Corollas. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/housing-crisis-hedge-funds-private-equity-scapegoat/672839/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/housing-cr...
- locacorten 3y agoI wonder what would be a really effective incentive to the construction industry to build more homes. Something like -- no tax on any homes construction for the next 5 years. Wouldn't that create a construction boom?
- davidw 3y agoThe first step is to legalize a much broader array of housing types. Apartments, condos, small lots, townhomes, cottage clusters... all of it. I'm involved in housing advocacy locally, and a huge impediment to building more is zoning and NIMBYism.
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- bearjaws 3y agoGo to the Florida intercoastal areas during the months of April -> October. 90% of the million dollar+ mansions empty, waiting for their snowbird owners to return. Look at the Miami skyline at 7-9pm, when people should be getting home. Half the condos with no lights on. We have a wealth inequality problem, symptoms include housing shortages.
- Aurornis 3y ago> 90% of the million dollar+ mansions empty, People buying vacation homes on prime beachfront property has nothing to do with housing shortages in cities where young people are trying to live and work.
- chickenpotpie 3y agoOriginal comment is specifically talking about Miami, which is a city where young people are trying to live and work.
- Aurornis 3y ago> which is a city where young people are trying to live and work. I specifically quoted the part talking about "million dollar+ mansions" in "intercoastal areas". The comment about condos in Miami not having lights on at 7-9PM was a separate point, but I don't think it's really true that "half" the condos in Miami are empty for no good reason. People work late, people go on vacation, people go out on the town.
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- zbrozek 3y agoIn my townhouse in Sunnyvale the lights are off, despite that I'm home right now. Sitting in the dark is better than paying PG&E's ridiculous rates. I wish it were easier to install solar here.
- everdrive 3y agoThis is a very unpopular point here (and I suppose lots of places) but there are really just too many people. There's no more frontier, and nowhere to retreat to if you need to escape the crowds. Yes, we could build spaces even tighter than we currently are. But this is a new problem for humanity, and we're not dealing with it well.
- yed 3y agoIn the United States at least there's plenty of land far away from crowds, and inexpensive too. People just don't want to live there.
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- missedthecue 3y agoThere's not a shortage of housing, just a shortage of people willing to pay enough. Just like when there are articles about labor shortages.
- lmm 3y agoNope. If you pay enough, new labour supply opens up - people put off retirement, or work more hours, or.... But no matter how much you pay you can't build more houses anywhere useful.
- missedthecue 3y agoyes actually. If you pay enough, new houses will get built! More space will become available. New units will come online. More rooms available for rent. Small old buildings torn down and new bigger ones constructed in their place. There's no shortage of housing just a shortage of housing at a price people would prefer to pay. Just like labor.
- lmm 3y ago> If you pay enough, new houses will get built! More space will become available. New units will come online. More rooms available for rent. Small old buildings torn down and new bigger ones constructed in their place. Zoning laws and planning procedures prevent that from happening anywhere where it would be useful.
- a_wild_dandan 3y agoI suppose there are no famines either, just starving people unwilling to pay for food.
- missedthecue 3y agoMechanically, you are absolutely correct. It's not a mystery why famines never happen in wealthy countries! And just like with famines the best way to resolve the issue isn't price controls on food but to increase wealth.
- huevosabio 3y agoThe issue is 100% that we make it very hard to build in the areas that have highest demand. It is not short-term rentals, it is not individuals owning too many houses, it is not rich people moving in to a neighborhood, it is not Chinese money fleeing the PRC, and it is not private equity "commodifying" housing. It is that we suppress the construction of housing through to byzantine permitting, incredibly harsh zoning, vetocracy, and overburdening regulation. This shortage is at the core of so many of our woes, homelessness being the most visible, but it really underscores _the entire economy_. I created some slides over a year ago to present to friends and colleagues how I view the problem, you can peruse at your leisure: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1O1_oW0Ci2SJEIIhXzuzVizyZ3muypij2Hd5Ryc6ro14/edit#slide=id.g13d145b7cff_0_465 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1O1_oW0Ci2SJEIIhXzuzV...
- JohnFen 3y ago> It is that we suppress the construction of housing through to byzantine permitting, incredibly harsh zoning, vetocracy, and overburdening regulation. This isn't the cause everywhere. There are absolutely places that don't have such overbearing regulations but still have a serious housing shortage.
- davidw 3y agoAlmost nowhere in the US has a truly liberal zoning system. Houston kinda sorta. Where are you referring to?
- JohnFen 3y agoI suspect that we disagree on what constitutes "overbearing" regulations. Fair enough.
- davidw 3y agoZoning should keep 1) noises 2) smells and 3) dangerous things away from where people live and schools and such. Not keep a 6-plex out of a neighborhood with luxury single family units. Or stop people from building on 1500 square foot lots.
- lucasjames9 3y ago[dead]
- kredd 3y agoRenter here, and we have a huge problem with housing up here as well. However, I don’t understand why would any level of the government would want to act in any way that can significantly decrease housing prices. Super-majority of people own their homes, why would they ever support a government that would be willing to hurt their own investment? Admittedly, I don’t have a solution here, and I understand how it hurts us especially long term. Convincing people to act against their self-interest is also not easy. Even my friends who have been on “housing prices have to drop” camp jumped across the fence once they got their own place. Obviously, this wouldn’t be the case if we didn’t look at housing as an investment, but here we are.
- a_wild_dandan 3y agoThe solution is simple: outvote NIMBYs. Until that solution is simple and easy, we wait. We'll get there. The interim will hurt, but we'll get there.
- kredd 3y agoBut as the time goes, renters would just turn into home owners, who also wouldn’t vote against their self-interest, no? You would have relatively the same percentage of people who rent, unless something dramatic happens population-pyramid wise. I get that it’s important to build a lot of housing, which would help the prices to at least hold steady, but it still wouldn’t cause any reduction in prices (again, unless something like COVID but more lasting happens). The demand side of the equation is making it very hard for people to overcome the barrier of entry. I’m actually curious what will happen in like 15 years in countries where population decrease will be visible. To my understanding, even Tokyo/Osaka are still growing due to people moving in from the countryside. At some point the demand will be collapsing, and curious how the governments in Japan/SK/China will respond.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoOk but the comment your replying to is pointing out that a super majority of this countries voters are heavily incentivized to be NIMBYs because they own their home. Even if every renter voted YIMBY the homeowners could outvote them. Why would waiting change any of this?
- a_wild_dandan 3y agoThe housing shortage is the housing crisis. Period. It's simple supply & demand. Vanishing stock -> skyrocketing prices. Every other factor is peanuts in comparison. You can ban private equity, foreign investment, lower rates, etc. Won't fix a thing. You cannot squeeze blood from a stone. Either make units or make peace. Everything else is lipstick on a pig.
- runsWphotons 3y agoLots of theories here but if you point out there are more immigrants than new house starts every year, you get flagged. The real source of the problem is people with vacation homes.
- schmorptron 3y agoThe thing that always gets me about this is that the urgency of this problem is just ignored by the people in power. Here in Germany, there have been countless promises to improve the situation and build more social housing, but not much has come of it. This is an actual crisis, a roof over one's head is a basic human need and with rent prices continually going up compared to income it's insane that it's not viewed as enough of a priority to spend real money on it, while other projects get funding easily.
- shuntress 3y agoMy extreme political opinion is that no one should be allowed to own more than one property in which they do not reside.
- matrix87 3y agoI used to get really upset about this, but not as much anymore. I don't think the solution is sitting around and hoping for compromise. It's better if we stop trying to make it sustainable and let it suffocate itself so that the service workers and young money can move elsewhere It only works if people keep stretching themselves thin in order to buy into the manipulated real estate markets, once this becomes untenable the aforementioned regions will become less relevant. Then you might see a real attempt at change, but at that point people won't care and the jobs will be elsewhere