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Housing has had a real appreciation at a rate that far outpaces real median wage increases. This is fueled partially by incentives to buy homes, but largely by
by nostrebored 3y ago
Housing has had a real appreciation at a rate that far outpaces real median wage increases. This is fueled partially by incentives to buy homes, but largely by speculative real estate purchases by older generations. People over the age of 35 own nearly 85% of real estate in the U.S., with people over the age of 55 owning nearly 45%. In both of these categories, ownership is extremely overrepresented and trending up.
We need to stop bailing out the housing market and incentivizing home purchases — this is the only reason that it’s rational for people to do this.
- JamesBarney 3y agoYou need to distinguish between the market for houses and the market for housing (which includes rentals). Speculative real estate purchases and home buying incentives have a much larger effect on the market for houses vs the housing market. But the housing market is what drives the cost of leaving home. With zoning and building codes we've just made it a lot more expensive to build housing. Just building codes probably increase the cost of building an apartment by 1-2% per year, and with zoning added in that could lead to 2-3% appreciation above inflation and wages which over 30 years adds up to quite a bit.
- nostrebored 3y agoI don’t think you’re wrong — I just think that zoning is primarily driven by viewing houses as a speculative asset rather than a functional good.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoNIMBYs are the reason housing prices don’t seem rational. When supply can’t increase any increase in demand will cause prices to shoot up. When an area is controlled by nimbys speculation becomes easy.
- nostrebored 3y agoBut NIMBYs don’t exist to keep the quality of life high in an area — they exist as a cartel working to keep property values high.