3 ms·

This really is sad, but the nature of the problem has to be more complex than “there aren’t enough houses”. The US population has grown roughly linearly over th

This really is sad, but the nature of the problem has to be more complex than “there aren’t enough houses”. The US population has grown roughly linearly over the past ten years [0], but so has the number of housing units [1]. I suspect there are a couple of other major factors here, the first being “who owns the houses” - ie it’s not the number of aggregate housing units that matter, it’s the balance of how many rental units are available and the diversity of owners to ensure an efficient market. But there’s also locality to consider - the housing market is a very local phenomenon and a lot of people aren’t able to simply move to where it’s cheaper (eg a single mother of 4 referenced in the story). But then again, I’m not actually sure that I would expect a single mother of four whose living comes from driving for Uber to be able to afford rent for that size family.. anywhere. So there’s a component of the quality of the low-end labor market here as well. [0] https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-and-demographics/population-data/population/ https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-a... [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ETOTALUSQ176N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ETOTALUSQ176N

paxys 3y ago
New housing units aren't necessarily created where people want to live/where the jobs are. There is a shortage of housing and very little new construction in every major city, for example.
joshspankit 3y ago
One of the biggest problems with the Canadian housing market is that people move to “where it’s cheaper”[0] in massive quantities. Sometimes they can afford it, but a lot of times they are moving on credit. And then of course, if a big enough group of people moves to the same “affordable area”[0], supply drops below zero and there’s additional demand pressure caused by the people “at the back of the line” who are still chasing the idea and need housing. It even got to the point where people started snapping up anything that had the possibility of being a “house hack” house or a multi-unit rental property. [0] in many cases areas are only more affordable on paper. Less tax, more tax but lower food costs, cheaper rents, cheaper housing prices, etc. Not only do those change as the population and conditions change, but they are isolated parts of a local economy where many people still have a lower quality of life.

paxys 3y ago

New housing units aren't necessarily created where people want to live/where the jobs are. There is a shortage of housing and very little new construction in every major city, for example.

joshspankit 3y ago

One of the biggest problems with the Canadian housing market is that people move to “where it’s cheaper”[0] in massive quantities. Sometimes they can afford it, but a lot of times they are moving on credit. And then of course, if a big enough group of people moves to the same “affordable area”[0], supply drops below zero and there’s additional demand pressure caused by the people “at the back of the line” who are still chasing the idea and need housing. It even got to the point where people started snapping up anything that had the possibility of being a “house hack” house or a multi-unit rental property. [0] in many cases areas are only more affordable on paper. Less tax, more tax but lower food costs, cheaper rents, cheaper housing prices, etc. Not only do those change as the population and conditions change, but they are isolated parts of a local economy where many people still have a lower quality of life.