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While I think the article does a good job breaking down the costs, the top comment does a better job highlighting the arbitrary restriction of supply as the pri

While I think the article does a good job breaking down the costs, the top comment does a better job highlighting the arbitrary restriction of supply as the primary source of housing costs (though, the article does get there in the end and makes effort to highlight zoning in the conclusion.) It should be considered that, in a market where supply is limited, the economics of scaling housing development are also limited, such that the associated costs of building go up. Fewer opportunities to build means fewer materials suppliers, fewer labourers, etc. which can mean price gouging when demand is bursting. Zoning restrictions and building code are the primary causes from which (virtually) all systemic issues originate. They are also the easiest to fix, and can be rewritten overnight if needed. We just don't see enough outrage yet, but I believe the pitchforks are coming for city councillors across Canada and the US.

nemo44x 3y ago
Who is going to build all these new houses? Unemployment is super low and tradesmen are completely booked. Many skilled tradesmen require licensing that takes years to acquire and can not be brought online quickly. Others are unionized that restrict membership. We can’t even fulfill demand today for the necessary labor. And then there’s materials. Did you see what happened to costs with an uptick in the demand/supply balance during Covid? It’s not so easy to just suddenly increase supply to suit demand on many materials as the inputs come from natural sources that are limited. It would also increase demand for labor from an increasingly small pool driving up costs again. Lastly the people that own the land wound rather build valuable things on it than housing for poors. So even if you changed zoning you wouldn’t be able to build much more any time soon, if ever. For most of history a lot of people had rather modest living conditions. Very small spaces with limited services. It’s more likely we regress towards that than somehow create ample housing that we consider comfortable today.
- daedrdev 3y ago
  In cities that have removed massive zoning barriers, like Minneapolis, housing prices have massivley improved in just a few years. As it turns out, we live in a dynamic economy that can scale up production when it becomes profitable, espically when you consider that its easier to build a multi unit housing block on one piece of land than the same number of housing units in several pieces. Additionally, we know that though all new housing is marketed as luxgury, studies have shown that still improves the housing market for the less well of as prospective buyers wont take the more run down units ahead of them. I woukd say that allowing housing prcies to continue to increase is clearlu much worse for the poor anyway. Overall, I completely disagree with your argument, as you argue that we shouldn't try and induce more housing because it is difficult? Like why is that even a reason to not build hosting given private developers will pay for it anyway.
  - nemo44x 3y ago
    I’m not saying don’t try. But that it’s well more difficult than just changing certain zoning laws. In small pockets it’s easy but not at any kind of scale that makes a difference.
    - daedrdev 3y ago
      Im arguing that we have seen it work at a large scale, like in Minneapolis or Japan. Its the zoning that prevents the housing from being build that there is demand for.
      - nemo44x 3y ago
        MLPS isn’t anywhere near scale and has seen a population reduction as people move to the suburbs. Japan is a completely different thing.
        bombcar 3y ago
        Prices in the suburbs around MPLS have skyrocketed. It’s quite possible that the affordability is attributed wrongly; though in general less restrictive zoning is going to be good.
      - coderenegade 3y ago
        Japan's inflation has hovered around zero for the last 30 years, and wages have stayed similarly stagnant. They do a good job of building out new housing even as places like Tokyo and Osaka continue growing, but it's not the only factor.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Who is going to build all these new houses? Unemployment is super low and tradesmen are completely booked. Unemployment is a measure of labor market efficiency. We have computers now so anybody who needs work can apply to jobs over the internet or install an app and do gig work. The only times in this century that the unemployment rate has exceeded 6% were immediately after the housing crisis and a few months during COVID. But labor market efficiency tells you nothing about how hard it is to find someone to hire. You don't have to find someone without a job, all you have to do is pay more than driving for Uber does. > Many skilled tradesmen require licensing that takes years to acquire and can not be brought online quickly. Others are unionized that restrict membership. These are the regulatory barriers, and there are obvious ways to bring capacity online faster. Example: Give a license to anyone who can pass a written exam, then eliminate the testing/licensing fees and give away free study materials. Here's a big one for free: Stop charging for renewals, so older tradesmen can "retire" (i.e. stop working full time) without making it prohibitively burdensome or expensive to retain their license and work part-time. > And then there’s materials. Did you see what happened to costs with an uptick in the demand/supply balance during Covid? It’s not so easy to just suddenly increase supply to suit demand on many materials as the inputs come from natural sources that are limited. Short-term demand shocks are exactly that. It takes time to increase production capacity, but that takes a year give or take depending on the industry, and then output continues at the higher level indefinitely. There are no practical natural limits on raw materials. You reopen some marginal iron mines. The park service buys some agricultural land to convert into forest while selling some forest land to be logged and converted to agriculture, creating immediate lumber availability. Wood, plastic and aluminum can be substituted for each other in various use cases depending on availability. > Lastly the people that own the land wound rather build valuable things on it than housing for poors. Housing is the valuable thing they're prohibited from building on it. The existing problem is that there is too much land zoned only for single-family homes. A piece of land with one single-family home isn't as valuable as the same piece of land with a 10 story building providing 80 housing units. > For most of history a lot of people had rather modest living conditions. Very small spaces with limited services. This is literally the thing that people are prohibited from building. Prices would go down significantly if it wasn't because there are plenty of people who would pay a lower price for a smaller space, except that building 10 times as many units on the same lot is prohibited by zoning, and if you can only build one unit on a lot then it's going to be a full-sized house and not a studio.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  I had a house built in a factory in Latvia for around 50,000 euro. It was assembled in about 3 days. Foundations cost money but if you use pier or post and beam even that doesn't have to be bad.
J_Shelby_J 3y ago
The zeitgeist moves slow until it has to. I think we’ll have to do the America thing and exhaust every other option like banning foreign property ownership and short term rentals and vacation houses before we get to actually changing local zoning laws. I’m actually not sure it will ever happen. San Francisco is more likely to see the housing density it deserves from a nuclear war that razes it and removes the nimby political machine than people coming together and doing the right thing. Like, given the choice between the status quo, and their kids being able to live in their neighborhood, our parents have chosen. And they’re the ones that show up to vote.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  I mean, B.C and a few others are implementing broad upzoning legislation, but there's still quite a ways to go. There's this whole b.s about building "around transit hubs" which will continue perpetuating a wealth divide if the only place people can realistically live is "where the busses are"
  - daedrdev 3y ago
    Building around transit hubs where people might not need a car its still better than no new housing at all though.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      The key is to build more housing units - if an area needs 50k more dwellings it doesn’t terribly matter if you build 50k luxury space apartments or 50k hovels - either is much better than arguing about it’d or decades and building nothing.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - fragmede 3y ago
        For whom? The locals who like their way of life selfishly don't want things to change. And unfortunately, the people who already live there are the ones who control whether or not new construction is allowed.
Tade0 3y ago
In my corner of the world zoning is much more relaxed and where it isn't - circumvented by housing developers on a regular basis, yet prices still went up at the same (or even worse) cadence than in the rest of the world. The problems you've mentioned, while real, are dwarfed by the seemingly infinite appetite for real estate as a store of value - housecoin if you will. The first step out of this is to recognize that this isn't a uniquely American problem.
- logicchains 3y ago
  What's the population density in the city you live relative to the US?
  - Tade0 3y ago
    2.3k people per square kilometre, so approximately 87% that of say San Francisco.
  - seszett 3y ago
    Relative to which city in the US? Not the person you're replying to but I feel like it applies to me as well, and it's easy to find US places more densely populated, or less densely. Density isn't even a large factor here, I'm building a house in a place with 140 inhabitants/km² (4000 total) and other than the ground (which is a minor part of the total price) it's not significantly cheaper than in my current city of 2600 inhabitants/km² (500 000 total within city limits, 1,5 million metro area).
- jolmg 3y ago
  It could be different reasons in different places. In the US it may be zoning and in other places it may be gentrification from Americans immigrating. This isn't to say that seeing real estate as a store of value or investment isn't also part of the problem.
  - pydry 3y ago
    If it went up all across the western world and zoning is different all over then zoning is probably not the main culprit. Real estate's suitability as a store of value (the more land hoarded, the more it goes up in value) coupled with rising wealth inequality is a more likely cause than a global problem with local zoning codes.
tdudhhu 3y ago
Isn't the main problem that all the jobs are located at central spots? There is a huge amount of land where people can live. But building a cheap house at a location where you can't find a job leads to nothing. There is also a kind of hype of homesteading. But you should not underestimate the huge amount of work it takes to keep yourself alive. So for most that is not an option.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Isn't the main problem that all the jobs are located at central spots? This isn't really a problem until you also restrict housing construction in the same spots.
rwarfield 3y ago
The top comment on that article is really insightful. While I found the numbers in the article interesting, they don't really explain "the housing affordability problem" as it is generally conceived in any meaningful way.
Giorgi 3y ago
Or, to put it even shorter: Government regulations kill economy.
atoav 3y ago
I lice in a country were zoning isn't really a thing and still housing is an issue. I get that zoning is a problem that the US should fix for many reasons, but I am not convinced this is the source of high prices. What makes housing expensive is that the people buying houses are not the people living in them, some of those buyers buy them as strategic assets and don't even rent them out immidiately like e.g. a normal house owner would. If we created restrictions on who is able to buy (or add a other regulation/taxes favouring using owners and small landlords) we could solve that problem easily. The problem is big corps buying up shit at elevated prices as a wealth storage, so there is a disconnect between housing, the commodity and real estate, the money storage.
- pas 3y ago
  There are many regulations that effectively act as zoning. How's the permitting process look like? Is there a property tax (or land value tax) incentivizing people to sell so developers can actually build where people want to live? Is there infrastructure coupled with developments? Is there a balance of protections between tenants and owners? (No squatting, no surprise evictions, ie. 5-7 year contracts, some cap on rent increase, but no forever rent control.) The big problems with housing - and with any kind of construction nowadays - is that volume is too darn low. No economies of scale, everything is slow, made by small crews, on-site by hand basically. (With tools not much different from a 100 years ago.) It doesn't matter who owns and lives in them, as long as the usual incentives have a way to shape the market.
  - atoav 3y ago
    As I said: Zoning is not the problem. The problem isn't that people aren't allowed to build things in certain areas. In fact if I look at my place (bigger city in Germany) it is the opposite. Investors mainly build houses for investment, that means "luxurious mini flats", so something that no normal person can afford to live in and no rich person actually wants to live in — but rich people that think this is a good use of their wealth can buy it to park their money there. If we had laws preventing them from doing that things would be better, not worse. Those luxury mini flats thus aren't making perfect use of the area and driving the prices up in the surrounding area, which is a feature not a bug if you are a investor with property in the area. And thus the cycle continues. You can also replace "luxurious mini flats" with "shiny office building for which no demand exists", half of the office space in the city is obviously empty, which makes a lack of affordable living space even more of an issue. So the problem isn't that investors can't build what people searching a place to live want — the problem is that investors found better ways of turning the limited space in a city to money and these ways don't serve that market or benefit society. As this is Europe, infrastructure isn't the issue and renters have rights. But renters can't play the long game, while investors can.
thunky 3y ago
> arbitrary restriction of supply as the primary source of housing costs Lack of supply only matters because of the excess demand. That's where the real issue is. But it's harder to fix the demand side, so we pretend that the problem is supply side.
- lwansbrough 3y ago
  “Fixing demand” is a fool’s errand. Why would you want to limit the economic growth of the country?
  - thunky 3y ago
    I don't see why we have to stack people on top of eachother in overpriced cities in order for the economy to grow.
r00fus 3y ago
Sorry, no amount of limitations on building (supply reduction) compare with an infinite demand. You will always have housing shortages until you reduce demand - either by restraining/taxing the profit from sale/rent of said housing or just wholesale restricting the corporate ownership of housing.
- pas 3y ago
  First of all the demand is not infinite. (It might be ludicrously huge, let's say 300 million people want to live next to Central Park with a view, but it's perfectly tractable numerically. And of course we see the prices on billionaire's row, but we also know that as new comparable units are put on the market prices fall. Microeconomics works! See the linked studies here for data and the derived models https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/market-rate-housing-will-make-your https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/market-rate-housing-will-make-... ) Second, the current problem is that there's a huge amount of pent-up demand, people want to live in cities (because that's where the jobs are, and statistically also a few of their friends/acquaintances too), but even cities reached the sprawl limit and they would need to increase density, but boomers are having none of that.
  - r00fus 3y ago
    Not sure you get it. It’s not about who wants to live where. It’s about who wants to add an investment in a location that they will subsequently rent out (probably through a property management service). It doesn’t matter if it’s a luxury condo near Central Park or a studio in a college town. Foreign and corporate investment demand will massively exceed the supply available anywhere. And as non-resident investors own a larger piece of the market, they can raise rents to unlivable rates - forcing more homes to be built, etc.
    - ProfessorLayton 3y ago
      that’s not how investing works. they don’t buy assets just because they feel like it, but because they expect a return — and the reason they’re buying real estate is because there’s a nice return due to imbalanced supply and demand. if housing is plentiful enough that the returns are low, investors will look elsewhere.

nemo44x 3y ago

Who is going to build all these new houses? Unemployment is super low and tradesmen are completely booked. Many skilled tradesmen require licensing that takes years to acquire and can not be brought online quickly. Others are unionized that restrict membership. We can’t even fulfill demand today for the necessary labor. And then there’s materials. Did you see what happened to costs with an uptick in the demand/supply balance during Covid? It’s not so easy to just suddenly increase supply to suit demand on many materials as the inputs come from natural sources that are limited. It would also increase demand for labor from an increasingly small pool driving up costs again. Lastly the people that own the land wound rather build valuable things on it than housing for poors. So even if you changed zoning you wouldn’t be able to build much more any time soon, if ever. For most of history a lot of people had rather modest living conditions. Very small spaces with limited services. It’s more likely we regress towards that than somehow create ample housing that we consider comfortable today.

daedrdev 3y ago
In cities that have removed massive zoning barriers, like Minneapolis, housing prices have massivley improved in just a few years. As it turns out, we live in a dynamic economy that can scale up production when it becomes profitable, espically when you consider that its easier to build a multi unit housing block on one piece of land than the same number of housing units in several pieces. Additionally, we know that though all new housing is marketed as luxgury, studies have shown that still improves the housing market for the less well of as prospective buyers wont take the more run down units ahead of them. I woukd say that allowing housing prcies to continue to increase is clearlu much worse for the poor anyway. Overall, I completely disagree with your argument, as you argue that we shouldn't try and induce more housing because it is difficult? Like why is that even a reason to not build hosting given private developers will pay for it anyway.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  I’m not saying don’t try. But that it’s well more difficult than just changing certain zoning laws. In small pockets it’s easy but not at any kind of scale that makes a difference.
  - daedrdev 3y ago
    Im arguing that we have seen it work at a large scale, like in Minneapolis or Japan. Its the zoning that prevents the housing from being build that there is demand for.
    - nemo44x 3y ago
      MLPS isn’t anywhere near scale and has seen a population reduction as people move to the suburbs. Japan is a completely different thing.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        Prices in the suburbs around MPLS have skyrocketed. It’s quite possible that the affordability is attributed wrongly; though in general less restrictive zoning is going to be good.
    - coderenegade 3y ago
      Japan's inflation has hovered around zero for the last 30 years, and wages have stayed similarly stagnant. They do a good job of building out new housing even as places like Tokyo and Osaka continue growing, but it's not the only factor.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Who is going to build all these new houses? Unemployment is super low and tradesmen are completely booked. Unemployment is a measure of labor market efficiency. We have computers now so anybody who needs work can apply to jobs over the internet or install an app and do gig work. The only times in this century that the unemployment rate has exceeded 6% were immediately after the housing crisis and a few months during COVID. But labor market efficiency tells you nothing about how hard it is to find someone to hire. You don't have to find someone without a job, all you have to do is pay more than driving for Uber does. > Many skilled tradesmen require licensing that takes years to acquire and can not be brought online quickly. Others are unionized that restrict membership. These are the regulatory barriers, and there are obvious ways to bring capacity online faster. Example: Give a license to anyone who can pass a written exam, then eliminate the testing/licensing fees and give away free study materials. Here's a big one for free: Stop charging for renewals, so older tradesmen can "retire" (i.e. stop working full time) without making it prohibitively burdensome or expensive to retain their license and work part-time. > And then there’s materials. Did you see what happened to costs with an uptick in the demand/supply balance during Covid? It’s not so easy to just suddenly increase supply to suit demand on many materials as the inputs come from natural sources that are limited. Short-term demand shocks are exactly that. It takes time to increase production capacity, but that takes a year give or take depending on the industry, and then output continues at the higher level indefinitely. There are no practical natural limits on raw materials. You reopen some marginal iron mines. The park service buys some agricultural land to convert into forest while selling some forest land to be logged and converted to agriculture, creating immediate lumber availability. Wood, plastic and aluminum can be substituted for each other in various use cases depending on availability. > Lastly the people that own the land wound rather build valuable things on it than housing for poors. Housing is the valuable thing they're prohibited from building on it. The existing problem is that there is too much land zoned only for single-family homes. A piece of land with one single-family home isn't as valuable as the same piece of land with a 10 story building providing 80 housing units. > For most of history a lot of people had rather modest living conditions. Very small spaces with limited services. This is literally the thing that people are prohibited from building. Prices would go down significantly if it wasn't because there are plenty of people who would pay a lower price for a smaller space, except that building 10 times as many units on the same lot is prohibited by zoning, and if you can only build one unit on a lot then it's going to be a full-sized house and not a studio.
CalRobert 3y ago
I had a house built in a factory in Latvia for around 50,000 euro. It was assembled in about 3 days. Foundations cost money but if you use pier or post and beam even that doesn't have to be bad.

J_Shelby_J 3y ago

The zeitgeist moves slow until it has to. I think we’ll have to do the America thing and exhaust every other option like banning foreign property ownership and short term rentals and vacation houses before we get to actually changing local zoning laws. I’m actually not sure it will ever happen. San Francisco is more likely to see the housing density it deserves from a nuclear war that razes it and removes the nimby political machine than people coming together and doing the right thing. Like, given the choice between the status quo, and their kids being able to live in their neighborhood, our parents have chosen. And they’re the ones that show up to vote.

brailsafe 3y ago
I mean, B.C and a few others are implementing broad upzoning legislation, but there's still quite a ways to go. There's this whole b.s about building "around transit hubs" which will continue perpetuating a wealth divide if the only place people can realistically live is "where the busses are"
- daedrdev 3y ago
  Building around transit hubs where people might not need a car its still better than no new housing at all though.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The key is to build more housing units - if an area needs 50k more dwellings it doesn’t terribly matter if you build 50k luxury space apartments or 50k hovels - either is much better than arguing about it’d or decades and building nothing.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - fragmede 3y ago
      For whom? The locals who like their way of life selfishly don't want things to change. And unfortunately, the people who already live there are the ones who control whether or not new construction is allowed.

Tade0 3y ago

In my corner of the world zoning is much more relaxed and where it isn't - circumvented by housing developers on a regular basis, yet prices still went up at the same (or even worse) cadence than in the rest of the world. The problems you've mentioned, while real, are dwarfed by the seemingly infinite appetite for real estate as a store of value - housecoin if you will. The first step out of this is to recognize that this isn't a uniquely American problem.

logicchains 3y ago
What's the population density in the city you live relative to the US?
- Tade0 3y ago
  2.3k people per square kilometre, so approximately 87% that of say San Francisco.
- seszett 3y ago
  Relative to which city in the US? Not the person you're replying to but I feel like it applies to me as well, and it's easy to find US places more densely populated, or less densely. Density isn't even a large factor here, I'm building a house in a place with 140 inhabitants/km² (4000 total) and other than the ground (which is a minor part of the total price) it's not significantly cheaper than in my current city of 2600 inhabitants/km² (500 000 total within city limits, 1,5 million metro area).
jolmg 3y ago
It could be different reasons in different places. In the US it may be zoning and in other places it may be gentrification from Americans immigrating. This isn't to say that seeing real estate as a store of value or investment isn't also part of the problem.
- pydry 3y ago
  If it went up all across the western world and zoning is different all over then zoning is probably not the main culprit. Real estate's suitability as a store of value (the more land hoarded, the more it goes up in value) coupled with rising wealth inequality is a more likely cause than a global problem with local zoning codes.

tdudhhu 3y ago

Isn't the main problem that all the jobs are located at central spots? There is a huge amount of land where people can live. But building a cheap house at a location where you can't find a job leads to nothing. There is also a kind of hype of homesteading. But you should not underestimate the huge amount of work it takes to keep yourself alive. So for most that is not an option.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Isn't the main problem that all the jobs are located at central spots? This isn't really a problem until you also restrict housing construction in the same spots.

rwarfield 3y ago

The top comment on that article is really insightful. While I found the numbers in the article interesting, they don't really explain "the housing affordability problem" as it is generally conceived in any meaningful way.

Giorgi 3y ago

Or, to put it even shorter: Government regulations kill economy.

atoav 3y ago

I lice in a country were zoning isn't really a thing and still housing is an issue. I get that zoning is a problem that the US should fix for many reasons, but I am not convinced this is the source of high prices. What makes housing expensive is that the people buying houses are not the people living in them, some of those buyers buy them as strategic assets and don't even rent them out immidiately like e.g. a normal house owner would. If we created restrictions on who is able to buy (or add a other regulation/taxes favouring using owners and small landlords) we could solve that problem easily. The problem is big corps buying up shit at elevated prices as a wealth storage, so there is a disconnect between housing, the commodity and real estate, the money storage.

pas 3y ago
There are many regulations that effectively act as zoning. How's the permitting process look like? Is there a property tax (or land value tax) incentivizing people to sell so developers can actually build where people want to live? Is there infrastructure coupled with developments? Is there a balance of protections between tenants and owners? (No squatting, no surprise evictions, ie. 5-7 year contracts, some cap on rent increase, but no forever rent control.) The big problems with housing - and with any kind of construction nowadays - is that volume is too darn low. No economies of scale, everything is slow, made by small crews, on-site by hand basically. (With tools not much different from a 100 years ago.) It doesn't matter who owns and lives in them, as long as the usual incentives have a way to shape the market.
- atoav 3y ago
  As I said: Zoning is not the problem. The problem isn't that people aren't allowed to build things in certain areas. In fact if I look at my place (bigger city in Germany) it is the opposite. Investors mainly build houses for investment, that means "luxurious mini flats", so something that no normal person can afford to live in and no rich person actually wants to live in — but rich people that think this is a good use of their wealth can buy it to park their money there. If we had laws preventing them from doing that things would be better, not worse. Those luxury mini flats thus aren't making perfect use of the area and driving the prices up in the surrounding area, which is a feature not a bug if you are a investor with property in the area. And thus the cycle continues. You can also replace "luxurious mini flats" with "shiny office building for which no demand exists", half of the office space in the city is obviously empty, which makes a lack of affordable living space even more of an issue. So the problem isn't that investors can't build what people searching a place to live want — the problem is that investors found better ways of turning the limited space in a city to money and these ways don't serve that market or benefit society. As this is Europe, infrastructure isn't the issue and renters have rights. But renters can't play the long game, while investors can.

thunky 3y ago

> arbitrary restriction of supply as the primary source of housing costs Lack of supply only matters because of the excess demand. That's where the real issue is. But it's harder to fix the demand side, so we pretend that the problem is supply side.

lwansbrough 3y ago
“Fixing demand” is a fool’s errand. Why would you want to limit the economic growth of the country?
- thunky 3y ago
  I don't see why we have to stack people on top of eachother in overpriced cities in order for the economy to grow.

r00fus 3y ago

Sorry, no amount of limitations on building (supply reduction) compare with an infinite demand. You will always have housing shortages until you reduce demand - either by restraining/taxing the profit from sale/rent of said housing or just wholesale restricting the corporate ownership of housing.

pas 3y ago
First of all the demand is not infinite. (It might be ludicrously huge, let's say 300 million people want to live next to Central Park with a view, but it's perfectly tractable numerically. And of course we see the prices on billionaire's row, but we also know that as new comparable units are put on the market prices fall. Microeconomics works! See the linked studies here for data and the derived models https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/market-rate-housing-will-make-your https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/market-rate-housing-will-make-... ) Second, the current problem is that there's a huge amount of pent-up demand, people want to live in cities (because that's where the jobs are, and statistically also a few of their friends/acquaintances too), but even cities reached the sprawl limit and they would need to increase density, but boomers are having none of that.
- r00fus 3y ago
  Not sure you get it. It’s not about who wants to live where. It’s about who wants to add an investment in a location that they will subsequently rent out (probably through a property management service). It doesn’t matter if it’s a luxury condo near Central Park or a studio in a college town. Foreign and corporate investment demand will massively exceed the supply available anywhere. And as non-resident investors own a larger piece of the market, they can raise rents to unlivable rates - forcing more homes to be built, etc.
  - ProfessorLayton 3y ago
    that’s not how investing works. they don’t buy assets just because they feel like it, but because they expect a return — and the reason they’re buying real estate is because there’s a nice return due to imbalanced supply and demand. if housing is plentiful enough that the returns are low, investors will look elsewhere.