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I wonder if as population growth levels off in the U.S. over the next few decades the “not enough housing problem” sort of resolves itself. How’s the housing ma

I wonder if as population growth levels off in the U.S. over the next few decades the “not enough housing problem” sort of resolves itself. How’s the housing market in Japan?

0x00000000 2y ago
How is that working for Canada?
- antisthenes 2y ago
  Canada does not have a shrinking population like Japan, so I'm not sure why think it's relevant?
  - 0x00000000 2y ago
    It said levels off not declines. Most of the west has been leveling off and prices still increase. Although I was surprised that the US growth rate is lower than Canada
petsfed 2y ago
The problem is not simply that there are literally not enough houses available, but rather that in a lot of cases, people cannot afford the houses that are available (I found one source that said 1.2 million vacant units in California, but I don't have the time to really evaluate that source), or that the available homes are in the wrong place. For the Bay Area set, that means that there are loads of houses in Tracy, or Modesto or Stockton, but if you need to work in San Jose, you're SOL. But if you've the median household income for the Bay Area (~$136k), then there are less than 3 dozen in the greater Bay Area (including as far out as Pittsburg), and you'd never get a loan on a lot of those because of the amount of work they need just to be habitable. This mainly devolves to a widespread belief that housing should be an asset that appreciates faster than inflation, so people fight tooth and nail against anything that endangers their property values. Speculation has driven housing prices far past the limit of sustainability. There are even algorithms to drive rent (and therefore sale) prices up to "what the market will bear" [0] without any regard to the long-term consequences of this short-term profit seeking. Or rather, the long-term consequences (the concentration of property holdings into the hands of an ever smaller and ever wealthier group of people) look pretty fucking good to the people doing it. 0. https://www.propublica.org/article/senators-introduce-legislation-stop-landlords-algorithm-price-fixing https://www.propublica.org/article/senators-introduce-legisl...

I wonder if as population growth levels off in the U.S. over the next few decades the “not enough housing problem” sort of resolves itself. How’s the housing market in Japan?

0x00000000 2y ago

How is that working for Canada?

antisthenes 2y ago
Canada does not have a shrinking population like Japan, so I'm not sure why think it's relevant?
- 0x00000000 2y ago
  It said levels off not declines. Most of the west has been leveling off and prices still increase. Although I was surprised that the US growth rate is lower than Canada

petsfed 2y ago

The problem is not simply that there are literally not enough houses available, but rather that in a lot of cases, people cannot afford the houses that are available (I found one source that said 1.2 million vacant units in California, but I don't have the time to really evaluate that source), or that the available homes are in the wrong place. For the Bay Area set, that means that there are loads of houses in Tracy, or Modesto or Stockton, but if you need to work in San Jose, you're SOL. But if you've the median household income for the Bay Area (~$136k), then there are less than 3 dozen in the greater Bay Area (including as far out as Pittsburg), and you'd never get a loan on a lot of those because of the amount of work they need just to be habitable. This mainly devolves to a widespread belief that housing should be an asset that appreciates faster than inflation, so people fight tooth and nail against anything that endangers their property values. Speculation has driven housing prices far past the limit of sustainability. There are even algorithms to drive rent (and therefore sale) prices up to "what the market will bear" [0] without any regard to the long-term consequences of this short-term profit seeking. Or rather, the long-term consequences (the concentration of property holdings into the hands of an ever smaller and ever wealthier group of people) look pretty fucking good to the people doing it. 0. https://www.propublica.org/article/senators-introduce-legislation-stop-landlords-algorithm-price-fixing https://www.propublica.org/article/senators-introduce-legisl...