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I don't think people understand how bad it is and far the effects of bad housing policy reach. I live in Western Massachusetts, about 2 hours from Boston. Bosto
by thinkingtoilet 2y ago
I don't think people understand how bad it is and far the effects of bad housing policy reach. I live in Western Massachusetts, about 2 hours from Boston. Boston's terrible housing policy has driven up housing prices here because literally 99% of people can't afford a house in Boston so they start moving outside the city. The suburbs were full decades ago so they're crazy expensive. With the rise of remote work people are moving 2-3 hours outside of Boston because they may have to go in once a quarter but otherwise don't have to day to day. So we have a situation where decades of bad housing policy to protect property values are literally raising the prices of houses hundreds of miles away. At this point, I couldn't even afford my own house with the rise in interest rates and prices, and I only bought mine in 2018. The phrase "the country eating its young" is such a perfect way to describe this, and many other problems with America right now.
- amyfp214 2y agoIt's even worse in Cali because of something called proposition 13: essentially rent control for property taxes. So you have not just a powerful NIMBY force, but nobody has any desire to sell. This creates a highly skewed market while the rent:buy ratio serves extremely cheap rent - people are happy to sit on these houses and enjoy dirt cheap taxes. It even used to be a heritable fixed tax / tax control but they stopped that -- people are salty because they inherit a house that their parents easily afforded taxes for with tax control, but suddenly the taxes are a gorillion dollars. Presumably in fact the taxes would be lower were these controls not in place, the newbies are paying the majority of property tax costs