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It was actually just everyday people who chose to destroy the concept of cheap housing, not "the richest two dozen people in the world". By limiting supply in t

It was actually just everyday people who chose to destroy the concept of cheap housing, not "the richest two dozen people in the world". By limiting supply in the name of neighborhood character, boomer environmentalism, and property values.

kurthr 1y ago
No, it was the banks that held the mortgages, and the builders and real estate agents who make the most on rising prices. You can't buy a house without selling the one you live in... without leverage!
- xmprt 1y ago
  I don't know what kind of backwards logic that is. Banks help first time homebuyers purchase their house. Builders build houses and add supply that helps meet demand (everyone needs a place to live). Real estate agents help navigate the process for people who are unfamiliar with all the different steps. There are bad actors in all of these (banks caused the financial crisis and agents are probably paid more than they're worth for $1M+ houses in CA), but the biggest root cause that's missing from your comment is NIMBYs blocking new development almost everywhere.
  - JKCalhoun 1y ago
    Not seeing "NIMBYism" in Nebraska. Instead I am seeing developers who would rather build an upper-middle class neighborhood, not a starter home one, because they can get a much larger profit for only a little more effort/material-cost. I suppose when they are finally unable to sell them they'll start addressing starter homes. I have no idea who could still be buying all of these though. (Perhaps people leaving CA like I did after retiring — they're not going to like the property tax rate though.)
    - dnissley 1y ago
      NE seems relatively affordable? Expecting starter homes to be a category of real estate that is newly built seems naive. Starter homes are some combination of older, smaller, bad location which makes them more affordable. Why wouldn't real estate developers satisfy the demand at the high end before moving down market? Seems like the easiest way to turn a profit to me. Rational actors etc
    - setr 1y ago
      I’m still not clear that this actually a problem. If they overbuild more expensive housing, isn’t the inevitable result that they’ll have to eventually undersell it? There’s only so many wealthy persons, and no matter how fancy the house is I only have so much money to spend. So in the long run, I’d expect that developers are really funneling money into the lower class by overbuilding upper class housing, when they eat the losses on their poor planning. I’m also fairly positive a 30-year old upper middle class home makes for a fairly good starter home
coldpie 1y ago
Nope. Unlike the wealthy, the people who need the cheaper housing do not have the time or money to spend lobbying for their own interests. The wealthy are taking all of our resources[1] and spending them[2] to turn our water & energy into computer programs that will steal and extract even more wealth from the people who actually create things. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/private-investment-in-artificial-intelligence-cset https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/private-investment-in-art...
- dnissley 1y ago
  Who shows up to the public comment meetings to register their complaints about new housing being built? Who empowered those meetings to exist in the first place? Who created the laws about needing an environmental review for a building being built in the middle of an existing city? It was everyday people. Not the 1%.
FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
There are lots and lots of nice cheap housing in small towns. Example, when all my coworkers were fighting over insanely overpriced condos and apartments in San Fran, I bought a 1300 sq ft house outside of Tracy for less than $200k (1/3 of rent in the city) Get out of the cities...
- justinrubek 1y ago
  Great, now most people can spend their lives driving. I see so many people on their phones on the road, and I'm sure that part of it is that they don't want to be commuting as much as they have to. Not to mention, it's more inefficient to sprawl.
  - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
    1/3 of the staff where I work are remote and it's a super conservative run factory. Most live within 20 minutes of the site. Customer support, sales, accounting, HR, IT, etc., all don't need to go into the office most of the time. Why force them? It also opens up the job market to a larger pool, cuts health care and child care cost, insurance, etc.
    - SecretDreams 1y ago
      As it should be. All I'd do is occasionally try to get staff onsite or offsite for team building or when it's crunch time. Most of the time, work can be done remote - it just dehumanizes things a bit. Some on/off site team building can mostly bridge the gap.
- xmprt 1y ago
  > Get out of the cities... This is a terrible public policy if it's the plan. And while I think selfishly it might be better for individuals if they did, I don't think it's actually helping anyone. Cities used to be a place where you made a life for yourself and could earn more and innovate more than you could in rural/suburban areas. Now it's a luxury to live in one and that doesn't bode well for the future of the country.

kurthr 1y ago

No, it was the banks that held the mortgages, and the builders and real estate agents who make the most on rising prices. You can't buy a house without selling the one you live in... without leverage!

xmprt 1y ago
I don't know what kind of backwards logic that is. Banks help first time homebuyers purchase their house. Builders build houses and add supply that helps meet demand (everyone needs a place to live). Real estate agents help navigate the process for people who are unfamiliar with all the different steps. There are bad actors in all of these (banks caused the financial crisis and agents are probably paid more than they're worth for $1M+ houses in CA), but the biggest root cause that's missing from your comment is NIMBYs blocking new development almost everywhere.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Not seeing "NIMBYism" in Nebraska. Instead I am seeing developers who would rather build an upper-middle class neighborhood, not a starter home one, because they can get a much larger profit for only a little more effort/material-cost. I suppose when they are finally unable to sell them they'll start addressing starter homes. I have no idea who could still be buying all of these though. (Perhaps people leaving CA like I did after retiring — they're not going to like the property tax rate though.)
  - dnissley 1y ago
    NE seems relatively affordable? Expecting starter homes to be a category of real estate that is newly built seems naive. Starter homes are some combination of older, smaller, bad location which makes them more affordable. Why wouldn't real estate developers satisfy the demand at the high end before moving down market? Seems like the easiest way to turn a profit to me. Rational actors etc
  - setr 1y ago
    I’m still not clear that this actually a problem. If they overbuild more expensive housing, isn’t the inevitable result that they’ll have to eventually undersell it? There’s only so many wealthy persons, and no matter how fancy the house is I only have so much money to spend. So in the long run, I’d expect that developers are really funneling money into the lower class by overbuilding upper class housing, when they eat the losses on their poor planning. I’m also fairly positive a 30-year old upper middle class home makes for a fairly good starter home

coldpie 1y ago

Nope. Unlike the wealthy, the people who need the cheaper housing do not have the time or money to spend lobbying for their own interests. The wealthy are taking all of our resources[1] and spending them[2] to turn our water & energy into computer programs that will steal and extract even more wealth from the people who actually create things. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/private-investment-in-artificial-intelligence-cset https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/private-investment-in-art...

dnissley 1y ago
Who shows up to the public comment meetings to register their complaints about new housing being built? Who empowered those meetings to exist in the first place? Who created the laws about needing an environmental review for a building being built in the middle of an existing city? It was everyday people. Not the 1%.

FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago

There are lots and lots of nice cheap housing in small towns. Example, when all my coworkers were fighting over insanely overpriced condos and apartments in San Fran, I bought a 1300 sq ft house outside of Tracy for less than $200k (1/3 of rent in the city) Get out of the cities...

justinrubek 1y ago
Great, now most people can spend their lives driving. I see so many people on their phones on the road, and I'm sure that part of it is that they don't want to be commuting as much as they have to. Not to mention, it's more inefficient to sprawl.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
  1/3 of the staff where I work are remote and it's a super conservative run factory. Most live within 20 minutes of the site. Customer support, sales, accounting, HR, IT, etc., all don't need to go into the office most of the time. Why force them? It also opens up the job market to a larger pool, cuts health care and child care cost, insurance, etc.
  - SecretDreams 1y ago
    As it should be. All I'd do is occasionally try to get staff onsite or offsite for team building or when it's crunch time. Most of the time, work can be done remote - it just dehumanizes things a bit. Some on/off site team building can mostly bridge the gap.
xmprt 1y ago
> Get out of the cities... This is a terrible public policy if it's the plan. And while I think selfishly it might be better for individuals if they did, I don't think it's actually helping anyone. Cities used to be a place where you made a life for yourself and could earn more and innovate more than you could in rural/suburban areas. Now it's a luxury to live in one and that doesn't bode well for the future of the country.