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Really. If obsessive zoning and building regulations didn't artificially restrict the supply then there would be no reason for anyone to "invest" in houses.

• breakyerself 1y ago
  100%. I'm a far left anticapitalist, but facts are facts. Zoning, restrictive building codes, and the death of much of the housing construction industry post 2007. All contribute to housing costs and homelessness. I'd like to see zoning opened back up for increasing density wherever it's needed, but I would also like to see a strong social housing policy.
• rconti 1y ago
  That doesn't strike me as true at all. Nationwide, housing has generally been a "good investment", regardless of whether we're talking about an area that restricts supply or one that does not.
  • breakyerself 1y ago
    The places where it's a good enough investment for investors to buy up real estate are in these high demand markets where housing supply has massively lagged demand. Homeowners may be satisfied that their home values have increased everywhere, but black Rock isn't buying houses in small towns in Idaho and ohio because the ROI isn't as high.
  • tptacek 1y ago
    Rents and home prices have repeatedly fallen in places that have authorized large scale new building. In the past, those price pressures were probably offset by large-scale moves from the northeast and midwest into the Sun Belt, but those appear to have mostly equilibrated now.
• grafmax 1y ago
  An unregulated supply will still offer promising investment opportunities to those with enough money to buy them up. Look at crypto or private equity. These markets are lightly regulated. But prices are bid up by big money. Unfortunately just dumping regulation is unlikely to fix housing.
  • tptacek 1y ago
    People say this but then never draw the rest of the owl. It costs money, substantial money, to hold on to a house. As soon as you propose that you're going to close that gap by renting the house out, you're competing in the market with everybody else letting out houses, and supply-and-demand kicks in. Can you explain the mechanism by which accumulating vacant houses would provide the same reward structure as crypto speculation?
    • grafmax 1y ago
      Professional property managers can scale the cost of ownership in a way individual owners can’t. Besides that speculators can also withhold supply, artificially inflating prices. 2008 occurred due to speculation, independent of NIMBY regulation. As for crypto, housing can actually be more profitable than crypto since investors see rentier income not just speculative appreciation. Ultimately, this isn't just a supply-and-demand problem in an idealized market. It's a resource allocation issue where investors with significant capital can hoard housing, driving up costs, while many people struggle with homelessness. Simply greasing the market with deregulation won't solve this fundamental imbalance.
      • tptacek 1y ago
        I'm sure they can do lots of things homeowners can't, but they can't defy gravity. Again: I'm looking for an explanation for how investors could come out ahead amassing houses they keep vacant in the face of increasing supply.
        • grafmax 1y ago
          A portion of the investor class may divest through deregulation as the character of the housing market changes. But the fundamental issue is the presence of the investor class itself. Markets don’t redistribute wealth equitably; they concentrate it. This will continue even if markets acquire new character through deregulation. At best deregulation can change the membership of the investor class. It does not eliminate the investor class. In other words you are looking at it from a supply side but ignoring the wealth distribution of buyers. Wealth has further concentrated among the richest buyers over the past few years, while the poorest have grown poor, leading to higher prices for everyone. That’s the cause, not NIMBYism, which has been around forever. It’s a wealth redistribution issue not a deregulation issue.