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I'm not sure it's possible to expand the housing supply. Inflation has made the cost of constructing new housing almost impossible. In fact he even has a graph

I'm not sure it's possible to expand the housing supply. Inflation has made the cost of constructing new housing almost impossible. In fact he even has a graph comparing cpi to case shiller. I would argue that case shiller correctly models inflation where as CPI has been neutered and is no longer an effective model of inflation. Basically we're at a point where used housing is actually far more valuable than list price because it would be absolutely impossible to rebuild any used house for anywhere near the amount it sold for.

dilyevsky 1y ago
I don’t know what inflation you mean but imo most of the cost increase is due to increased code requirements, labor shortage, and permit fees. These are quite fixable without any macroeconomic tricks
- cco 1y ago
  Those three reasons are all still under the umbrella title "inflation".
presentation 1y ago
In major high cost of living American cities, the majority of cost is in land and regulatory uncertainty especially in California - years of lawsuits and public comment hearings etc for any changes to the built environment, zoning restrictions, large parking requirements causing more land to be needed, inability to produce dense housing (and therefore more units to rent out) on any parcel of land, and so on. It’s hard to change these policies in part because the basis of American wealth for most people IS the value of their real estate, so anything that would reduce the cost of a house will also reduce the wealth of a large swath of society. And rent control warps thing, by making existing renters also benefit from the status quo by locking in their rents, leaving only new renters as those who demand cheaper housing - the very people with the least electoral influence given that they’re usually younger and not established in the communities they’re moving into. We need ways to align incentives so that these people can clearly understand their personal benefit from the good that densification would bring, alongside a reorientation to base their wealth on something that isn’t shelter. USA is not the only place with inflation, but it still ends up with housing far more expensive than other countries. That’s because of policy primarily, material costs secondarily.

dilyevsky 1y ago

I don’t know what inflation you mean but imo most of the cost increase is due to increased code requirements, labor shortage, and permit fees. These are quite fixable without any macroeconomic tricks

cco 1y ago
Those three reasons are all still under the umbrella title "inflation".

presentation 1y ago

In major high cost of living American cities, the majority of cost is in land and regulatory uncertainty especially in California - years of lawsuits and public comment hearings etc for any changes to the built environment, zoning restrictions, large parking requirements causing more land to be needed, inability to produce dense housing (and therefore more units to rent out) on any parcel of land, and so on. It’s hard to change these policies in part because the basis of American wealth for most people IS the value of their real estate, so anything that would reduce the cost of a house will also reduce the wealth of a large swath of society. And rent control warps thing, by making existing renters also benefit from the status quo by locking in their rents, leaving only new renters as those who demand cheaper housing - the very people with the least electoral influence given that they’re usually younger and not established in the communities they’re moving into. We need ways to align incentives so that these people can clearly understand their personal benefit from the good that densification would bring, alongside a reorientation to base their wealth on something that isn’t shelter. USA is not the only place with inflation, but it still ends up with housing far more expensive than other countries. That’s because of policy primarily, material costs secondarily.