7 ms·

Glad to see the final section basically cover that this is not actually a problem. I sort of wish the headline was more of the "Why you shouldn't be worried ab

by taeric 1y ago

Glad to see the final section basically cover that this is not actually a problem. I sort of wish the headline was more of the "Why you shouldn't be worried about private equity buying your neighborhood." Why and how did that ear worm infect so many people?

xnx 1y ago
> Why and how did that ear worm infect so many people? It's a story they want to believe. The big bad out-of-town corporation is causing the housing crisis and not the complex web of dozens of factors: existing owners wanting to protect their largest asset, more people wanting to live in fewer places, inflation, tariffs on Canadian lumber, safety standards, etc.
- crooked-v 1y ago
  Ultimately it's not really that complex to explain: there just literally aren't enough physical housing units of whatever kind in major US cities to meet demand (https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives/us-housing-shortage https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives...), so prices keep going up. Unfortunately, there are a ton of people who will deny that that factual, well-studied shortage exists, and will try to blame its effects on anything and everything else even tangentially related.
  - lazide 1y ago
    There are ~ 15 million unoccupied houses in the US [https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/states-with-most-vacant-homes/ https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/states-with-most-vacant-...]. That we know about. A desirable location will never have enough capacity. Regardless of how much building occurs. If you don’t believe me, look at NYC, Paris, etc, etc. People move as close to a desirable location as they can afford. And often more. Don’t get me wrong, rules set where and how bad the line is, but there is no realistic situation where everyone who wants to live in SF can, and can afford to, and it is anything like SF.
    - vorador 1y ago
      Well the problem with SF is less density and more than half of it is single-family home neighborhoods with zero amenities. Anti-growth people will point to neighborhoods like Glen Park, NoPa and Noe as "SF" while forgetting most of the surface area of the city is empty neighborhoods like Parkside, Mt Davidson Manor, etc.
      - lazide 1y ago
        It’s a matter of degree, not difference. If you fit 2x the number of people in them - you’d still have the same general problem. Just 2x the number of people now. And because larger cities tend to also be more attractive (Tokyo is still growing, for instance), you’ll never have enough density to be ‘enough’ - aka where it’s cheap enough for everyone to live where they want. You will have more people though.
        vorador 1y ago
        It's a false premise, cities do not grow endlessly. If you look at other cities they're actually losing population – NYC for example.
        lazide 1y ago
        NYC is not losing population. [https://www.nyc.gov/assets/planning/downloads/pdf/our-work/reports/new-york-city-population-estimates-and-trends_may-2025.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/assets/planning/downloads/pdf/our-work/r...] There were two years during the pandemic when people moved out- because jobs let them - but people moved back and it has more than made up for it since. Every major city in the world has seen significant population increases as mechanized farm work and fertilizers have removed the need for many farm workers, and economy activity has concentrated. It’s been a consistent trend for almost 100 years.
        crooked-v 1y ago
        And yet, with the Tokyo example, the combination of lots of housing and good public transit means that you can get small but liveable apartments that are a 20-minute walk from central downtown Tokyo (and under a 10-minute walk to multiple train stations with access to the rest of the metro area) for under $1500/month. Here's one right here: https://www.realestate-tokyo.com/rent/B0021114/park-flats-ginza-east/R0128492/ https://www.realestate-tokyo.com/rent/B0021114/park-flats-gi...
- Dig1t 1y ago
  Lumber is a tiny fraction of the cost of a house, the US produces a huge amount of lumber on its own. I don’t think there’s any real evidence to show that lumber tariffs have had a measurable impact on housing costs. Most housing is built with lumber from here. Also the tariffs are new this year, housing costs have been a problem for much longer than just this year.
  - chrisweekly 1y ago
    to be fair, xnx said "dozens of factors" and mentioned lumber and tariffs as among them... maybe better examples would've made their point stronger though.
    - Dig1t 1y ago
      Yes that’s true, I think he’s right on all the other points. I just built a house by myself, from the ground up, so I couldn’t let that lumber thing slide though as I literally just paid for all the materials myself and I know how little lumber costs compared to everything else.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    Here's a "kit" for a 1,400 sq ft house: https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/books-building-plans/home-plans/shop-all-home-projects/h077d-0019-stovall-home-material-list/h077d-0019-slab/p-1449804743568-c-9919.htm https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/books-buildi... $90k for materials. Around here a 1,400 square goes for $385k (half a house, but there you go). So materials are somewhere around a quarter of the cost. Land + foundation + utilities is another quarter; the rest is labor and profit.
    - Dig1t 1y ago
      Yes very true, and lumber is a sub-category inside materials and it is not very expensive compared to the other materials like concrete, siding (fiber cement, stucco), roof material (metal, asphalt, tile), drywall, paint, plumbing, electrical. Of all those things lumber is a cheap line item.
    - 1y ago
ben7799 1y ago
It's the left wing gaslighting everyone over all the issues caused by making it harder and harder to build anything. You blame landlords and PE when in actuality the government has stopped construction in it's tracks. This then feeds into the ultra-left agenda which tends towards socialism and "make landlords and private property illegal." This is largely what the Abundance agenda and YIMBY is all about... getting the left to stop throwing up NIMBY road blocks. The problems with not enough investment in new houses are not limited strictly to blue states but blue states seem to have the largest problem with it. Democrats love regulation so much that states like MA and CA have erected so many zoning and building regulations that new homes have become incredibly difficult and slow to build. We struggle to even build apartment size condos in suburban MA that cost less than $1.1-1.5M per unit. We are rapidly heading towards new houses being $2M+ in lots of parts of the state. By the time a developer manages to buy a lot and go through all the red tape, possibly tear down an old house, go through environmental review, etc.. they can't make any money unless they build a $2M+ house. Any lot that doesn't have an old house on it in the eastern part of the state will have a long list of environmental gotchas a developer will have to fight through, possibly for years before they can even start building anything. Housing construction is so far behind the demand that who owns the existing houses has little to do with it. PE and Corporate landlords own more property in left leaning markets because Blue policies have made it more profitable to do so. The more new construction is slowed, the more valuable the rental properties become. Some of these companies won't want to go near red states where construction is easy. The property values and rents are just not high enough.

by taeric 1y ago

xnx 1y ago

> Why and how did that ear worm infect so many people? It's a story they want to believe. The big bad out-of-town corporation is causing the housing crisis and not the complex web of dozens of factors: existing owners wanting to protect their largest asset, more people wanting to live in fewer places, inflation, tariffs on Canadian lumber, safety standards, etc.

crooked-v 1y ago
Ultimately it's not really that complex to explain: there just literally aren't enough physical housing units of whatever kind in major US cities to meet demand (https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives/us-housing-shortage https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives...), so prices keep going up. Unfortunately, there are a ton of people who will deny that that factual, well-studied shortage exists, and will try to blame its effects on anything and everything else even tangentially related.
- lazide 1y ago
  There are ~ 15 million unoccupied houses in the US [https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/states-with-most-vacant-homes/ https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/states-with-most-vacant-...]. That we know about. A desirable location will never have enough capacity. Regardless of how much building occurs. If you don’t believe me, look at NYC, Paris, etc, etc. People move as close to a desirable location as they can afford. And often more. Don’t get me wrong, rules set where and how bad the line is, but there is no realistic situation where everyone who wants to live in SF can, and can afford to, and it is anything like SF.
  - vorador 1y ago
    Well the problem with SF is less density and more than half of it is single-family home neighborhoods with zero amenities. Anti-growth people will point to neighborhoods like Glen Park, NoPa and Noe as "SF" while forgetting most of the surface area of the city is empty neighborhoods like Parkside, Mt Davidson Manor, etc.
    - lazide 1y ago
      It’s a matter of degree, not difference. If you fit 2x the number of people in them - you’d still have the same general problem. Just 2x the number of people now. And because larger cities tend to also be more attractive (Tokyo is still growing, for instance), you’ll never have enough density to be ‘enough’ - aka where it’s cheap enough for everyone to live where they want. You will have more people though.
      - vorador 1y ago
        It's a false premise, cities do not grow endlessly. If you look at other cities they're actually losing population – NYC for example.
        lazide 1y ago
        NYC is not losing population. [https://www.nyc.gov/assets/planning/downloads/pdf/our-work/reports/new-york-city-population-estimates-and-trends_may-2025.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/assets/planning/downloads/pdf/our-work/r...] There were two years during the pandemic when people moved out- because jobs let them - but people moved back and it has more than made up for it since. Every major city in the world has seen significant population increases as mechanized farm work and fertilizers have removed the need for many farm workers, and economy activity has concentrated. It’s been a consistent trend for almost 100 years.
      - crooked-v 1y ago
        And yet, with the Tokyo example, the combination of lots of housing and good public transit means that you can get small but liveable apartments that are a 20-minute walk from central downtown Tokyo (and under a 10-minute walk to multiple train stations with access to the rest of the metro area) for under $1500/month. Here's one right here: https://www.realestate-tokyo.com/rent/B0021114/park-flats-ginza-east/R0128492/ https://www.realestate-tokyo.com/rent/B0021114/park-flats-gi...
Dig1t 1y ago
Lumber is a tiny fraction of the cost of a house, the US produces a huge amount of lumber on its own. I don’t think there’s any real evidence to show that lumber tariffs have had a measurable impact on housing costs. Most housing is built with lumber from here. Also the tariffs are new this year, housing costs have been a problem for much longer than just this year.
- chrisweekly 1y ago
  to be fair, xnx said "dozens of factors" and mentioned lumber and tariffs as among them... maybe better examples would've made their point stronger though.
  - Dig1t 1y ago
    Yes that’s true, I think he’s right on all the other points. I just built a house by myself, from the ground up, so I couldn’t let that lumber thing slide though as I literally just paid for all the materials myself and I know how little lumber costs compared to everything else.
- bombcar 1y ago
  Here's a "kit" for a 1,400 sq ft house: https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/books-building-plans/home-plans/shop-all-home-projects/h077d-0019-stovall-home-material-list/h077d-0019-slab/p-1449804743568-c-9919.htm https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/books-buildi... $90k for materials. Around here a 1,400 square goes for $385k (half a house, but there you go). So materials are somewhere around a quarter of the cost. Land + foundation + utilities is another quarter; the rest is labor and profit.
  - Dig1t 1y ago
    Yes very true, and lumber is a sub-category inside materials and it is not very expensive compared to the other materials like concrete, siding (fiber cement, stucco), roof material (metal, asphalt, tile), drywall, paint, plumbing, electrical. Of all those things lumber is a cheap line item.
  - 1y ago

ben7799 1y ago

It's the left wing gaslighting everyone over all the issues caused by making it harder and harder to build anything. You blame landlords and PE when in actuality the government has stopped construction in it's tracks. This then feeds into the ultra-left agenda which tends towards socialism and "make landlords and private property illegal." This is largely what the Abundance agenda and YIMBY is all about... getting the left to stop throwing up NIMBY road blocks. The problems with not enough investment in new houses are not limited strictly to blue states but blue states seem to have the largest problem with it. Democrats love regulation so much that states like MA and CA have erected so many zoning and building regulations that new homes have become incredibly difficult and slow to build. We struggle to even build apartment size condos in suburban MA that cost less than $1.1-1.5M per unit. We are rapidly heading towards new houses being $2M+ in lots of parts of the state. By the time a developer manages to buy a lot and go through all the red tape, possibly tear down an old house, go through environmental review, etc.. they can't make any money unless they build a $2M+ house. Any lot that doesn't have an old house on it in the eastern part of the state will have a long list of environmental gotchas a developer will have to fight through, possibly for years before they can even start building anything. Housing construction is so far behind the demand that who owns the existing houses has little to do with it. PE and Corporate landlords own more property in left leaning markets because Blue policies have made it more profitable to do so. The more new construction is slowed, the more valuable the rental properties become. Some of these companies won't want to go near red states where construction is easy. The property values and rents are just not high enough.