11 ms·

I'm confused by this objection, if you draw a stereotypical supply and demand curve, you can see how prices settle to an equilibrium point. Of course reality ha

• idiotsecant 7mo ago
  What do you do when that equilibrium point is hopelessly above what the average person can afford?
  • wiradikusuma 7mo ago
    Won't the market fill the gap? For example, in Indonesia, "standard size" houses are mostly out of reach for new buyers (young generations), so they build houses farther away and/or smaller.
  • pinkmuffinere 7mo ago
    there are many things you can do, but essentially you want to make it profitable for builders to make houses at a lower price point, or give the average person more money. Some approaches (not all of which I'm endorsing): - reduce restrictions around planning / construction / etc (because it takes time and expertise to comply, both of which cost money) - find a way to bring in cheaper labor, or make it possible for construction companies to hire the same labor at a lower price. Maybe a subsidy, maybe reduced taxes, maybe relaxed labor laws - add a subsidy for homes - make your citizens more wealthy, so the price is no longer above their means - outsource construction to a place that can build it more cheaply (eg, prefab homes)
    • locknitpicker 7mo ago
      > - find a way to bring in cheaper labor, or make it possible for construction companies to hire the same labor at a lower price. Maybe a subsidy, maybe reduced taxes, maybe relaxed labor laws It's far easier than that: just have your regional/local government finance urban renewal projects that increase occupation density. You can even tie the project to the expansion of a public transportation system.
  • tirant 7mo ago
    That means there’s an invisible hand keeping prices up, or basically that the market is not free enough. That’s caused most of the time due to excessive regulation. Another reason is high demand in locations where offer is limited due to physical limitations. There’s always demand to live in Broadway, and offer can never catch up due to its physical limitations.
    • locknitpicker 7mo ago
      > That means there’s an invisible hand keeping prices up, or basically that the market is not free enough. That’s caused most of the time due to excessive regulation. No. Why do you guys fall so easily for the "regulation" cliche? The answer is far easier: unwillingness to invest. Why are there investment funds willing to burn through tens of millions in stupid stuff like NFTs or pets.com, but investing $10m on a 5 story apartment building that can get you a solid RoI of 20% is frowned upon?
      • otherme123 7mo ago
        Why the investment funds have to build the houses? Houses has been built/funded from zero by the future owners since forever, either individually or through cooperatives. That way, "investors" don't need a positive ROI, and they happily lose money overall if they get a home. I know some people that are currently "willing to invest" in buying a ship container or two and transform it into a house to get costs down. The problem? Regulations don't allow them to put the container in their own property.
        • Dylan16807 7mo ago
          Using a shipping container is almost always a stupid plan compared to just putting up some wood. As much as I want to make zoning more flexible, I'm not in a rush to change that particular regulation.
          • otherme123 7mo ago
            Sounds arrogant to block someone else plan to have a home, just because you don't like it. And then claim regulations are not the problem, but lack of willing to invest. If you think containers are a bad idea, don't buy one.
  • CalRobert 7mo ago
    Remove parking minimums and work to address inequality? If that the case in Austin though?
    • dnautics 7mo ago
      it isn't
  • mchusma 7mo ago
    Not sure I buy the premise. Austin has a household $133k median income with a $435k median home price. It’s very affordable. But, to make Austin more affordable still, you make it less expensive to build so that it’s profitable to build. Typical regulations that do this are: - Lower minimum sizing requirements - open zoning - raise height limits - make sure you don’t have unwarranted restricted fire codes (some places have elevator stairwell requirements that are insane) - make permitting easier or not required at all for some cases - no min parking requirements Pretty sure as good as Austin is, they could easily reduce the costs by up to 30% (there are parts of the country with 50% the cost per sq ft for new construction).
  • inglor_cz 7mo ago
    Where does this happen, in presence of a reasonably free market? I can only think of extremely land-limited places like Monaco and Gibraltar. Where the answer is "not everybody should live in Gibraltar". But the US has a lot of land. So much land that it can afford wasting it on endless sprawl of single family homes, which is the least efficient way of providing housing. Most Asian megacities would not be able to exist if they had as strict zoning principles as the US has. Maybe you should also think about barriers such as "bans on boarding houses". This is what messes with poor people the most. A room in a house full of rowdy individuals sucks, but it is still a room. Possibly you may spend just a year there, then find something better. A tent in an encampment of rowdy individuals is strictly worse on all accounts except cost, and bouncing back from that is harder.
• throwaway27448 7mo ago
  Sure, so long as the balance involves not housing people which is pretty sick and twisted
  • rayiner 7mo ago
    I don’t understand your sentence. What’s the subject of the verb “housing.”
    • mijowi 7mo ago
      The subject is “people”. Parent is suggesting that the equilibrium point of housing supply and demand naturally leaves some people unhoused.
      • ekkeke 7mo ago
        That is the object of the sentence. He is asking who the subject is, in other words the thing or person that is doing the housing of the people. Is it the government? Is it you? I'm currently responsible for housing myself, which is annoying so I would prefer someone else take on this responsibility.
      • Retric 7mo ago
        Which isn’t quite accurate as for example people prefer to move out of their parent’s homes while young adults but aren’t necessarily homeless if they don’t. Basic housing is a necessity, but people also huge homes and 2nd homes etc. So housing policy should therefore be more complicated than simply subsidizing anything you can call housing. Capping the home mortgage tax deduction at ~median home prices for example is probably a better use of government funds.
    • pinkmuffinere 7mo ago
      I think the subject is perhaps an implied "you", "us", or "society". Here's how I read it: Sure, so long as involves (you / us / society) not housing people which is pretty sick and twisted
  • pinkmuffinere 7mo ago
• michaelmrose 7mo ago
  If a minority has most of the wealth then the equilibrium supply may include a lot of supply of second homes, very large homes on large plots for the rich, properties sold at a premium based on how much they can extract from renters, and even investment properties occupied by nobody whilst still having insufficient small basic homes and dense housing. Capital that could be invested in better serving the bottom half has to compete not only with the use of those resources to further enrich the rich but other investment opportunities.
  • zozbot234 7mo ago
    If you want second homes to be used productively, just allow folks to list them on AirBnb for planned short-term rental. Long-term rentals are a total non-starter politically for second homes, since you obviously can't ethically throw out someone who regards that rental space as their home. But short-term is actually fine. As for larger homes, people should be allowed to live in there as larger, extended family groups - a common pattern in non-Anglo cultures. Ban "single family" restrictions since they amount to unconscionable discrimination against such reasonable living arrangements.
  • sophrosyne42 7mo ago
    There is more than enough land for everyone, and rich people aren't really competing for the kind of housing that poor people are competing for, e.g. smaller plots with smaller homes. The demand of the rich does not eliminate demand of the poor, so the market produces different kinds of housing for different clientele. Think about it this way: assume you supply all the housing to all the rich people. Then there still remains untapped demand of others that can be fulfilled by further production of homes for those specific people. This story fails when land becomes restricted, which is exactly what zoning laws cause. Zoning is a big harm to the poor.
    • baq 7mo ago
      But zoning is required to maintain order. Nobody wants anybody to live in favelas. As with everything the regulator needs to strike a balance to make the market work.
• unethical_ban 7mo ago
  Some would say that housing is a right (while acknowledging the need for housing construction and its workers and supplies to be paid for) and that it should be funded somehow, even if the free marker profit becomes negative during certain periods. Like any market manipulation, the question then would be how to intervene to keep housing construction going when construction isn't profitable, while not fomenting corruption in the industry.
  • kakacik 7mo ago
    ... but your own housing isn't any form of basic human right, its a luxury all around the world and always has been. Now I completely understand folks who come out of uni and see the salaries (sans faangs and generally devs and few other lucky positions), the prices and the emotions of missing out come easily. But it isn't a right, just because you would like it. Same as I don't have a right to a car at price I would like, just because I live, by my choice, in rural environment close to nature. I desperately need one though for work commute, shopping, taking kids to school etc so thats as non-optional as accommodation to existence of my family. I can either suck up car's actual prices, move whole family so I don't need it or do similar choices in life to tackle that. But car ain't a right. Same as your own accommodation, of course not a modest small apartment but a house, ideally close to work, amenities, schools, and costing peanuts. Literally what everyone else wants. Or am I incorrect in your expectations? Because if yes, its easy to accept cheap remote small old properties, those aren't expensive for above-average earners at all, anywhere.
    • bo0tzz 7mo ago
      The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25.1: > Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
      • bpt3 7mo ago
• taffronaut 7mo ago
  I have struggled to understand why houses don't get built and land sits idle for years. I can only assume that it's significantly more complicated. I'm not trying to excuse the complications. I guess if the house prices are forecast to go up, you build some houses, but not all that you can because the longer you wait, the higher the profit will be on the ones you start later. If house prices are going down, even if it's profitable when you start, you're not likely to build houses because you might be left holding houses that will sell at a lower margin. If there was a tax on unused land, that might skew things towards building more even if prices are declining, but I'm sure there are lots of views on that.
  • jaapz 7mo ago
    Why would you build on a plot of land when the plot of land itself is already appreciating in value with you doing nothing to it Building is risky and costly Having an asset that appreciates on its own regardless of what you do with it is not
    • bpt3 7mo ago
      Holding costs of land are far from $0 in any major metropolitan area. Sitting on it involves its own form of risk. Vacant land that's desirable is often held back from development due to zoning or infrastructure issues.
      • estearum 7mo ago
        > Vacant land that's desirable is often held back from development due to zoning or infrastructure issues. Nah, it's mostly speculation. Zoning/infrastructure issues get baked into the price. If you cannot build anything on a plot of land, its price falls.
        • philipallstar 7mo ago
          Only at point of buying. If you buy some land and the mayor suddenly implements rent control then the value goes down.
• chmod775 7mo ago
  Free markets for housing are likely to settle into an "optimum" where some percentage of people cannot afford housing at all, because while construction/rental of housing for them would net a return, it's not worth the opportunity cost. Plus you should not wait for the market to respond to a lack of housing: people will be homeless in the meantime. Supply/demand is mostly reactive, because building for anticipated future demand years down the line is very risky, so most investors don't like that. Markets don't optimize for "everyone gets some", yet that's precisely what you need for housing. You'll always need the government to come in at some point to provide for those left behind by the free market.
  • dan-robertson 7mo ago
    Isn’t the initial response to a lack of housing that people consume less housing than they would like, rather than homelessness, eg families with children sharing rooms more than they might like, adults living with roommates, or just people having to live further away from where they would like to be (or moving out of a city altogether)? I don’t dispute that there are levels of affordability that are bad enough that they start to lead to various forms of homelessness, but it doesn’t seem to me like a fundamental rule that, if some people can’t afford to live alone in a large amount of housing, they also can’t afford to live with roommates sharing a smaller amount of housing, and that the right level of housing prices should also price some people out of those arrangements (ie it demands a pretty high level of inequality if you assume that the market allows typical people to afford to live alone and that sharing can typically reduce per-person rents by half or more)
    • polothesecond 7mo ago
      It’s all fun and games games until you’re municipality starts banning adult co-living situations. You underestimate how intrusive these people will be to protect the value of the single largest asset most of them will ever own
      • chmod775 7mo ago
        Individual landlords also dislike those and may not allow it, because the ability of the household to make rent now depends on all adults in that household. 3-4 broke adults who may only loosely know each other and with their own individual plans are a lot less stable than, for example, married couples. It's basically 3x the risk and hassle. Chances are you'd have to evict them after just a couple months. They'd rather just leave the apartment empty and hope to find a better tenant.