6 ms·

Incredible. So what you're saying is... we should just build more housing? Who would have thought that was the answer?

underlipton 6mo ago
I see the "supply and demand" straw man is propped up well and often in this thread. Let's talk about the actual dynamics in play: 1) Rent-Fixing: This is widespread across the country and the actual reason why inventory increases often (commonly) do not lower prices. There are multiple tactics landlords have used to ratchet up rates without ever letting them drop. These include lease concessions that don't affect the base rent in lieu of rate drops in step with lowered demand, warehousing that artificially limits accessible supply even when new, physical units are hitting the market, and algorithmic price-fixing had allowed landlords within a region to stay in lock step without breaking rank lower. When landlords are able to use such tactics with impunity, they absolutely do warp supply-demand dynamics and allow rent rates to stay high even in the face of expanding actual inventory. For rents to decline, you have to break large landlords' ability to set their price. 2) Builder Subsidies: "Just build more and prices will drop," ignores that the incentive structures municipalities use to draw developers are an additional burden on residents. These for-profit corporations then seek to make a profit on their investment, leading to no direct meaningful inventory increase in the affordable unit range. Worse, developers often target existing affordable units for their redevelopment, destroying the very units that the new inventory is supposed to ultimately reduce demand for. In order for "build more" to drive down rents, it can't be done the way it has been, which mostly ends up being a giveaway to developers at the expense of the tax base and displaced renters. San Diego is a special case where it seems that the expanding inventory has been driven not by corporate developers, but by the construction of ADUs, which are built by homeowners out-of-pocket, are not tax-subsidized and, in fact, increase the taxable value of property. In this way, they work almost counter to traditional development, and these factors combine with their being created and operated outside of the control of corporate landlords means that they represent new and meaningful competition to those landlords. Thus, efficiencies are sought and prices drop. Encourage ADUs. Avoid subsidizing large developers and corporate landlords. If there is the political will, get the government directly involved in constructing subsidized owner-occupied, human-scale housing, as in Singapore and the pre-Thatcher UK. Relax zoning and build out public transit and car-free infrastructure in order to reduce the accessibility premium, as in Japan. That is how "build more" actually can work to lower rates.
mothballed 6mo ago
Building the house is the easiest part of building a house.
- rockskon 6mo ago
  I'm not sure half the country would agree!
  - wallst07 6mo ago
    Texas... lots of cheap land to build and some of the least expensive new home prices in the country.
- itopaloglu83 6mo ago
  Some: Not in my backyard. A lot of people have vested interest in keeping the housing pricing high. That’s also pretty much why zoning and other regulations never get updated to match the demand.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
darksaints 6mo ago
I've been told repeatedly by people who have a vested interest in maintaining high housing prices that supply and demand don't work at all, ever, for any reason, and high prices are no reason to build more housing. How do I reconcile these facts?!?
- jareklupinski 6mo ago
  you're not the one with stuff to reconcile simply ask the people on the vested side: "why do you want rents to stay high?" and stand back
  - tharmas 6mo ago
    A house next door to me sat vacant for 4 years here in Vancouver. The owner couldn't sell at the asking price. The owner never lived in the house himself ever. He couldn't lower the price because then he would be losing money (selling it for less than what he bought it for). Over that 4 year period, immigration to Canada dropped dramatically. It just recently sold for slightly lower than the asking price (but slightly more than what the owner had bought it for 4 years prior). It was sold to a new immigrant to Canada. At least the new owner is actually living in it. Why would developers want to build so much supply that the price drops?
- seanmcdirmid 6mo ago
  If demand picks up because supply increases, you will reach the previous equilibrium even with more supply. It isn’t rocket science, there is a price people are willing to pay to live in SD, and the market will keep gravitating to that price unless demand is somehow limited. The price people are willing to pay can even increase as density makes brings in things (eg culture, job opportunities) that make the city more desirable (eg see Hong Kong).
  - tptacek 6mo ago
    Supply increased, rents declined.
pydry 6mo ago
The trick is in creating new supply when faced with: * Existing land/property owners who dont particularly want to give up their land. * Property developers who would rather flog one ultra luxury unit to a foreign buyer than 3 to somebody on a median income. * NIMBYs with multimillion dollar mortgages terrified that denser housing will push them into negative equity.
LudwigNagasena 6mo ago
There is abundance of housing. It's just that people want to live in big metro areas that have extreme concentration of economic opportunity and amenities. I don't understand how transforming every urban area into Kowloon Walled City will solve that unless your plan is to make it so dense that people will finally find it undesirable to live there?
- darksaints 6mo ago
  At the density of Kowloon Walled City, the entire population of India could fit within the city limits of San Diego. Nobody is asking for that, silly. We could 1.5x the density of San Diego and still have the livability of Copenhagen. We could 3x the density of San Diego and still have the livability of Vienna. We could 5x the density and still have the livability of Paris. 8x and still have the livability of Tokyo. We have a ridiculously low bar to pass, all we have to do is allow it.
  - LudwigNagasena 6mo ago
    Paris [1] and Copenhagen [2] have similar housing issues. Both are some of the most expensive cities in Europe [3]. Vienna has a large municipally owned and non-profit housing stock [4]. The situation in Tokyo was okay while it was growing its stock like crazy, it is facing an intensifying affordability crisis right now [5]. If there is a bliss point at which the housing crisis is solved with density before Kowloon Walled City levels, it surely not at Tokyo levels. What do you think that bliss point is? Why do you think it is a better solution to grow city densities to those levels rather than trying to make it easier to live and work in compact, mid-rise 15-minute cities that people generally seem to prefer? [6] [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/04/20/french-housing-crisis-is-straining-relations-between-landlords-and-tenants_6752608_7.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/04/20/french-h... [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/copenhagen-denmark-mette-frederiksen-affordable-housing-social-democrats-elections/ https://www.politico.eu/article/copenhagen-denmark-mette-fre... [3] https://www.vanguardngr.com/2026/01/top-10-most-expensive-cities-in-europe/ https://www.vanguardngr.com/2026/01/top-10-most-expensive-ci... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/10/housing-crisis-in-europe-vienna-renters-social-housing https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/10/housin... [5] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/09/29/japan/society/rising-property-prices-tokyo/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/09/29/japan/society/r... [6] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02697459.2026.2633860#d1e520 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02697459.2026.2...
marcosdumay 6mo ago
Well, that will work in a 1M people city, but in larger ones you also have to fix transit. Another impossible problem, that nobody has ever been able to discover the solution is to build mass transit. Maybe one day people will manage to solve it.
- IAmBroom 6mo ago
  Can't tell if serious... like The Onion article suggesting that "there's no solution to reducing gun violence, says nation with unique access to guns".
ratmeadow 6mo ago
God most of the "discussion" around housing is such copium by obviously-biased people trying to convince everyone that we shouldn't have access to high quality housing. Yes, in the year 2026, despite all of humanity's achievements, it's of course IMPOSSIBLE to configure any type of society such that housing is decent and fair for all. IMPOSSIBLE, did you hear? Nope, it just won't work. Whatever your reason, you're wrong, society is perfect already and we cannot improve. And the reasons people try to give... Just hilarious to evaluate from a high level. Oh, no we can't have good housing because supply and demand has determined what we have is optimal. Oh actually even if you did adjust supply and demand, it wouldn't fix the issue anyway, so don't try anything. Ah no you can't have more houses because then how will people commute?! Unsolvable! There aren't enough houses in a reasonable distance from urban centres? God well how about you just build a house in the outback where the supermarket is 200km away then! No we can't have more houses because then it will attract <demographic I don't like>. But think of the children - how will they survive without a 10 acre backyard to play in?? It's so disgustingly painfully obvious to any reasonable person that we have no reason to have a housing crisis other than certain people collecting those fat stacks of cash, sweet cash.
- wallst07 6mo ago
  You say this like it is such a obvious problem to solve, and from a naive point of view, maybe so. But each of the reasons why things the way they are isn't just stupidity. It's backed by people's preferences for living. EVERYONE is extremely opinionated on housing because it affects us the most (air/food/water/shelter...) . We all have something to say about where we live or have lived and the pros/cons.
  - TheCoelacanth 6mo ago
    It is. It's incredibly obvious that building more housing increases the amount of housing available.
  - array_key_first 6mo ago
    From a cost perspective, it is solved. The communists solved it a long time ago. Build more, denser housing that is therefore much cheaper per-unit. We don't do that because of people's preferences, and more importantly their will to force their preferences on others. But, it is solved.
kubb 6mo ago
Yes, after all there are countless examples where doing just that lowered rent long term. Simple as that, a shame that dummies don’t get it. In fact we should force current owners to sell in order build more densely on their land! And keep doing that until their housing valuation decimates.

I see the "supply and demand" straw man is propped up well and often in this thread. Let's talk about the actual dynamics in play: 1) Rent-Fixing: This is widespread across the country and the actual reason why inventory increases often (commonly) do not lower prices. There are multiple tactics landlords have used to ratchet up rates without ever letting them drop. These include lease concessions that don't affect the base rent in lieu of rate drops in step with lowered demand, warehousing that artificially limits accessible supply even when new, physical units are hitting the market, and algorithmic price-fixing had allowed landlords within a region to stay in lock step without breaking rank lower. When landlords are able to use such tactics with impunity, they absolutely do warp supply-demand dynamics and allow rent rates to stay high even in the face of expanding actual inventory. For rents to decline, you have to break large landlords' ability to set their price. 2) Builder Subsidies: "Just build more and prices will drop," ignores that the incentive structures municipalities use to draw developers are an additional burden on residents. These for-profit corporations then seek to make a profit on their investment, leading to no direct meaningful inventory increase in the affordable unit range. Worse, developers often target existing affordable units for their redevelopment, destroying the very units that the new inventory is supposed to ultimately reduce demand for. In order for "build more" to drive down rents, it can't be done the way it has been, which mostly ends up being a giveaway to developers at the expense of the tax base and displaced renters. San Diego is a special case where it seems that the expanding inventory has been driven not by corporate developers, but by the construction of ADUs, which are built by homeowners out-of-pocket, are not tax-subsidized and, in fact, increase the taxable value of property. In this way, they work almost counter to traditional development, and these factors combine with their being created and operated outside of the control of corporate landlords means that they represent new and meaningful competition to those landlords. Thus, efficiencies are sought and prices drop. Encourage ADUs. Avoid subsidizing large developers and corporate landlords. If there is the political will, get the government directly involved in constructing subsidized owner-occupied, human-scale housing, as in Singapore and the pre-Thatcher UK. Relax zoning and build out public transit and car-free infrastructure in order to reduce the accessibility premium, as in Japan. That is how "build more" actually can work to lower rates.

mothballed 6mo ago

Building the house is the easiest part of building a house.

rockskon 6mo ago
I'm not sure half the country would agree!
- wallst07 6mo ago
  Texas... lots of cheap land to build and some of the least expensive new home prices in the country.
itopaloglu83 6mo ago
Some: Not in my backyard. A lot of people have vested interest in keeping the housing pricing high. That’s also pretty much why zoning and other regulations never get updated to match the demand.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

darksaints 6mo ago

I've been told repeatedly by people who have a vested interest in maintaining high housing prices that supply and demand don't work at all, ever, for any reason, and high prices are no reason to build more housing. How do I reconcile these facts?!?

jareklupinski 6mo ago
you're not the one with stuff to reconcile simply ask the people on the vested side: "why do you want rents to stay high?" and stand back
- tharmas 6mo ago
  A house next door to me sat vacant for 4 years here in Vancouver. The owner couldn't sell at the asking price. The owner never lived in the house himself ever. He couldn't lower the price because then he would be losing money (selling it for less than what he bought it for). Over that 4 year period, immigration to Canada dropped dramatically. It just recently sold for slightly lower than the asking price (but slightly more than what the owner had bought it for 4 years prior). It was sold to a new immigrant to Canada. At least the new owner is actually living in it. Why would developers want to build so much supply that the price drops?
seanmcdirmid 6mo ago
If demand picks up because supply increases, you will reach the previous equilibrium even with more supply. It isn’t rocket science, there is a price people are willing to pay to live in SD, and the market will keep gravitating to that price unless demand is somehow limited. The price people are willing to pay can even increase as density makes brings in things (eg culture, job opportunities) that make the city more desirable (eg see Hong Kong).
- tptacek 6mo ago
  Supply increased, rents declined.

pydry 6mo ago

The trick is in creating new supply when faced with: * Existing land/property owners who dont particularly want to give up their land. * Property developers who would rather flog one ultra luxury unit to a foreign buyer than 3 to somebody on a median income. * NIMBYs with multimillion dollar mortgages terrified that denser housing will push them into negative equity.

LudwigNagasena 6mo ago

There is abundance of housing. It's just that people want to live in big metro areas that have extreme concentration of economic opportunity and amenities. I don't understand how transforming every urban area into Kowloon Walled City will solve that unless your plan is to make it so dense that people will finally find it undesirable to live there?

darksaints 6mo ago
At the density of Kowloon Walled City, the entire population of India could fit within the city limits of San Diego. Nobody is asking for that, silly. We could 1.5x the density of San Diego and still have the livability of Copenhagen. We could 3x the density of San Diego and still have the livability of Vienna. We could 5x the density and still have the livability of Paris. 8x and still have the livability of Tokyo. We have a ridiculously low bar to pass, all we have to do is allow it.
- LudwigNagasena 6mo ago
  Paris [1] and Copenhagen [2] have similar housing issues. Both are some of the most expensive cities in Europe [3]. Vienna has a large municipally owned and non-profit housing stock [4]. The situation in Tokyo was okay while it was growing its stock like crazy, it is facing an intensifying affordability crisis right now [5]. If there is a bliss point at which the housing crisis is solved with density before Kowloon Walled City levels, it surely not at Tokyo levels. What do you think that bliss point is? Why do you think it is a better solution to grow city densities to those levels rather than trying to make it easier to live and work in compact, mid-rise 15-minute cities that people generally seem to prefer? [6] [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/04/20/french-housing-crisis-is-straining-relations-between-landlords-and-tenants_6752608_7.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/04/20/french-h... [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/copenhagen-denmark-mette-frederiksen-affordable-housing-social-democrats-elections/ https://www.politico.eu/article/copenhagen-denmark-mette-fre... [3] https://www.vanguardngr.com/2026/01/top-10-most-expensive-cities-in-europe/ https://www.vanguardngr.com/2026/01/top-10-most-expensive-ci... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/10/housing-crisis-in-europe-vienna-renters-social-housing https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/10/housin... [5] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/09/29/japan/society/rising-property-prices-tokyo/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/09/29/japan/society/r... [6] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02697459.2026.2633860#d1e520 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02697459.2026.2...

marcosdumay 6mo ago

Well, that will work in a 1M people city, but in larger ones you also have to fix transit. Another impossible problem, that nobody has ever been able to discover the solution is to build mass transit. Maybe one day people will manage to solve it.

IAmBroom 6mo ago
Can't tell if serious... like The Onion article suggesting that "there's no solution to reducing gun violence, says nation with unique access to guns".

ratmeadow 6mo ago

God most of the "discussion" around housing is such copium by obviously-biased people trying to convince everyone that we shouldn't have access to high quality housing. Yes, in the year 2026, despite all of humanity's achievements, it's of course IMPOSSIBLE to configure any type of society such that housing is decent and fair for all. IMPOSSIBLE, did you hear? Nope, it just won't work. Whatever your reason, you're wrong, society is perfect already and we cannot improve. And the reasons people try to give... Just hilarious to evaluate from a high level. Oh, no we can't have good housing because supply and demand has determined what we have is optimal. Oh actually even if you did adjust supply and demand, it wouldn't fix the issue anyway, so don't try anything. Ah no you can't have more houses because then how will people commute?! Unsolvable! There aren't enough houses in a reasonable distance from urban centres? God well how about you just build a house in the outback where the supermarket is 200km away then! No we can't have more houses because then it will attract <demographic I don't like>. But think of the children - how will they survive without a 10 acre backyard to play in?? It's so disgustingly painfully obvious to any reasonable person that we have no reason to have a housing crisis other than certain people collecting those fat stacks of cash, sweet cash.

wallst07 6mo ago
You say this like it is such a obvious problem to solve, and from a naive point of view, maybe so. But each of the reasons why things the way they are isn't just stupidity. It's backed by people's preferences for living. EVERYONE is extremely opinionated on housing because it affects us the most (air/food/water/shelter...) . We all have something to say about where we live or have lived and the pros/cons.
- TheCoelacanth 6mo ago
  It is. It's incredibly obvious that building more housing increases the amount of housing available.
- array_key_first 6mo ago
  From a cost perspective, it is solved. The communists solved it a long time ago. Build more, denser housing that is therefore much cheaper per-unit. We don't do that because of people's preferences, and more importantly their will to force their preferences on others. But, it is solved.

kubb 6mo ago

Yes, after all there are countless examples where doing just that lowered rent long term. Simple as that, a shame that dummies don’t get it. In fact we should force current owners to sell in order build more densely on their land! And keep doing that until their housing valuation decimates.