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> it will relieve some of the demand that would otherwise be placed on housing for lower incomes. I don't know if this is necessarily true, in the same way tha
by objclxt 13y ago
> it will relieve some of the demand that would otherwise be placed on housing for lower incomes.
I don't know if this is necessarily true, in the same way that if you build an extra lane on a freeway you don't inherently reduce congestion - traffic simply expands to fill the available space.
Many people buying these new apartments and condos will be buying as an investment and renting out, which does nothing to help those in housing need.
- jerf 13y agoThat's because the increase in supply will be too small to undo the fact that the economy will still be heavily demand-driven. If you want to completely undo that, you need to saturate the demand. However, you can't get from here to there without that intermediate step. Plus, on the margins, it will still increase supply and drop prices, as the price those can be rented out at are driven by supply and demand. Continue to reliably raise supply, and you'll also lower the value of those investments and cause them to sell out as they cease to be good investments. The reason why that is an attractive strategy in the first place is that demand is grossly in excess of supply. Fix the root cause, the problem will go away. San Francisco may not believe in market forces, but market forces believe in San Francisco.