271–280 of 373 posts
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Start naming those other places and we will tell you why they are not viable or comparable. If there are so many it should be easy.
Singapore, Shenzhen to start. If we blow it in the US there are plenty of people ready to work for TikTok or whatever other overseas company takes over. Though I am surprised NYC doesn't have more tech jobs
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> more supply brings down rents People say that on here all the time, but I have never seen that happen. Do you have an example where increased housing supply lowered prices aside from a natural or market disaster? Maybe, Detroit where people simply abandoned their homes with no intent to sell.
Japan is the classical example where they have national zoning rules permitting residential development in each zone. You can get a place in downtown Tokyo for like $300K USD. [1] > While the cost of housing is climbing in many global cities, the average middle-class family in Tokyo can still afford to buy a new, single-family detached home for $300,000. That’s right. The typical Tokyo starter home is a brand new thr…
I've developed several multifamily projects including my current focus, a 72-unit apartment development. Proposals like these, while admirable, usually miss the mark and have little to no impact on housing availability because they fail to accept that housing development isn't just about zoning. Impact fees, planning regs (traffic, parking, etc), planning delays, NIMBY fights, labor costs...these are all inputs into…
The bigger the change in a single effort, the faster it often dies. This one is already fairly large and what happens to rent will be important in the short term but also the long term where you could build enough to keep things stable or growing slower.
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That sounds like an epic value destroyer. It won’t lower prices. Instead it will drive out owners to be replaced by leasers incapable of owning property. The only people that win are owners of multi-tenant properties, which are often commercial businesses.
If they're condos, you can own it, at least as much as you can own half a duplex. If they're rental units, that's also ok, more supply brings down rents and lower rent causes more landlords to sell. Extra supply does add downward pressure on prices one way or another. I don't see where the "value destroyer" is.
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You're assuming infinite variety exists, or can exist. That's so absurd that it's hard to believe it was meant in good faith. No, I can't just select from a menu. What if I want good schools and other facilities that few towns have, and proximity to the people/places that matter to me, and a town that's not so much single-family-home wasteland everywhere but the center? What if I want other people who aren't milliona…
> You're assuming infinite variety exists, or can exist. I'm assuming no such thing. I'm only assuming that there are places that would match your preferences better than where you currently live (or, if you want to be really precise, enough better to justify the costs of moving). Since people move all the time, for precisely that reason (I've done it myself, several times), that does not seem to me like a very extra…
Still assuming there is such a a place. Why would you assume (again) that I didn't already research and consider alternatives before plonking down a third of my net worth on a house? I live where I do because it was the best match for what I'm looking for, but the fact that it's the best available doesn't mean I can't wish it to be better for myself and others.
Also, even if there were such a better place already, moving itself isn't a no-op. Moving even between ideal locations can be considered worse than staying even in one non-ideal location. Pulling kids out of a school system and away from all of their friends is particularly disruptive. "Love it or leave it" only works for one constituency - those who are fine with the status quo, who don't have or seek any connection to their communities, and don't see a need for there to be more of anything else. It doesn't even engage with people whose circumstances or beliefs are different; it just ignores their existence. I don't think that's constructive. Why are you so dead set against people solving problems instead of running away from them?
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That's microeconomics 101, so it's theoretically sound. Is there some effect in real life that prevents it from working the way the theory predicts? I don't think so. I would put the burden of proof on you, if you want to go against a solid theory. It seems self evident that more housing supply means houses stay on the market longer (there is lots of evidence for that) and that means sellers have more incentives to l…
Right, but do you have any historic examples? I see none.
Most of the land in my (Massachusetts) town is zoned for single-family homes. There are several identifiable square-mile or larger areas with nothing but homes plus maybe one school and one church. Maybe a gas station / Dunkin Donuts within fifteen-minute walking distance. That's no way to live. I'd love to change it, with greater zoning diversity and particularly that which allows higher density, but there valid obj…
>There are several identifiable square-mile or larger areas with nothing but homes plus maybe one school and one church. Maybe a gas station / Dunkin Donuts within fifteen-minute walking distance. This is just suburban America in general.
I am of the idea that we need to focus on building new cities and more efficient roads to connect them. I don’t want to live in the Bay Area particularly, but when I have to go to SF, it sucks that sometimes it can take up to 2 hours to commute 30 miles. As a software architect, it feels as if the common recipe for solving a scalability problem is decentralization for which you need an awesome messaging system. I do…
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The best thing would be to ban AirBNB and rental housing. Those two artificially restrict the supply of housing to an absurd extent and drive up the costs of everyone else’s housing. I’m not alone in this - several cities have already banned AirBNB.
lol how do you figure that rental housing restricts total supply?
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Right, but do you have any historic examples? I see none.
That's because you didn't look.
Guessing at some 9th grade economics theory aside, what does the actual data say?
Ignoring data like this is the only reason I can think of why people are willing to pay 10x more for a house of half the size that I paid.