Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market • Hacker News Board

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#151

Post by prewett » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:27 PM UTC

MangoToupe wrote: post #57

next_xibalba wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're telling me if an additional, say, 100k units came on the market in Denver in the next year, housing prices wouldn't fall dramatically such that all working people could afford housing? Working people should be able to afford housing near where they work. So let's press the gas pedal on building. The mentally ill and drug addicted should be subject to mandatory treatment or jail until such time as their unde…

> all working people could afford housing? Hey, if that's the metric you're pushing for, good for you. I'm pushing for housing as a human right. I never caught the calvinist bug of "torture the non-productive until they conform and perform" method of population management.

Why should housing be a human right? Human rights came from seeing all people as made in the image of God, but since God is out of fashion, what justification is there? And even if you argue "image of God", human rights have hithertofore been about human interactions, not possessions or use of things. On the latter, Paul instructs thieves to stop stealing and work, so that they have something to give to the poor--it's not clear to me that a Christian position would necessarily consider housing or income to be a right of existence. [1]

If housing is a human right, then I think you need some human responsibilities, too. Like giving back to society in some way, e.g. Paul. Rights of interaction go both ways, but right to housing/basic income only go one way and that is not workable. Communism tried right to work / right to housing, and it never worked. You could say, well, the probably was command economy, but how would you guarantee work/housing without a command economy? As it is, society informs you how it values what your giving in the form of money, which you then use to buy housing. It isn't perfect, either, but it seems to work better.

But going back to human rights being derived from all people being made in God's image, the Christian view is that it is each individual's responsibility to care for the poor. Making no-poverty a human right turns it into society's responsibility, and I'm not convinced that is workable. Society doesn't exist; society is the interactions of individuals, and if you don't transform the individuals to each care for each other, it will be impossible for society to. Marxism makes the claim that society is the problem, but so far no workable solutions have emerged on how society can solve the problem. (To be fair, Christianity did not solve the problem, either, although the early church sure tried, especially with Basil et al after Constantine increased their resources)

[1] As a possible counterpoint, St. Basil said that everything you earn over subsistence belongs to the poor, but that seems a unworkable unless you, like him, are part of a rich monastic/ecclesiatical community that provides for you in exchange for individual poverty.

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#152

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:30 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #35

JKCalhoun wrote: post #21

Is it wrong of me to be sad that it's rent and not home prices?

Yes, it is in fact quite wrong and one of the biggest obstacles in American society is fetishization of homeownership.

The problem isn't home ownership, it's zoning regulations being done locally so that areas full of owner-occupied single-family homes are the only ones eligible to vote on whether higher density housing can be built there, in combination with the "got mine" attitude that causes them to vote in the way that constrains supply.

It's good for people to be able to own their homes. They should be able to own their homes instead of paying a large fraction of their paycheck to landlords as rent or banks as mortgage payments. But that requires housing costs to get lower rather than higher, which in turn requires some kind of state- or national-level policy to prevent local homeowners from sustaining the opposite.

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#153

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:31 PM UTC

1270018080 wrote: post #101

JKCalhoun wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may object to it, but a home has been the smartest investment I've ever made.

The "fuck you got mine" attitude so many homeowners have and deliberate supply restriction to increase property values makes it a smart investment on paper, at the cost of screwing everyone else coming after you.

[deleted]

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#154

Post by typewithrhythm » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:32 PM UTC

How is this measured? I've seen similar articles for Melbourne, where the average per dwelling is reducing, but the quality of the average dwelling is reduced faster; less bedrooms, low quality noisy single aspect apartments.

But if you track the price of a pre-existing property it's growing just as fast.

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#155

Post by tokioyoyo » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:32 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #60

tokioyoyo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a supply-side problem, but with majority of people being either indifferent to the problem or against downward pressure on the housing prices (most people don’t rent). The prices have skyrocketed, and most people who bought in the last 5 years wouldn’t want their assets to depreciate, if they spent 500K+ on it.

> most people who bought in the last 5 years wouldn’t want their assets to depreciate, if they spent 500K+ on it If they spent any amount on it. The long-run equilibrium is managing housing prices like the Fed, with a commitment to building enough to keep median real home prices flat. (I'd argue for a one-time adustment to pre-Covid levels. But that's arguably an arbitrary threshold.)

Absolutely. I only pointed to the last 5 years, because there was an insane appreciation and a lot of people went the route of “becoming house-poor, but owning their homes”. Those people, who are on the younger side, won’t ever support depreciation of their assets.

Honestly, I have no idea how a government can resolve it without a large scale intervention or centralized action a la China.

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#156

Post by JKCalhoun » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:33 PM UTC

apwell23 wrote: post #114

JKCalhoun wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why it has to be that way. Build more houses.

then it wouldn't be "smartest investment"

I moved from an expensive real estate market to a less expensive one. That has nothing to do with appreciation — just equity.

Further, when I downsize — even in the same real estate market — that too is equity working in my favor independent of appreciation.

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#157

Post by JKCalhoun » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:35 PM UTC

chrsw wrote: post #75

jeffbee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want equity in real estate nobody is stopping you. The problem is when people get this idea that we need to discourage investors from building very greatly desired rental housing.

This is the big problem with treating your home as an investment. People who just want a place to live near where they work now have to play this game too. And it's not cheap game.

That was what rentals were supposed to be. And then there was also such a thing as a "starter home". From what I see in Omaha, it's the developers that got greedy — figuring they could get more dosh turning a higher-end home than a starter home on the same lot.

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#158

Post by wagwang » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:35 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19

throwmeaway222 wrote: post #14

yeah well, the last time things were affordable the price was 1200. 71 dollars off 1850 isn't going to do anything

> 71 dollars off 1850 isn't going to do anything The point is the modern urban economic illiteracy that pretends supply and demand don't exist in housing (except when it comes to short-term rental stock, in which case it magically reappears) is wrong. Our housing crisis is a supply-side problem.

This is only half the truth. The reality is that demand is propped up by fannie/freddie and mortgages in general. The fact that the government will buy investment property mortgages is bonkers. In reality, you should only be allowed to mortgage the raw materials and labor of a primary home, everything else is just leveraged speculation. There's also a immigration question, but should be purely solved using new supply. Finally there's a question of, should you even be allowed to own investment properties in cities. A real land reform would be huge for the country; ie. forcing landlords to sell investment properties in any area where rent exceeds $x.

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#159

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:37 PM UTC

Marsymars wrote: post #132

1270018080 wrote: post #99

Remember, this is a good thing. Property values should not outpace inflation.

It's not terrible if property values fall somewhere between inflation and GDP growth.

Presumably GDP growth per capita, but even then, why would that be any better than "not a cent more than inflation", or for that matter even for housing prices to decline over time (e.g. through increased automation in construction)?

Re: Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market

#160

Post by hangonhn » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 11:39 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #105

pcai wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re still missing the point - it’s NOT classic supply and demand because the mechanism by which that works is prices, and in many healthcare markets including the US — the buyer isn’t the payer, and shortages lead to rationing (via wait times) rather than increased prices, so often increasing supply doesn’t change prices even as it increases aggregate costs (because there’s still excess demand and rationin…

For this argument to work you have to believe that decreasing the price of service delivery wouldn't decrease the price of health insurance. Provider costs dominate US national health expenditure, like it's not even close; it's not a full order of magnitude difference but it's close to one.

But part of the provider cost is driven by the availability of money to pay, which is part of the reason why drug costs are so much higher than in the US. For example, the doctor has no strong incentive to prescribe less costly drugs since they don't pay. The patient don't know any better and aren't the payers either. The insurance has some control over what they will pay for and how much but except for some cutting edge treatments, it is very hard for them to say no. This is part of the reason why insulin in the US is so expensive and why drug companies advertise to doctors and patients, etc.

I think in countries where the health care costs aren't as astronomically high as the US there is some form of government intervention to distort the market. And the original post is more or less arguing for a market distortion that doesn't rely on simple price signals to bring costs under control. But that is very different than what has happened in Denver's housing market.