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The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

derekthompson.org

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Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#121

Post by jawarner »

tptacek wrote: post #51
evil-olive wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thompson is responding to a specific paper. yes, he's responding to [0] which was written by Musharbash and published in Matt Stoller's newsletter. and as I said, he's being selective about what criticism he's responding to and what he's ignoring. because Stoller has also published, in the same newsletter, articles about RealPage price fixing [1, 2]. Thompson says: > The antitrust left, however, claims... if he's g…

It's not on him to rebut every single argument Stoller has ever made. Several arguments Stoller made were refuted by the authorities Stoller himself cited, which is both interesting to read and also telling. Stoller is free to find similarly decisive refutations of arguments Thompson had made (they're unlikely to be forthcoming).

I think for this to be interesting to an outside observer, it should at least address the bulk of the debate around the topic. If the GP is right and it's missing the key points of the anti-abudance critique, then I'm afraid it's missing the forest for the trees and misleading to a general audience.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#122

Post by bgwalter »

tptacek wrote: post #65
simpaticoder wrote: post #56

What about wealth inequality as the root cause of housing shortage? Even if supply is eased, the wealthy (those who have enough capital to earn passive income) will buy the extra supply and rent to the poor. The Piketty effect takes over, they invest their profit in more housing, wealth inequality continues to get worse, and while more housing exists, it owned by an increasingly small cohort. Personally I'd like to s…

You haven't actually worked this example out. Try it. The wealthy buy the extra supply; they now compete with all the existing supply for tenants. What happens next?

They leave it empty (that actually happens a lot, especially with foreign investors) or convert it to their 100th AirBnB.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#123

Post by __turbobrew__ »

jerlam wrote: post #66
ThinkBeat wrote: post #35

There is an incredibly large lobby group who is fully invested in house prices rising or at least not falling, namely homeowners. and since most politicians at a high level usually own one or more houses, they are fully invested in it as well.

It's a much bigger group than homeowners. Banks don't want housing prices to fall, since then homeowners start foreclosing and then banks lose interest payments and own undesired property. Cities don't want housing prices to fall, since they were counting on money from developers and property taxes.

Property taxes are relatively independent from the absolute value of the property. Only the relative value of a property to other properties in municipality determines property taxes.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#124

Post by simpaticoder »

tptacek wrote: post #107
simpaticoder wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What happens next? We'd revert to the state that applied for most of human history: 99% of humans will be serfs renting from 1% hereditary landlords. We'll have shown the American mid-century home-owning middle-class phenomena to be an historical anomoly. Average living standards will plummet and equity barons will never have lived so well. Any short-term rental rate drops will quickly be erased by a combination of…

I was thinking more along the lines of a simple math problem and less along the lines of an outline for a dystopian novel. Like, show the work.

If capital returns 5% and the economy grows at 1%, where does the extra wealth come from? Spoiler: it's a transfer from the poorest to the wealthiest. Asset classes include stocks, bonds, real-estate, art, and metals. So if artists make more art, will this make art ownership more accessible to the average person? Or will it be a small transient soon erased by the monumental financial forces pulling all assets into the ownership and control of a tiny few? That art that your grandparents bought for $500 is now work $100k; you have student debt and high rent, so of course you sell it. The house your parents bought for $18k is worth $1M and they need end-of-life care, and you're own kids are expensive, so of course you sell it. The movement is irrestable.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#125

Post by mulmen »

chubot wrote: post #72
tptacek wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making a value judgement. There are analysts and opinion writers I enjoy reading and get a lot of value from. But hosting a podcast interview with someone is basically the opposite of shoe-leather reporting. I guess if you did "stitch incoming" every couple minutes and cut to Fridman calling someone else to have conversations with other sources about whatever claim his primary guest just made, you'd be gettin…

I think there's journalistic value to showing a raw conversation on a podcast. It's closer to the primary source than calling them on the phone and writing down parts of the conversation. If the interviewer is a bit credulous, then we can take that into account. I don't need other opinions to be inserted in the same show, because it's not the only show I watch. I get different viewpoints from others. (And Klein's sho…

Journalism is about presenting a topic, not about presenting a person. I don’t care about Elon Musk as a person. I don’t care about his opinions on lawn care or cooking eggs. But in a story about self driving car technology I want to hear his input and the input of Ford and GM and Waymo and Uber and suppliers and academics and regulators and users. Compiling all those sources and presenting a narrative on the topic of self driving cars is journalism.

Giving one person an uncritical platform for three hours isn’t journalism. For that to resemble journalism you would have to squint so hard your eyes would be shut.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#126

Post by ch4s3 »

bgwalter wrote: post #122
tptacek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't actually worked this example out. Try it. The wealthy buy the extra supply; they now compete with all the existing supply for tenants. What happens next?

They leave it empty (that actually happens a lot, especially with foreign investors) or convert it to their 100th AirBnB.

Empty properties barely exist as a percentage of total housing supply in high cost of living areas in the US. You’re looking at no more than a few tenths of of a percentage point of NYC’s more than 4 million units.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#127

Post by tptacek »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #84

i hope the next part of his article covers the zoning issues. because I'm certainly not seeing the zoning issues making the homes be on bigger lots or requiring things like 3 car garages? If anything the lots in new tract developments in dallas fort worth are smaller and have less land using features like they don't have alleys. and then in Dallas city limits any small slice of land that can possibly be used for new…

He just did a podcast episode about envelope restrictions and how they're pushing the market for housing out of the sun belt. The subtext of all this stuff is ultimately zoning.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#128

Post by tptacek »

bgwalter wrote: post #122
tptacek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't actually worked this example out. Try it. The wealthy buy the extra supply; they now compete with all the existing supply for tenants. What happens next?

They leave it empty (that actually happens a lot, especially with foreign investors) or convert it to their 100th AirBnB.

Yes, we get it, they buy the unit and leave it empty. What happens next.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#129

Post by ch4s3 »

nielsbot wrote: post #96
tptacek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it's a buyer or seller's market depends on supply!

If the wealthy buy up existing limited housing supply and there are many tenants looking for housing, then they can continue to raise rents, no?

Housing returns have constantly lagged behind equities in the US. In the long run it’s almost always preferable to hold stocks as most of your investments in the US.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#130

Post by Animats »

tptacek wrote: post #5

So much of the journalism we read is heavily processed and barely-reported and it's startling to see how much of a superpower simple shoe-leather reporting actually is. Derek Thompson's an incredibly sharp writer, but not really a subject matter expert on housing economics; all he did here was read papers and call up the authorities they cited, and the narrative behind those papers collapsed. We're often so down on j…

Reporters used to start at something like the City News Bureau.[1] For a century, the City News Bureau covered local news for Chicago and sent it in to the local newspapers. Lasted until 2005. Young reporters started there, covering every police station, every major crime, every major fire, every major trial, and getting the facts right, or else. The bureau`s unsentimental motto: ”If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

We need that again. As I point out occasionally, read news, and ask yourself which stories started out as a press release. For the City News Bureau, nothing started as a press release. They had people pounding the streets of Chicago for a century. Today, the pundit to reporter ratio is far too high.

There's a great book about the Bureau, called "Hello, Sweetheart, Get Me Rewrite". (by Dornfield, not the one by Sears, which is something else entirely.)[1]

[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/1990/06/20/if-city-news-burea...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Hello-Sweetheart-Get-Me-Rewrite/dp/08...

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