The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#221

Post by IFC_LLC » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:53 AM UTC

Pretty much any criticism of a current housing market can't happen without mentioning the quality of said housing. I have just come back from one of the apartments I was looking at to see an abysmally small shoebox with some sort of doors and windows installed in there. I live in a house with 9-foot ceilings and I feel like a king. But this is insane.

Recently I've visited a rental property to find shallow, not sound-proofed walls, askew doors made of something that looks like paper and not a single straight corner. And this is a 2023 build! It's brand new. And still looks awful.

I have an article about that. https://medium.com/@ifcllc/qualification-f33ec8fcb736 but man, it's getting worse and worse.

Just to have a 2-room apartment that I used to live in 30 years ago would cost over 1.5 mil today. Adjusted for that inflation of quality.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#222

Post by specialist » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:54 AM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #187

This "Abundance" nonsense is simply liberal repackaging of Reagan's trickle down economics and deregulation. That's all it is. Reagan's policies were designed to transfer wealth from the young and the poor to the old and the wealthy. Abundance will do (more of) exactly the same. The very best case fo housing deregulation as per this Abundance nonsense is Houston. And that's only if you have essentially unlimited land…

How would government go about creating that additionl housing?

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#223

Post by Schiendelman » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:55 AM UTC

IFC_LLC wrote: post #221

Pretty much any criticism of a current housing market can't happen without mentioning the quality of said housing. I have just come back from one of the apartments I was looking at to see an abysmally small shoebox with some sort of doors and windows installed in there. I live in a house with 9-foot ceilings and I feel like a king. But this is insane. Recently I've visited a rental property to find shallow, not sound…

That's right, and that's caused by restrictions on supply. Almost every problem we have with housing comes down to us restricting how much can be built so much that extremely low quality units are competitive. If you allowed 10 times as much construction, those units wouldn't be able to compete, because other builders would offer better units for the same price.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#224

Post by appreciatorBus » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:55 AM UTC

tiahura wrote: post #61

davidw wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish everyone who cares about the price of housing could go to a hearing like this one. Sadly, they happen in every community so if you're curious, you ought to go: https://bendyimby.com/2024/04/16/the-hearing-and-the-housing... That is your housing shortage right there. Now, Real page probably jacks up prices a bit. A bit multiplied by a lot of renters means real harm and it was probably worth taking them to court…

Why do people think they have a right to live wherever they want? The people Bend are happy with Bend as it is. If you can't afford to live there, move.

"Why do people think they have a right to control what other people build on private land? If you don't like what's getting built, move."

Why is the govt's job to control where people live? I thought individual freedom was a big part of the whole deal?

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#225

Post by Schiendelman » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:57 AM UTC

gopher_space wrote: post #166

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?

Collusion using online management services to fix prices across a region. I think Washington State is working on legislation around rental services due to this already being a problem in the Seattle area. “Extra supply” is added to the portfolio containing housing they’ve already purchased. They own part of “existing supply” too.

I live in Seattle, and this is a scapegoat. it's another way to point a finger at anything but massive restrictions on supply. The easiest solution to collusion to keep prices high is to let lots of other people build and compete down price. In Washington, most new construction happens on a very small number of parcels, because that's the only place we allow it.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#226

Post by Schiendelman » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:58 AM UTC

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?

Again, that means the answer is to stop limiting how much housing is built.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#227

Post by scoofy » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:58 AM UTC

gopher_space wrote: post #166

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?

Collusion using online management services to fix prices across a region. I think Washington State is working on legislation around rental services due to this already being a problem in the Seattle area. “Extra supply” is added to the portfolio containing housing they’ve already purchased. They own part of “existing supply” too.

Housing is a depreciating asset. Even if you're trying to continuously corner the market, you'll be losing money in the long run if you're not actually renting the units for more than you're buying them for.

If supply can be built to meet demand, trying to corner the market to achieve monopoly rents will fail in the long run.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#228

Post by spicyusername » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:58 AM UTC

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…

    What about wealth inequality as the root cause of housing shortage?

Keep building.

Eventually there are more houses than people who want to be in them, regardless of whether or not they're being rented or owned.

When that happens you'll see the prices fall. After all, if nobody wants to rent your house, you'll either rent it for lower or sell it.

If nobody wants to buy it, you'll lower the price.

Ad nauseum.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#229

Post by Schiendelman » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:59 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #189

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?

Yeah, Neither you nor the parent have worked the forces out to describe what's happening now. What's happening now is the wealth and the middle are buying houses and apartments not for rental income but for appreciation. This motive is what stands in the way of new home building in any given area. This is why rents rise beyond an area can sustain at all - rents are set to maintain the ostensible value of a property -…

There's just no evidence to support this. Appreciation is nowhere near as cost-effective as putting that same money in the stock market.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#230

Post by appreciatorBus » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 1:59 AM UTC

donatj wrote: post #2

The bigger problem, at least in my neck of the woods, is they're not building affordable housing. By-and-large they are building luxury apartments and luxury homes. We've torn down half the city to build luxury apartments that sit at 20-30% occupancy. Building luxury housing won't help the housing crisis until the sellers are on the brink of bankruptcy and forced to sell their properties at a reasonable price.

When housing is scarce, all housing, even 100 year old dumps, will sell or rent at luxury prices.

No one is building apartments made of solid gold or concrete mixed with diamonds. They are building thoroughly ordinary buildings of concrete, wood and drywall. They fetch "luxury" prices & rents because for each one that exists, there are 40 ppl trying to live where, so they raise the price or rent to capture the riches of the 40, despite there being nothing particularly special or expensive about the physical structure.

You can do this with non-profit/govt/social/public housing too - if there isn't enough of it, every unit will require a "luxury" of time to wait for it to become available, even if the nominal price or rent is affordable.