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

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#271

Post by Schiendelman » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:31 AM UTC

ajkjk wrote: post #236

Schiendelman wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems like fewer restrictions would mean more garbage getting built.

The restrictions, paradoxically, are what cause garbage! when the unit you build is in incredibly high demand, you do not have to build good quality, someone will pay you for it. If you are competing with other people building for the same rental market, you can't get away with that.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#272

Post by typewithrhythm » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:32 AM UTC

kettlecorn wrote: post #149

lokar wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never see the NIMBY movement really engage with what falling prices would mean in practice. It just seems impossible to be allowed for any really duration over a large area. I think a more realistic (but depressing) goal is modest loss to inflation (so prices go up by 1-2% less then inflation).

> I think a more realistic (but depressing) goal is modest loss to inflation (so prices go up by 1-2% less then inflation). If you read between the lines that seems to be what Canada's approach to house affordability is going to be. Their leaders are promising housing will be more "affordable" but that the goal isn't to decrease home prices.

They are going down the same path of making a lower quality product available, then using deceptive averages.

I have not seen anything that would create a supply of equally desirable properties (compared with detached dwellings).

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#273

Post by Hammershaft » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:33 AM UTC

ajkjk wrote: post #236

Schiendelman wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems like fewer restrictions would mean more garbage getting built.

Fewer regulatory roadblocks like zoning would lead to more supply, which would lead to more competition, which would lead to better quality and cheaper rents.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#274

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:33 AM UTC

elgenie wrote: post #137

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you don't generally destroy the used car in order to build a new one There is very little de-densification construction happening in hot housing markets.

De -densification isn't required; a one-for-one knocking down and rebuilding of a single family residence suffices.

> De-densification isn't required; a one-for-one knocking down and rebuilding of a single family residence suffices

Sure. The only reason developers do that is because land-use restrictions prevent the construction of denser, more-profitable and more-efficient housing.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#275

Post by s1artibartfast » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:33 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #29

galangalalgol wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that outside of Japan, it is unusual for detached homes to depreciate in value. Apartments though you do have a point. Unless the location adds the value they will depreciate over time.

Detached houses almost always depreciate in value everywhere and require constant maintenance expenses just to keep from falling apart. It's the land under the house that appreciates in value. People often mix those two numbers up.

Not my experience. Cost to rebuild and cost/sqft seem to outpace inflation.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#276

Post by whatever1 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:35 AM UTC

Schiendelman wrote: post #263

whatever1 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely is a negative feedback loop. So I expect the trend to accelerate as long as foreign investment keeps flowing into the US in the same rates

Other than people claiming it, what actual evidence have you seen that foreign investment would be a problem if we weren't restricting housing supply?

If it is just internal money the bubble will burst. If you have the entire world pouring cash to bid on us real estate it can really go to almost infinity

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#277

Post by BrenBarn » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:35 AM UTC

This makes sense, but as far as I can tell it doesn't really answer the question of whether the housing crisis is driven by "monopolies and the corruption of big business". It just rebuts a particular article's claims about whether the housing market is driven by monopolies in the homebuilding industry. But I would say the issue is larger than that. Monopolies and corruption in general have led to great wealth inequality and that is at least exacerbating (if not driving) a housing crisis in many places.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#278

Post by phendrenad2 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:36 AM UTC

Too often people hear that some lions escaped from the zoo, and then hear that shoplifting went up, and decide that the lions must be robbing convenience stores.

Sometimes a problem and a cause don't snap together so obviously. I'm no fan of private equity but I've tried to inject some perspective into discussions on HN where people automatically assume that "private equity has operated in a space" and "there are problems in the space" form a complete mathematical equation and we don't need to look beyond them for any other factors.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#279

Post by stale2002 » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:37 AM UTC

wredcoll wrote: post #207

tptacek wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise here is investors that just continually buy up all the supply, even as supply continues to increase, in the hopes that some day housing, the single largest asset class in the United States, will reach the limit of all possible supply? You don't feel like this is "spherical cow" calculating? The amount of investor-owned housing in most metro markets is a rounding error, and the amount of vacant investor-ow…

I'm trying to track this argument through this thread but I feel like something has gotten lost here, is there someone arguing against increasing the housing supply? Like, did someone upthread say something like "no, I think we should not build more houses"? Or is the argument that merely building more houses isn't sufficient? (Also presumably you could build an infinite amount of houses , but the land itself is some…

> is there someone arguing against increasing the housing supply?

Yes. The central thesis of the blog post is that increasing the housing supply solves the housing price issues.

And other people in this thread are going: "Uhh, well actually, have you considered that this is the fault of wealthy investors, and/or collusion or something"?

Anything to distract from the extremely simply and obvious idea that building more housing causes prices to fall.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#280

Post by quodlibetor » Fri, Aug 01, 2025, 2:39 AM UTC

ch4s3 wrote: post #218

quodlibetor wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a few tenths of a percentage point of NYC Feb 2024 (last year there's data, I think) was a record low and it was 1.4% empty, according to NYC[1]. But I don't really know the methodology, and according to other nyc gov data it's surprising, since we still haven't recovered our population from COVID[2]. The first statistic (housing pressure) is based on population growth, but the NYC population statistics suggest sti…

Vacancy doesn’t mean units held empty as either a parking place for cash or held off the market. Vacancy happens when you’re painting and repairing between rentals. Vacancy happens when there’s a renovation. Things like that are normal and not nefarious. Have 1.4% vacancy rate means there is essentially no usable housing for rent. I was talking about the myth that there are tons of apartments held by rich people who…

My understanding is that vacancy means available units for rent. So, plausibly, if you say 50 of the 100 units in your building aren't available for rent because you say they're being painted then they don't contribute to the vacancy of your building.

That's almost the exact opposite of your definition, but I agree that a 1.4% vacancy rate means there's almost nothing available for rent.

I'm having trouble finding an official definition from a source that reports them, but my definition matches things that I can find online, eg https://www.brickunderground.com/rent/vacancy-rate-what-does...