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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

#481

Post by littlestymaar »

999900000999 wrote: post #352

Excessive regulation is 90% of it. Here's how a rational market works. If I build an apartment complex, eventually those apartments will get older and more affordable. And even before that upper middle class folks will move in, freeing up their previous homes. But that's not how many in local governments see it. So you have affordable housing quotas on new developments. You have developers building units for the home…

> Excessive regulation is 90% of it.

If it was, then the housing price would be correlated with the level of regulation, but it's not (housing less dense places is always cheaper than housing in big cities, even if you compare the most heavily regulated place on earth with the least regulated big city in the world.

> Here's how a rational market works.

A rational market made from human is as realistic as “dry water”.

The key issue is that housing is treated as an asset, and the policies made to boost housing construction are designed around building a market in a way that gives housing the same kind of financial yields as stocks. But while stock prices can grow because productivity increase, housing value can only increase if housing becomes more expensive.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#482

Post by littlestymaar »

ghiculescu wrote: post #478
podgorniy wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Excessive regulation is 90% of it. Housing crisis is observed in almost all what is called "first world" (europe, japan, usa). I believe that 90% of the issue is more global than a regulation.

Is there a housing specific crisis? Or is inflation impacting housing like it impacts everything?

Housing prices have skyrocketed in the developed world since the 90s, and it has nothing to do with inflation (as the inflation in the 90s — early 2000s was very limited).

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#483

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

bullfightonmars wrote: post #23
tiahura wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they build $10,000 Ford Rangers anymore?

The same reason housing isn't being built, it was regulated out of existence.

It's simplistic to say that the US car market is "regulated out of existence".

Consider how huge trucks that mow down children because they can't even be seen over the hood are unregulated, even incentivised. (1)

Wrong regulation, maybe. But not merely "too much regulation".

1)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36480122

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar...

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24139147/suvs-trucks-popu...

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#484

Post by dlcarrier »

grafmax wrote: post #480
dlcarrier wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market rate housing doesn't need to trickle down. Most NIMBY regulations focus on the prevention of building low-value housing. Let developers flood the market with small, high density units, and they'll be cheap right away.

Developers are incentivized to build whatever units are most profitable, not what lowest income people need. More expensive units make more money. Besides that, land and construction are both limited resources that constrain developers ability to “flood the market with small, high density units.” For example in high-land-value urban areas, developers need to build expensive units to be able to make a profit.

Yes, developers are incentivized to build whatever units are most profitable, but the price per square foot is much higher for small units than for large units, so without regulations prohibiting high-density projects, you'll end up with far more units for a given amount of resources. Instead of building 20 units of 2,000 sq ft, if allowed a developer could instead build 40 units of 1,000 sq ft, for a similar cost, and sell them for less per unit but more per square foot. Without using any more land, foundation, or roofing, and only needing extra fixtures and interior walls, it would reduce the labor and materials needed per unit, while increasing the income.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#485

Post by grafmax »

tptacek wrote: post #134
nathan_compton wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is good, but the phrase "antitrust left" really turned me off. I am probably some kind of a leftist (I want higher taxes on rich people and a society much more welfare oriented with a substantial degree of labor and resource allocation performed democratically instead of by markets) but I don't know a single leftist who actually cares about this housing shit except to think that houses should be cheaper…

I live in a very wealthy, extraordinarily progressive muni (almost certainly in the top 5 nationally), and my primary political project is zoning reform, and I assure you that left-NIMBYism is a thing, and that the "we should make blue state governments perform better and increase supply of things people want" thesis of "Abundance" (Thompson and Klein's book) is a bête noire among those leftists. The argument isn't t…

> Klein and Thompson's political project is a plan to organize the Democrats.

“Abundance” appeals to the financial backers of the Democratic Party because deregulation doesn’t threaten them. But our problems are much graver that what YIMBYism can address: authoritarianism, climate change, austerity, warmongering toward China.

It’s because the wealthy block left-wing populism that so many people have turned to right-wing populism. Which is only making our problems worse.

At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before society cracks. There’s a good chance it doesn’t end well for the financial backers of “abundance.”

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#486

Post by pbhjpbhj »

grafmax wrote: post #480
dlcarrier wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market rate housing doesn't need to trickle down. Most NIMBY regulations focus on the prevention of building low-value housing. Let developers flood the market with small, high density units, and they'll be cheap right away.

Developers are incentivized to build whatever units are most profitable, not what lowest income people need. More expensive units make more money. Besides that, land and construction are both limited resources that constrain developers ability to “flood the market with small, high density units.” For example in high-land-value urban areas, developers need to build expensive units to be able to make a profit.

Western Democracies usually (always?) have planning laws that allow for democratic (ie for the benefit of the people) building plans. In short, we don't have to allow developers to choose.

We could equally levy pressure to improve quality.

In UK, house price inflation has well outstripped material and wage inflation, we should be getting exceptional housing that fits the need of the demos.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#487

Post by JackFr »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #400
eddythompson80 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true for NYT as OP mentioned. NYT is 170 years old. They have been through many phases and models. Luckily NYT is a public company and you can look up their revenue split on the SEC website going back to 1994. In 1994 they had 35% revenue from circulation vs 65% from ads. In 2021 it was 24% ads and 68% subscribers and 8% "Other"

The Washington Post is also a public company (before 2013). In their 2009 filing, they state that the newspaper's revenue (in 2008) was 51% ads, with the other 49% not attributed. At that time operating expenses exceeded revenues by 25 million dollars, though this was not an immediate problem for them because they owned several other more profitable companies. By contrast, in that same year the New York Times announc…

> by securing a large personal loan from Carlos Slim, who went on to become their biggest shareholder.

NYT has dual class shares. It’s run by the Sulzberger family despite Slim’s stake.

They are rich, but not billionaires.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#488

Post by johnisgood »

tptacek wrote: post #371
woooooo wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's standard among self-described leftists, to distinguish themselves from establishment liberals. I'm not even very far left and I identify with the term because party leadership are all 80yo and out of touch.

"Liberal" is an epithet here too (I'm a liberal, for whatever that's worth).

I am a libertarian (anarcho-capitalist) but people do not know the differences and similarities to liberal, because both has the prefix "liber".

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#489

Post by __turbobrew__ »

tomrod wrote: post #341
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but if real estate prices half the city can just double the tax from 0.5% to 1%? Correct?

Yes, but every elected official will lose their job at that millage rate increase and you'll have riots.

Why? If the real estate prices half and the municipality doubles the tax rate, everyone pays the same amount of tax in dollars per year?

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#490

Post by dlcarrier »

once_inc wrote: post #473
dlcarrier wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every metal, and really every commodity, has has recent price hikes above the official BLS CPI numbers. That says far more about official inflation numbers than it does commodity markets.

This! Since our money is being inflated away, hard assets like precious metals, bitcoin, and real estate get bid up because those with cash bleed out purchasing power.

    those with cash bleed out purchasing power
I like to call that "inflation".
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