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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

#531

Post by gwd »

sillyfluke wrote: post #530
gwd wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone said they were anti monopoly, that the government should do something to prevent businesses from operating like that, I'd never expect them to be from the right to be honest. So consider several perspectives: a. The government should be in charge of, or at least heavily involved in, planning and organizing most resources in a country. b. The market is a good way of solving most problems, and it works bes…

> My sense is actually that the reason he talks that way is to make sure that people who consider themselves "on the left" don't mistake him for being someone "on the right" (and therefore in camp b), and immediately dismiss his claims. This is a tad naive I think. "antitrust left" is also to useful term to use to signal to the billionaire class of Democratic party that you are not their enemy. If the author actually…

Since the authors are arguing for removing a lot of current housing regulation, I have a hard time seeing how "the billionaire class of the Democratic Party" would consider them their enemy -- unless, of course they're mistaken for people in class b.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#532

Post by Applejinx »

eddythompson80 wrote: post #345
thaumasiotes wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's no different from the other papers and magazines. Paid subscriptions have never been a significant source of revenue to newspapers. They relied on advertisements, just like the websites that killed them.

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"

That's creepy when you consider how much subscription to ALL newspapers has collapsed between 1994 and 2021.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#533

Post by pembrook »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #360
pembrook wrote: post #195

While we’re debunking that can we debunk the weird leftist conspiracy theories around index fund companies like Blackrock “buying up all the residential homes.” Yes, the largest index fund company that sells investment products that allow people to invest in indexes (entire markets) is going to defacto be a custodian on holdings across the entire economy, including homes. Operating the funds offered in your 401k does…

While, I am not onboard with leftist conspiracy theories, I find the defense of BlackRock a little odd: "You have to force behaviors. At BlackRock, we are forcing behaviors." - Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock.

I won't defend Fink's role in pushing the whole 2010s ESG mania, but they were ultimately toothless in that too, because they are a glorified custodian of funds...nothing more.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#534

Post by AnthonyMouse »

grafmax wrote: post #503
dlcarrier wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, a…

It’s more than just extra fixtures and interior walls but bathrooms, kitchens, plumbing, and HVAC - some of the most expensive parts of a build. For example if a developer has 4,000 square foot of land, and it costs $1.6 million to build 4 units selling at $2.4 million total - vs costing $1.2 million to build a luxury unit selling at $2.2 million, they will build the single luxury unit. The overall price for the cons…

> It’s more than just extra fixtures and interior walls but bathrooms, kitchens, plumbing, and HVAC - some of the most expensive parts of a build.

That isn't necessarily saving anything. A 4000 square foot unit could very plausibly have four baths and HVAC zones, especially if it's a luxury unit.

Meanwhile not doing that is exactly the sort of thing the existing rules nefariously prohibit. Suppose you want to turn that 4000 square feet into eight studio units with a dorm-style shared kitchen and bathrooms. Now you've significantly lowered your construction costs while increasing the total you can sell for because you're offering eight units, so that becomes the most profitable thing as long as there are enough people who want lower rents more than space, except that hardly anywhere allows you to do it that way.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#535

Post by siwatanejo »

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…

> you can literally just claim a new highrise

> will block your sunlight and make you sad

If a high-rise blocks a single electron of my apartment's normal sunlight, it would definitely make me sad.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#536

Post by Sloowms »

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…

Throw out a made up percentage and proceed to start talking about rational markets as if they exist in the real world. I immediately know this analysis is going to be great. Older houses are obviously cheaper for some reason even though housing prices in city centers keep increasing. Poor people are the real problem for needing a place to live. With the conclusion that there is nothing that can be done and people just have to take it. That's abundance (jazz hands)

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#538

Post by ndileas »

siwatanejo wrote: post #535
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…

> you can literally just claim a new highrise > will block your sunlight and make you sad If a high-rise blocks a single electron of my apartment's normal sunlight, it would definitely make me sad.

Good news! You can't perceive the electrons in sunlight, only the photons.

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#539

Post by IFC_LLC »

peab wrote: post #282
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…

I had to break a lease on an apartment recently. The apartment was built in 2023 or 2024, marketed as a luxury apartment. We had no hot water for a month because they used a couple centralized tankless water heaters, and we happened to be the furthest away from the heaters - if they turned it too hot, it was burning hot for the apartments closer to it. Not only that, but the walls/floors were paper thin. We could hea…

Don't you love the feeling when your neighbor from upstairs seemingly plays bowling while horseback riding? (Especially when you found out that in reality he just dropped a penny on the floor that acts like a megaphone.)

Re: The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

#540

Post by gwd »

mft_ wrote: post #526
gwd wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why even bother calling it "left" at this point? Just say they're anti-monopoly. Is there really nobody on the right who are also anti-monopoly?

Because the underlying beliefs of a 'left' anti-monopolist and a 'right' anti-monopolist are likely very different, and similarly their proposed solutions and view of an ideal society will also diverge significantly? --- Also, it should be noted that we lack sufficiently concise but specific terms to use instead, and because alternative terms that are used are relative, and open to interpretation. e.g.: Many politica…

> Because the underlying beliefs of a 'left' anti-monopolist and a 'right' anti-monopolist are likely very different, and similarly their proposed solutions...?

Just curious, how "left" and "right" anti-monopolist solutions might be different? I mean, naturally some "left anti-monopolist" people might be in favor of governments taking over industries, but presumably that's not what most of the people in question are advocating at the moment.

> But when the term [populist] is applied to people as diverse as Corbyn, Sanders, and AOC on the one side, and Orban, Farage, and Trump on the other, it's nonsensical without much more explanation.

I don't think so. It's essentially an accusation that they haven't thought through the hard issues: they're saying "We're going to achieve X", when in fact X is simply not possible given the current state of play (or perhaps, not possible without significant negative consequences, like erosion of human rights or setting up an economic or ecological disaster further down the road).

Boris Johnson's promise to conservatives that they'd be able to "make a deal" which allowed them to trade freely with Europe while not accepting immigrants from Europe was just a fantasy. A lot of populist "progressive" politicians make similar kinds of promises.

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