Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada • Hacker News Board

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#51

Post by loeg » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 1:42 AM UTC

cyberax wrote: post #29

rfrey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim that increasing housing supply would increase prices probably requires some argument.

Preventing increase in _density_ leads to better outcomes long-term. It sounds crazy, right? Supply/demand, and all of that. But it's an example of one of the things in economics where the effects end up being different because of collective actions. As a result, no large growing city within the US within the last 30 years managed to lower down housing prices by increasing density. I checked that using the Census sta…

Are we talking about the same Austin, TX?

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/22926/aust...

Its population continues to grow. Basically monotonically increasing.

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#52

Post by mitthrowaway2 » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 6:01 AM UTC

9rx wrote: post #49

twixfel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or build more housing there.

New houses generally cost more than used houses. If people already think a used house is more than they can afford, who is going to pay even more to build a new house? If you truly believe you can build new houses in Vancouver for less than the cost of its used houses, you've found one amazing arbitrage opportunity. You should be asking yourself why investors aren't lined up at your door.

Building new houses reduces the cost of used houses!

Coincidentally, the price of used cars went way up during the pandemic, right when the supply of new cars was bottlenecked by industry shutdowns and a global semiconductor shortage. Even though new cars generally cost more than used cars. Strange but true!

Re: Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

#53

Post by 9rx » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 1:35 PM UTC

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #52

9rx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New houses generally cost more than used houses. If people already think a used house is more than they can afford, who is going to pay even more to build a new house? If you truly believe you can build new houses in Vancouver for less than the cost of its used houses, you've found one amazing arbitrage opportunity. You should be asking yourself why investors aren't lined up at your door.

Building new houses reduces the cost of used houses! Coincidentally, the price of used cars went way up during the pandemic, right when the supply of new cars was bottlenecked by industry shutdowns and a global semiconductor shortage. Even though new cars generally cost more than used cars. Strange but true!

> Building new houses reduces the cost of used houses!

You're not wrong if you live in a house inside a vacuum, but, again, in the real world, if people are already struggling with the used price, who is going to pay even more to build new?

As surprising as it may be, houses won't magically materialize on the back of hopes and dreams. They require intense amounts of real labour to build and labour isn't going to show up if you aren't throwing copious amounts of money constantly in their face. If nobody wants to pay that labour the unfathomable amounts of money they require, a house is not getting built.

> Strange but true!

Not particularly strange, but cars are now stuck in the same situation, with the price of new cars having become prohibitively expensive and used cars are failing to come back down even as supply chains are no longer bottlenecked. In fact, the assembly plant near me just closed citing weak demand, so it seems there is even excess capacity. Much like houses, cars don't magically materialize either. They need willing buyers. But if you have no willing buyers...