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The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

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Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#521

Post by makeitdouble »

hugh-avherald wrote: post #479
makeitdouble wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gives me pause when an obvious action is actively rejected for decades, but still is asserted as a "simple" solution. It might be the _right_ solution, but if it failed to be adopted for so long it can't be that simple, isn't it ?

In this case, it really is simple. It's just the opposition is vehement.

Then it doesn’t satisfy the opposition’s requirement, and they happen to be stronger than the ones behind the “simple” solution.

They are an active party, so you can’t just say “it works, but only if these people don’t exist”. This means the “simple” solution only applies to an imaginary world, and an actual solution requires a lot more thought and adjustment to accommodate for the reality of the problem.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#524

Post by jfim »

mike50 wrote: post #515
bcrosby95 wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point. For example, when my siblings were kids we all lived in 1 house. I have 3 siblings so there were 6 of us including my parents. In 1 house. As we graduated from college we moved out. Now there were 6 of us in 5 houses. Beyond the raw house count, you're going to need more space. Multi-bedroom homes have shared common space. The house we grew up in had 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, 1 livin…

You don't need a dinning room. That's a luxury feature. It is possible to share bathrooms if you build housing more like school dooms or single room occupancy.

Having a place to eat at home is not a luxury feature, unless the city has a population density that is high enough to support having a broad array of dining options that are open for most of the day. Tokyo is one example of such a city, but having restaurants that are open 24x7 is not common at all in Europe.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#525

Post by daemoens »

nextos wrote: post #401
screye wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb and uber for all their benefits have taken away a lot of urban planning capabilities of local govts. At the same time, they expose the general unwillingness of local govts to accomodate the need of the population or those who bring in economic value (tourists, transplants). If you are becoming a tourist hub, then create an off-town tourist area and add a convenient transit line/people mover to the central part…

I truly agree with most of what you say. This famous article discusses why housing is becoming a huge problem everywhere and why that's super bad for the economy: https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-e... . It's been discussed here a few times, e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28531025 . The compromise Barcelona made is not enough. Sadly, that beautiful city is IMHO the prototypical ca…

Rent control usually causes rents to go up in the non-rent controlled areas. It just accelerates the unaffordability of all housing.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#526

Post by simplyaccont »

ginja wrote: post #458
mtw wrote: post #34

This is not just Portugal. I see similar sentiment in Canada where young professionals in Vancouver or Toronto complain they can't buy their first home and Vancouver has been "sold out" to foreigners. Similar sentiment in Australian major cities as well.

Yeah, but it's much worse in Portugal, especially Lisbon. Here are some median home price to median income ratios for various cities (from Numbeo: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Lisbon and corresponding pages for other cities): - Lisbon: 18.06 - Porto: 13.55 - Sydney: 9.09 - Melbourne: 7.05 - Vancouver: 12.62 - Toronto: 11.82 - San Francisco: 7.02 - Los Angeles: 7.47 - New York: 9.99

- Tel-Aviv: 20.42

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#527

Post by anderber »

In Minnesota they have a tax for homes that are not lived in full time for 6+ months of the year. I wonder if something like that would help curb the Airbnbs and investment purchases that happen so often in places like Lisbon.

Building more homes would help, of course, but all the expats want to live in the historic area (it seems), so those prices will still be driven up. From my visit there, a lot of the older folks were the ones still living in the old downtown area, waiting to be priced out of their homes.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#528

Post by selectodude »

WalterBright wrote: post #517
selectodude wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deflation deepens recessions and lowers investment. It is inherently bad. It has nothing to do with spending money without raising taxes. Countries that can borrow in their own currency can already do that in any environment. Heck, parts of Europe had negative interest rates to combat deflation.

> It has nothing to do with spending money without raising taxes. Where do you think Biden's trillions in extra spending is coming from? Not from raising taxes.

The US has been deficit spending basically every year since 1929. Its impact on inflation is pretty questionable.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=Tk32

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#529

Post by insaider »

Surely there's a global housing market crash coming in the near future? These prices are simply unsustainable combined with a decreasing population in the rich world and thus a massively decreased demand for housing.

Obviously there's local factors like Lisbon's desirability to foreigners, but from a global perspective, in the developed world...?

What am I missing?

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#530

Post by mr_toad »

_dain_ wrote: post #322
JoeJonathan wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is building more housing simple? If it were that straightforward, California (which has much more space and money) would have done it, and Californians wouldn't be moving to Portugal.

we somehow managed to build houses for thousands of years, so it can't be that hard, can it? the scarcity is entirely artificial.

There weren’t many building restrictions prior to the 20th century. Earthquakes, fires and wars provided a sort of natural urban renewal.
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