551–560 of 1001 posts
My local grocery store has a “senior discount” of 10% off for anyone over 65. I find that sort of positive discrimination to be a gut punch to young families.
Young families also get discounts if they are poor, and have a much higher earning potential.
Given how abundant land is, does it imply that supply shortages are purely man-made? (e.g. policies not allowing large swaths of land to be built on). Otherwise it doesn't make sense that prices are high for a good (housing) whose primary input (land) is in great supply.
It's absolutely weird to see land go for $1m for a small lot, then 10 minutes drive there are cows grazing on huge acreage. Then if you do a 10 minute flight in any direction you can see thousands of hectares of empty, good, liveable land.
(This is in Australia)
I find it a bit strange that the article (and also a lot of the discussion here) does not discuss the size of these houses (in square meters per person), or alternatively the distribution of the sizes/areas. I grew up in a 20 square meter per person apartment (with multiple person living there, for a total size of 60 square meters) - and it was definitely not pleasant. But I feel that nowadays people also expect a lo…
I think part of the problem is there aren't 3rd places nearby in the suburbs, because that is the point, so people want more room to have to accommodate their needs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The OECD link you’ve provided shows the complete opposite of your point. The UK, Ireland, Canada, and New Zealand are at the bottom of % vacant dwellings indicating the opposite of underutilization.
Iirc, 20% of all bedrooms in UK are spare bedrooms in houses that are too big for their owners. This is indeed underutilization.
Stop subsidizing demand at the national level. Stop restricting supply at the local level.
That's not the problem at all. Stop allowing people to buy multiple homes. Stop allowing landlords to "collaborate" on prices.
The poors need to hold themselves accountable and stop working for unsustainable wages that can't get them even a small, run-down home. They continue to drive their own wages further and further down and make it that much harder for those that come after them.
It's ridiculous that they expect other people to sacrifice when they won't sacrifice (unionize, strike, or just opt out) to make the world a better, more equal place.
The wealthy will always try to squeeze everything out of the lower classes. If you accept unsustainable wages for your labor, you are part of the problem in devaluing labor (ie you are traffic). The working classes need to hold themselves accountable for the exploitation of their labor.
I think it is a mistake to write an entire article without talking about supply and demand. Demographics are one of the lest surprising things in statistics, they can sometimes be predicted decades out from an effect arriving. Housing construction is similarly easy to observe. I'd personally bet that there is a gentle imbalance appearing between how much energy the average person can lay claim to vs. how much they ne…
Unfortunately, there is excess demand generated by non-human corporate entities. There is not a supply/demand problem among humans-who-need-a-place-to-live. But there is investor demand for an investment vehicle that has the tax and asset benefits that homes offer. The consequence is that the buying power in the market by humans-who-need-a-place-to-live is relatively weak when they compete against financial investmen…
It is certainly possible to have situations where someone chooses to leave a house empty. If it is happening at scale then that suggests either tax or rental law is doing an unacceptable level of damage. Otherwise, why leave the house empty? It is giving up free money.
I bought in 2022, and while it was new construction, it's a pretty mid-range house. No premium finishes, in a growing but small city northwest of Houston. If you told me 10 years ago how much I paid for it, I'd ask what the name of my butler is.
Page 7 for AVG sale price: 2019: $485,128 2022: $644,750 AVG build cost: 2019: $296,792 2022: $392,241
People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…
1. Asset price inflation generally
2. Population growth (incl. immigration)
3. A lack of building (housing stock is inflexible, e.g.: if we need more two beds, then no number of 1 beds or 4+ beds is sufficient, really).
4. We are changing our ways of living (see 3), that’s partly social norms and partly demographic
5. Working from home changed the market. If the economic hub of your country is priced well above the national average excl. the hub, then WFH will see prices move towards the average incl. the hub, if not higher.
People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…
The worlds population has doubled since 1974. In every country listed the rate of new building construction has stayed roughly constant or declined since then. You can explain this phenomenon with an Econ 101 supply and demand curve without need for any further elaboration.
People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…
> This is a problem of underutilisation in my view. Too many properties are being used as investments and not as a primary residence. I've believed for a long time that heavily taxing income from second+ properties, similar to capital gains, would help reduce rent-seeker hoarding, to help free up and reduce the cost of properties for primary-residence owners.
These sorts of suggestions generally seem hugely biased towards buyers at the expense of everyone else.