Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 86 posts

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#71

Post by pavlov »

kerbs wrote: post #67
pavlov wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it’s the other way around? Real estate is a thing the government can’t print. When its value goes down, it becomes more affordable to people with savings in fiat.

If you’re the kind of person who has cash to buy a house (or a significant down payment), what are the odds those assets were in cash and didn’t go down with the greater market? Feels like a very narrow slice that would be cash-heavy over the last 1-2 years that would benefit from whatever size a house drop ends up being.

Sure, but the poster seemed to imply there as an asset class of “savings in things that the government can't print” which has done well lately. And I don’t understand what they’re talking about because cash is clearly the best performer.

It sounds like a goldbug/crypto argument, but gold is down and Bitcoin is down the toilet, so that can’t be it…

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#72

Post by arcticbull »

ericmay wrote: post #55
arcticbull wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, Japan hasn't seen population growth. I don't know why this is everyone's immediate reaction. I'm saying housing is governed by supply and demand. If you want to drop prices you can either increase supply or decrease demand. They allowed supply to meet demand by increasing supply into flat... ish demand. ([edit] SF and Tokyo both grew ~10% from the mid 90s). So the system works :) > I have a lot of sympathy fo…

Hong Kong is a fragile anti pattern of artificially high density enabled by fossil fuels. We don’t want that (though it’s less bad than the suburbs, but just barely). What we need to continue to strive for is medium density, where you have a mix of housing types and transit options, and also work options. In this mode you have a good density level that is in harmony with the surrounding environment, but you can also…

In terms of carbon footprint, Hong Kong is actually very good.

2021 is showing about 4.37 metric tons per capita, and if you assume the rough contribution of power remained constant after 2011 ([1]) the overwhelming majority of that continues to be simply their almost complete reliance on coal, natural gas and oil power. If you exclude power, the per-capita CO2 emissions are around 1.6T

For comparison the lowest CO2 footprint city in the USA is New York at 5.38 and second-highest is San Francisco at 7.12 [2].

The HK figure is from 2021 while the US figures are from 2019 so that's not entirely fair. In 2019, HK had roughly 6T per capita CO2 emissions, putting it directly between NYC and SF - the two lowest emitting cities in the US.

With respect, I do want that! I want that very much.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/china-hong-kong-...

[2] https://www.magnifymoney.com/news/cities-with-largest-co2-fo...

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#73

Post by soulofmischief »

arcticbull wrote: post #33
cm2187 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population growth. The city centre doesn't expand but the demand for it does. And logically it should also be a hedge against inflation. I am not sure that our modern economies have the stomach for what it takes to rein in inflation (too leveraged).

Zoning. The city center is free to expand upward just about as much as we let it, but the problem is we don't let it so that we can enrich the existing landholders (they are the voting class after all). The city of San Francisco is a prime example. The city makes is utterly impossible to build anything. From 2012 to 2016, SF metro added 373,000 jobs and only 58,000 new houses. The entire western half the city is hard…

You had me until "federalize zoning". That's a huge step in the wrong direction. We need to fix local politics, not give the already overextended federal government even more control over states.

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#74

Post by [deleted] »

soulofmischief wrote: post #73
arcticbull wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning. The city center is free to expand upward just about as much as we let it, but the problem is we don't let it so that we can enrich the existing landholders (they are the voting class after all). The city of San Francisco is a prime example. The city makes is utterly impossible to build anything. From 2012 to 2016, SF metro added 373,000 jobs and only 58,000 new houses. The entire western half the city is hard…

You had me until "federalize zoning". That's a huge step in the wrong direction. We need to fix local politics, not give the already overextended federal government even more control over states.

[deleted]

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#75

Post by arcticbull »

soulofmischief wrote: post #73
arcticbull wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning. The city center is free to expand upward just about as much as we let it, but the problem is we don't let it so that we can enrich the existing landholders (they are the voting class after all). The city of San Francisco is a prime example. The city makes is utterly impossible to build anything. From 2012 to 2016, SF metro added 373,000 jobs and only 58,000 new houses. The entire western half the city is hard…

You had me until "federalize zoning". That's a huge step in the wrong direction. We need to fix local politics, not give the already overextended federal government even more control over states.

My argument is simply that the further you remove the decision makers from the decision impact the less involved they'll be. Normally this is a problem, but in cases where the issue is that decision makers are too close this becomes a solution.

So far the state of California has been the one to allow duplexes, California has been the one to require new construction in SF, California has been the one to allow density near transit etc, all while the local councils fight tooth and nail. Atherton even shut down their Caltrain station so they didn't have to comply!

I want less control so I want to pull that up to a higher level where all but the most egregious abuses will be completely ignored. The Feds couldn't care less about a shadow over a park. An "already overextended federal government" running this is a feature! :)

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#76

Post by soulofmischief »

arcticbull wrote: post #75
soulofmischief wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had me until "federalize zoning". That's a huge step in the wrong direction. We need to fix local politics, not give the already overextended federal government even more control over states.

My argument is simply that the further you remove the decision makers from the decision impact the less involved they'll be. Normally this is a problem, but in cases where the issue is that decision makers are too close this becomes a solution. So far the state of California has been the one to allow duplexes, California has been the one to require new construction in SF, California has been the one to allow density…

No amount of justification can uphold such federal zoning legislation.

The traditional model is that parent governments offer benefits which embedded governments can access by adhering to certain mandates. This is the exact situation now where cities in California are already ignoring housing regulations.

Moving zoning responsibilities up the chain of command won't fix this, unless your plan is to send in the National Guard. We need to fix the broken relationship between state and city. I don't understand where federal government comes into this.

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#77

Post by pharmakom »

benj111 wrote: post #65
vasco wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd choose a young person getting their first home over an old person moving to Florida, but I'm a young person so I'm biased.

The pensioner who can't afford to move to Florida is now staying in their nice big family home, instead of selling it to a young growing family. Also that pensioner may now be a drain on the state, so it isn't a simple choice. I don't disagree with your broader point though. This (high house prices) is basically a massive transfer of wealth from the young to the old. Unfortunately the old are the ones that tend to vo…

More old people than young so it doesn’t even matter if the young do organise.

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#78

Post by ericmay »

arcticbull wrote: post #72
ericmay wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hong Kong is a fragile anti pattern of artificially high density enabled by fossil fuels. We don’t want that (though it’s less bad than the suburbs, but just barely). What we need to continue to strive for is medium density, where you have a mix of housing types and transit options, and also work options. In this mode you have a good density level that is in harmony with the surrounding environment, but you can also…

In terms of carbon footprint, Hong Kong is actually very good. 2021 is showing about 4.37 metric tons per capita, and if you assume the rough contribution of power remained constant after 2011 ([1]) the overwhelming majority of that continues to be simply their almost complete reliance on coal, natural gas and oil power. If you exclude power, the per-capita CO2 emissions are around 1.6T For comparison the lowest CO2…

Do these emissions take into account emissions caused by building the structures? Just curious as I really don’t know or know if it would make a difference.

Certainly if we wanted to minimize carbon footprint, something like Hong Kong is probably the best we can do right now, but at the same time residential homes have more capacity to add solar and to do things like repair their own home or open the windows to let a breeze in. I guess what I see is the fossil fuel based infrastructure that’s required to build and maintain these large skyscrapers that is of concern. Skyscrapers are monolith.

Aside from that though I also think mega cities are a little bit fragile in their centralization versus something more akin to Europe (and similarly elsewhere) where you have towns and villages and farms with local producers. They also IMO are not as psychologically healthy as compared to smaller towns or smaller, less ominous cities landscape.

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#79

Post by arcticbull »

soulofmischief wrote: post #76
arcticbull wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument is simply that the further you remove the decision makers from the decision impact the less involved they'll be. Normally this is a problem, but in cases where the issue is that decision makers are too close this becomes a solution. So far the state of California has been the one to allow duplexes, California has been the one to require new construction in SF, California has been the one to allow density…

No amount of justification can uphold such federal zoning legislation. The traditional model is that parent governments offer benefits which embedded governments can access by adhering to certain mandates. This is the exact situation now where cities in California are already ignoring housing regulations. Moving zoning responsibilities up the chain of command won't fix this, unless your plan is to send in the Nationa…

> No amount of justification can uphold such federal zoning legislation.

Housing is interstate commerce, and the federal government has overruled local zoning rules in the past (satellite dishes in Chicago of all things). It appears to be quite legal, constitutional and precedented.

> Moving zoning responsibilities up the chain of command won't fix this, unless your plan is to send in the National Guard. We need to fix the broken relationship between state and city. I don't understand where federal government comes into this.

The ideal law would be similar to Japan's model: the federal government says housing is permitted in all zones and sets some consistent rules about what you can build and where. This framework would remove the silly arbitrary rules set up by councils to preclude reasonable land use in lieu of clear, consistent federal rules. Federal government sets the framework, municipalities execute.

Worth a read if you're curious what I'd like to see. [1]

[1] http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

Re: The global housing market is heading for a brutal downturn

#80

Post by benj111 »

pharmakom wrote: post #77
benj111 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pensioner who can't afford to move to Florida is now staying in their nice big family home, instead of selling it to a young growing family. Also that pensioner may now be a drain on the state, so it isn't a simple choice. I don't disagree with your broader point though. This (high house prices) is basically a massive transfer of wealth from the young to the old. Unfortunately the old are the ones that tend to vo…

More old people than young so it doesn’t even matter if the young do organise.

It depends how you define old.

Plus, no matter how you slice it it's still better to engage, than not.

Post reply on HN