Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you do when that equilibrium point is hopelessly above what the average person can afford?
Remove parking minimums and work to address inequality? If that the case in Austin though?
it isn't
Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
751–760 of 1001 posts
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#752Earlier quoted context omitted.
> renting to be more expensive than a comparable mortgage. that doesn't sound plausible. May be for a select few properties that are in some unique circumstance (e.g., the seller of the property would sell underpriced because they needed quick sale). And often, in arguments like these, the rent is the rent, but the mortgage is purely the interest on the loan, and doesn't count the maintenance cost, and doesn't count…
I fundamentally agree on statement that rents are more expensive than mortgages. As capital is involved and landlords want premium on capital. Still, things can go either way. And well renting is lot more flexible and less risky. So there is really nothing wrong with that option existing. And many times it is the better pick of the two.
> And well renting is lot more flexible and less risky
Sure if you don't count the cost of risk for the tenant (of needing to move due to job loss, unexpected maintenance bills) then renting is more expensive.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#753Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why shouldn't housing, like any other goods, be as cheap as possible for as high quality as possible?
Because "cheap" government housing has never been "high quality" in the history of the world. Those two properties are antithetical. Humans don't have a ton of preferences for the electricity they consume or the water they drink, just that it exists. It's a commodity, so a good task for government. Housing is not an undifferentiated commodity and is subject to extreme variances in preference. Markets do differentiati…
The government housing in communist countries didn't actually have tiny windows, compared to the housing stock available at the time.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#754Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then everyone is forced to buy a house to live in, no matter what their situation or desires are. Of course we can stop collusion. What are you even talking about?
> Then everyone is forced to buy a house to live in, no matter what their situation or desires are. Great! Now we're talking real solutions that can actually help people :) > Of course we can stop collusion. What are you even talking about? Besides laws and regulation (which already exists and clearly isn't enough), what is your suggested solution for stopping collusion? Price fixing is/was already illegal in the US…
That's not helpful at all. There are many, many situations where you don't want to own. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434393 You're telling all these people "f** you"
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#755Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment violates site guidelines. "Assume good faith" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html What did you hope to do by saying this?
What is a better faith interpretation of downplaying gentrification like this? Like what do we talk about when we talk about gentrification if not this? Gp is not even, like, denying the concept, and literally saying that it is good (in a sarcastic way). It's not "better faith" to construct an entire alternative world for the user's comment to remove it from the actually existing implications of their point. I am not…
I refuse the premise that "gentrification" is purely negative. There are benefits and downsides. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434356
The downsides of not building new housing at all are even worse than "gentrification" and they fall even heavier on the poor. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434470
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#756Earlier quoted context omitted.
Immigration is not so obvious. Each immigrant contributes to both supply and demand.
Yes, supply of workers and demand for houses. So not only is mass immigration cutting wages, it's increasing the cost of living. British people are being squeezed between stationary salaries, rampant inflation, insane taxes and huge cost of living increases.
Also supply of houses and demand for workers.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#757Its wild how the solution to housing costs is really just: Build more housing. Keep law and order. No it doesn’t need to be “affordable”. Yes rent control is a terrible idea. Just build more housing. Note: that the US already has plenty of housing and housing costs basically go up in areas of low crime relative to economic opportunity. If you build housing, but allow crime to rise, you have wasted everybody’s time.
Build more housing and scale schools, police, and fire linearly per unit.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#758Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then everyone is forced to buy a house to live in, no matter what their situation or desires are. Great! Now we're talking real solutions that can actually help people :) > Of course we can stop collusion. What are you even talking about? Besides laws and regulation (which already exists and clearly isn't enough), what is your suggested solution for stopping collusion? Price fixing is/was already illegal in the US…
That's not helpful at all. There are many, many situations where you don't want to own. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434393 You're telling all these people "f** you"
I currently don't own, and I can't either, because I don't want to be stuck in one place for too long. If the prices where lower, where I could reliably buy, live for some years then sell again, without a huge amount of hassle, and not costing at least one million to buy some shitty apartment, then that'd be preferably.
And besides just having "real estate investors" slurping up all housing, people could own one house then rent out parts of it, or a collection of people could own their apartment building together, there are many other ways to make housing work that doesn't involve huge companies owning large parts of the market. A little bit of nuance goes a long way.
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#759Earlier quoted context omitted.
The concept of externality has a specific definition and you’re not addressing housing in those terms.
I'm not sure "externality" means what you think it means. Society being better off in many ways (more productive society, happier society, less crime-ridden society) is an example of multiple positive externalities resulting from its people being homed vs. homeless.
[deleted]
Re: Austin’s surge of new housing construction drove down rents
#760Earlier quoted context omitted.
Free markets for housing are likely to settle into an "optimum" where some percentage of people cannot afford housing at all, because while construction/rental of housing for them would net a return, it's not worth the opportunity cost. Plus you should not wait for the market to respond to a lack of housing: people will be homeless in the meantime. Supply/demand is mostly reactive, because building for anticipated fu…
Isn’t the initial response to a lack of housing that people consume less housing than they would like, rather than homelessness, eg families with children sharing rooms more than they might like, adults living with roommates, or just people having to live further away from where they would like to be (or moving out of a city altogether)? I don’t dispute that there are levels of affordability that are bad enough that…
It’s all fun and games games until you’re municipality starts banning adult co-living situations.
You underestimate how intrusive these people will be to protect the value of the single largest asset most of them will ever own