Seriously, start building more houses.

Posted in: s/US-politics

👤 nikhotmsk

Feb 05 · 3 months ago · 🤔 1

12 Comments ↓

🍀 gritty · Feb 05 at 23:17:

but only ones that the upper class can afford

🐐 satch · Feb 05 at 23:17:

What? This is absurd. You have no idea how many houses we are building that are left unsold and just sit there rotting. Building more houses won't fix anything.

🐐 satch · Feb 05 at 23:18:

@gritty knows what's up

🕹️ skyjake [mod...] · Feb 06 at 08:14:

@nikhotmsk If you really want people here to seriously debate this, maybe present some arguments for and against?

👤 nikhotmsk [OP] · Feb 06 at 17:57:

I have a hypothesis that the cost of renting a house depends on supply. This is true for any consumer good, you produce more, the price goes down. Something is blocking supply of new houses in Unated States, thus no one can afford a home anymore. This is generally a bad thing. But you can fix it by building a lot of affordable housing.

There is a video about this, which explain why it is so important. /

The author may sound a bit explicit (always was), but give him some credit. It is the most comprehensive video i know on a subject.

— the video

🐐 satch · Feb 06 at 18:25:

I haven't watched the video so I am not responding to it; I am sure he makes some good points. But I would like to enter into discussion that the price of housing is kept artificially high by banks who want consumers to have collateral to borrow against.

This means that the housing which is currently built (there are lots of new homes in the US which were built in the past several years and have never been inhabited) cannot be sold for afforable prices as that would lower the cost of housing across the board and hurt the borrowing (and therefore spending) power of consumers, which would really hurt banks and the whole economy.

🐐 satch · Feb 06 at 18:33:

That's part of why we have a homeless population: if there was housing afforable enough for really poor people then more people might choose to live modestly and spend less on housing, which would bring down the prices of housing across the board and banks can't have that. I might be getting the details wrong but that's my general understanding of the situation.

The mechanism by which banks keep housing prices artificially inflated is by letting people take out large loans. If the bank gives everyone big loans, then they can all bid higher on the house and are all incentivized to do so to get the best house possible.

👤 nikhotmsk [OP] · Feb 06 at 20:36:

Sounds like a fraud.

🐐 Steve_Dracula · Feb 07 at 03:10:

Most things are.

👤 jdcard · Feb 07 at 13:58:

Show me the data! We have claims about "not enough" or "lots of" but no numbers to work with.

🐐 satch · Feb 07 at 14:17:

@jcard I’m just sharing ideas, not trying to prove anything. Other people have done that who are better qualified. This type of data is not so hard to find online these days!

👤 nikhotmsk [OP] · Feb 09 at 13:11:

@jdcard I cant tell the exact numbers. The price compared to average income is probably a good indirect measure. Also, if the price changes over time more then 200 percent, it shows something wrong.

— Price change to population change chart

There is a fix, building more affordable houses, abolish regulations, look how other places have the same issue fixed. It is important because it directly affects quality of life.