That’s exactly the point many people don’t seem to get. Yes, zoning more land for construction or lowering building cost might help but the key issue is that housing has become a major asset for the rich and especially institutional investors globally. There’s just so much money out there in search of investment opportunities but unlike stocks or Bitcoin housing is a core human need. Coupled with increasing wealth inequality and stagnant wages this is a major problem. When crypto or Nasdaq celebrate new records that’s nice for investors but when the property market goes up and up many people can no longer afford rent.
Privat property investors are part of the problem whether they like it or not. Given these circumstances I find it hard to imagine a solution that doesn’t include massive state intervention in the housing market.
Re: intervention
I think it’s a tough sell because building more housing density upsets current NIMBY citizens at the expense of future citizens. People who want to move to Austin, TX, for example, don’t have any say in who is on the city council today.
Housing policy is very much driven by people who want to pull the ladder up behind them and ride land appreciation into retirement.
I understand that the whole NIMBY paradigm is frustrating, but you have to look at it from their point of view. Imagine youve worked and saved for YEARS to buy a house for $250k. A few years later your city wants to build a homeless shelter right next door to you. Your housing value just fucking plummeted into the earth and is now actively burying itself. Your stuck paying off a loan that you’ll never recover from as the house is no longer worth what you paid for it. It’s the nightmare scenario. Sure…I get that people regard NIMBY’s as these entitled, rich pricks, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. A crash in your housing value like that would be financially devastating for MOST people.
I find this to be a bit of a straw man. We’re not talking about the worst case scenario here. We’re talking about a lot of simple changing of density so more people can live in an area. I own a single family home right across the street from apartments. My property values are fine. And a lot of the NIMBY stuff isn’t “I don’t want my property values going down.” It’s “I don’t want to live next to…you know…those people.” If people don’t want to live next door to a homeless shelter, that’s one thing. If they don’t want to live next to a 5-over-1, that’s quite another. That’s just life. The world doesn’t stop just because people want to live somewhere for 30 years and don’t want the neighborhood to change.
In a more holistic sense, we need to move away from the concept that your house should appreciate in value. Change the word “house” to “car” and people would think you’re crazy. Of course cars go down in value, why not housing? My understanding is that in Japan, homes do not appreciate. The concept that increases in home equity drive a lot of people’s wealth is what drives all of this.
