downpunxx
pinkdrunkenelephantsThe issue here is buying power is dramatically dropping which is a function of both wages and prices. Raising the minimum wage alone won’t fix that; instead, price controls will have to be implemented such that all housing is bought back down to prices that are satisfactory to consumers. That can’t happen without federal legislation.
Rent control is absolutely not the solution. Building more is the solution.
Only for it to be snapped up by corporate interests and not handed to the families that actually need it.
We need a list of all of the families and single people looking for a primary residence, build new housing, and just give it to them first. No buying allowed.
Ehhh, you’ve got the right spirit, but that won’t happen lol.
What would be useful is banning, or at least limiting, speculative real estate ownership. A liveable home being unoccupied for no productive reason is a massively arrogant thing for a society to allow.
How about regulating all the big companies - prohibit sitting on apartments to drive up rents, limit Airbnbs,that sort of thing.
How would limiting housing get more housing, exactly?
Where does he say “limiting housing”?
“prohibit sitting on apartments to raise rent” which idk what it even theoretically means, and limiting AirBnBs, are both means of constraining housing.
prohibit sitting on apartments to raise rent - prohibit leaving apartments empty to keep rent high
Limiting air bnbs - keep housing for permanent resident rather than short term rent
You don’t need to keep a short term rental to not limit housing. Otherwise hotel rooms that can be upwards of $300 would count as houses.
prohibit leaving apartments empty to raise rent
Gonna need to see some citations on that happening, and reasoning as to why someone is not allowed to not rent out their property.
If you limit AirBnBs you’re just directly limiting housing, and there’s no other way to even begin to phrase that.
Hotel rooms won’t ever count as houses because you don’t own them, the hotel does.
We already know how this game works. Play Monopoly for a demonstration…
You mean the game where you try to make as much rent a possible by building as many retail spaces as possible?
Some estimates put the number of vacant homes upwards of 30% a few months back, and it’s been climbing
It’s not about a lack of supply, it’s about homes being both an investment and a basic need - someone like Black Rock can go into a small town in Georgia, snap up every property that goes on the market, then dictate rental prices while jacking up the house prices by bidding on everything. Even if they greatly overpay, by doing it a few times it drives up the valuation of the entire area, overall making their net profit grow
And it’s not just Black Rock, it’s a bunch of investment companies doing this everywhere. They have the same goal and their interests are aligned - they’re not competing for tenants, they just want to jack up the values and use homes like stock investments
Some estimates put the number of vacant homes upwards of 30% a few months back, and it’s been climbing
It’s not about a lack of supply, it’s about homes being both an investment and a basic need - someone like Black Rock can go into a small town in Georgia, snap up every property that goes on the market, then dictate rental prices while jacking up the house prices by bidding on everything. Even if they greatly overpay, by doing it a few times it drives up the valuation of the entire area, overall making their net profit grow
And it’s not just Black Rock, it’s a bunch of investment companies doing this everywhere. They have the same goal and their interests are aligned - they’re not competing for tenants, they just want to jack up the values and use homes like stock investments
You cannot say it is not about lack of supply in the same sentence you mention housing being an investment and expect to be taken seriously.
Housing is a good investment specifically because of lack of supply.
Most of the problem isn’t even big companies, but existing neighborhoods/local gov being pressured not to change their existing neighborhood, and passing zoning ordinances that prevent building.
I think the point he is trying to make is that basic needs being conflated with investments is bad, which is a fair point. If rentseeking behavior was much more heavily regulated we would see a sudden spike in housing supply as it wouldn’t be an investment in a passive income source anymore.
The rentseeking behavior being, of course, passive legislation restricting where one can build multi-family housing and not charging rent
In my area of the country (mid-south), home prices were pretty low until the last couple of years. I bought a 3000 ft² house in 2020 for <100k in a city. Now, a similar sized house is going for >500k. A lot of homes were bought by individuals and property management companies who did some cosmetic renovations then raised rents sometimes by >200%.
Other properties are bought and left vacant on purpose to make sure the renters don’t have other places to go.
I’m not sure what you’re missing. Speculation only happens when a market is already tight and profit can be basically guaranteed. Build more and this incentive goes away.
No one is keeping houses vacant to turn away paying renters. That’s nonsense.
you forgot that most country which has this house price problem actually build houses and apartment more than enough for all the homeless hence you would see lots of ghost town everywhere, economy now doesnt work as intended, you can build more house but without regulation despite the supply the price would still skyrocket like now
I didn’t forget anything. If we had an excess supply of houses, prices would be trending down, not up.
The housing market isn’t black magic. It’s just a market.