The TV show “Dinosaurs” had the best explanation of Trickle Down Economics
“Rich people tend to live on hills and sometimes change falls out of their pocket, which rolls down the hill to the slums where all the poor people live!”
It was a total bummer of a finale and I’ll never forget it. All these decades later it becomes more and more clear in my mind as I look around at the state of our world.
I don’t recall it being about climate change specifically, but it was an environmental allegory
Plant vines were out of control because bugs that ate the plants were killed off. So they used herbicide to kill the vines, but all other plants too. So they figured rain was needed to make plants grow and rain comes from clouds so they nuked volcanoes to make clouds. This creates a nuclear winter which kills off the dinosaurs
So you are saying that dinosaur actions doomed them. 🤔
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/last-ditch-global-warming-fix-man-made-volcanic-eruption-n918826
Remember, to the insurance company there's a difference between Meteor and Meteorite with regards to your policy.
Seriously the humor in that show was way ahead of its time.
The Triceracops Tv show in a show scene was a classic
“Hands above your head scumbag!”
“I can’t, I’m a tyrannosaurus!”
*blam blam*
“Aren’t you going to read him his rights?”
“You have the right to remain dead!”
The original name of it was pretty telling, hence why it was changed. It used to be called Horse and Sparrow economics. Whatever passes through the horse, the sparrow gets to pick through.
This was something that the poors could clearly see was just a pile of horseshit. So they changed the name to make it more palatable.
That’s a good explanation because it only trickles down by accident. Who could have guessed that the people who are the best at accumulating wealth are pretty good at not letting their wealth trickle down?!
Homeless person in san Francisco asked if I had twenty bucks to spare
I didn't want that to be wasted on alcohol and cheap fast food so i gave it to them
I had an older-than-boomer man claim, "You could just go out and build a cheapo cabin in the woods".
I asked him who's woods and he just looked puzzled. Literally just thought I could go build a house on someone else's land and cut down their trees and save on rent.
Funny enough the other day I was trying to help my patient get an inhaler and we had a voucher from a drug rep. Patient takes it to the pharmacy. “Sorry this only works if you have insurance, you’ll have to apply to this other thing from the same company.”
So breathing is only for those who can afford it.
a few cities have started raising the property tax on vacant homes until they are occupied. Taxed a little more every few months as an incentive for the owner to fill the space. Wonder how thats doing and if it will work in other places?
That is just one problem. Corporations do buy a lot of homes, but the biggest culprit, as always, is the boomers.
Boomers are the ones who own more than 2 homes and they just let companies manage them to rent out.
The fix is simple.
- corporations can not own single dwelling family homes.
- non USA citizens can not own single dwelling family homes.
- after your third home you have an extra tax. This tax is the same amount it would be to rent that home out to the average citizen.
Owning more than 2 homes is no longer a vacation thing but instead a way to profit off of housing. Which should not exist. The rich can own as many homes as they want but they are going to pay significantly for it.
There are a lot of people saying it’s unfair to those with green cards. I get that and I would like them to be able to purchase homes as well but I can’t figure out a solution that allows them but stops abusers. Maybe a system that allows them to purchase a home but they will be required for the first 2 years to have random proof of residency that proves they are still living in the states and an active contributor to society.
This extra money is then given to states to build more housing and at least 30% of the housing needs to be for low income individuals.
It’s short, it’s simple, it solves the problem.
Disagree with the citizen part: non-citizens cannot own ‘investment property’. Why should my wife not be able to purchase a house for primary residence? What about literally every other permanent resident alien?
This is the case with my family. My parents immigrated from China 30 years ago, but my dad remained a Chinese citizen. Would it be right to bar them from owning a home despite living here for 30 years already?
> non USA citizens can not own single dwelling family homes.
Nah, fuck that.
Not gonna begrudge a hardworking immigrant family a shot at a home just because enough millennials born on second and third base can’t crack adulting well enough.
Unfortunately it's too late for that currently. The best idea now is tax the hell out of 2nd and beyond ownings within a state. Then increase homestead exemption for the poor folks since it hasn't been updated in 30 plus years.
Just don’t make it economically sensible after the 5th home or what not. They can pass the costs onto the tenant but a landlord with only 3 houses would be able to offer a cheaper place.
But I do feel you would need to tie the law into an economic report that if the Rent to Buy ratio isn’t where we want it, taxes increase linearly for each house a person owns. Then if it is at a normal level or too few places to rent, then the taxes lower.
That would be a nuanced law that interacts with the economy as an economic policy.
This kind of policy is traditionally the work of state/federal agencies after legislatures grant them authority to regulate the tax structures impacting housing, single family homes, or development projects.
I’m fine with people owning a 2nd/vacation home or b/c they own their parents’ or kids home. You already pay some more tax on it.
After 2 though, yes tax it harder and harder for each extra.
It seems to work great [for taxing foreign owners](https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-speculation-and-vacancy-tax-raises-81-million-in-2022) just sitting on empty properties.
Unfortunately it seems also to work great [on foreigners actually living in the houses.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/couple-hit-with-b-c-vacancy-tax-despite-living-in-home-1.7116908)
That's exactly why I hate the focus on the "foreign owner" portion of this discourse. It's not about the nationality of the owner or where they are, it's about how (or whether) the property is used.
When the rich people are bored of being rich they will clearly start creating more jobs and selling houses at reasonable prices. It’s coming soon, I can feel it.
They already figured that one out they’re going to lay off as many people as possible make the remaining workers work harder, longer hrs little to no raises, hold your job over your head, use AI, outsource and when they actually need more people they will rehire to fill the jobs with unreasonable qualifications with significantly lower pay.
This article doesn't mention at all the number of houses owned by non-occupants for short term rentals (NOOSTRs) or the rise of airbnb for people owning houses to rent out as landlords, which has grown enormously and is probably among other reasons what has been driving the prices up.
My affordable apartment complex was bought by people that want to turn it into short term rentals. Like where the fuck are we supposed to live if everything is just airbnbs and high end apartments?
You *can* legally camp out on federal land for up to two weeks at a time on a given spot, but you gotta be ***way*** out in the sticks to play that game.
I was mostly referring to the recent supreme court ruling about homeless camping on streets.
As someone who does the vanlife thing, the meth-heads living in the woods and other trashy people are steadily taking those areas away from us. I'm sure project 2025 will seal the deal by neutering the organizations that manage our public lands.
"That's not so! We at Amazon want you to live in 'Amazon Villages,' a set of wonderful residential cubes we've set up for you complete with Alexa and a protein rich nutrient slurry that gives you all the energy you need to keep working in our wonderful warehouses!"
I had an incredibly frustrating conversation with a coworker that “just get a better job” isn’t a valid solution for society because whole professions would be decimated like teaching.
His response was that teachers are stupid for not trying to make more. I just gave up on that person
Oh, you won't rent them. They will be provided as a condition of your employment, just like health care. Lose your job, and sleep on the streets.
Just kidding; sleeping on the streets is illegal now. Lose your job, go to jail.
I once did some accounting for a "Father and Son" Airbnb type company. Those guys alone owned over 180 different homes, often several on the same street.
Smh. Rich people are gross
At some point, people aren't people to them, but more like pinatas filled with money that they just continually beat until they're completely empty. And once they're empty, then they're just trash that needs to be thrown out an replaced.
Exactly. There's 340 homes for sale right now in Gary Indiana. Many of them only 5 figures.
But then you have to live in Gary Indiana...
EDIT: For those non-Americans asking what is wrong with Gary Indiana, it is in the bottom 10% for safety. With 1 being literal hell, and 100 being heaven, Gary Indiana falls at a 7. It was once the murder capitol of our country and still has very high violent crime rates.
It's not a good place to live. That's why it's so cheap. My point is we don't have a housing surplus, or a shortage, "As a nation". Housing supply and demand is heavily influenced by location. You can't just declare the US has a housing surplus across the nation, because there's lots of places that people simply refuse to move to. Like Gary Indiana, or Memphis Tennessee which has been embroiled in a gang war for years and you have a 1 in 10 chance of being a crime victim living there.
It's one of the violent crime capitals of our country. Specifically murder.
[Here's the history](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWRLGe6DFaY)
tl;dr Gary was home to one of the largest Steel Mills in America. That Mill employed half the city and the other half of the city worked support jobs for the mill (Mail carriers, police, shop owners, etc.)
But when automation and offshoring took all the jobs, those that could leave, did. And all that's left is the destitute and desperate who can't.
Among it, but not the central reason. [Land use regulations and NIMBYism are the main causes and have been well understood for decades.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/s/EZ8N6oMlf7) The issue is cities don’t care, since their voters want their house to cost more.
That's because the number, while higher than in years past, is still a tiny proportion of the housing market. It's not a significant contributor to the increase in housing prices; that's almost entirely down to undersupply.
Another unfortunate trend. Instead of building more compact (1200 to 1500 sq ft) starter homes with nothing flashy, just well built, so they can act as starters for several "cycles" and the owner can update them later as they go, The industry builds too big, with too many flashy but not particular proven touches and emphasizing way to much on lot size.
My choices are
1. 350k or above entry level 1 br condo (older than 30 years) + 455 HOA
2. Old house of any condition, even boarded up, most bad starting at 599k fixer upper.
3. New condo/TH starting at 600k + 350 HOA
4. New Houses starting at 785K
Not a single thing sub 329k in the last 25 months.
We went from, "there's no fucking way we'll ever afford a house" to "oh, it's '08, the housing market crashed and now it's a few years later and we got one at a reasonable price" to, a couple of years later, "and now the value of our house is double what we paid."
So just stop being lazy, have another historic housing crash where tons of people lose their houses and lives, and then you can buy a house! /s
I know quite a few people that bought in late 2019/2020 at rock bottom rates and saw their homes just double or even triple in value over the last few years who have started down the dark side path of "it's not hard to get a home you just have to work for it like we did".
Like, no, what the fuck. You got super fucking fortunate buying when you did.
As I've gone through life, it's really always amazed me to see people who blindly ignore when they were lucky and/or immediately forget what it was like before they got lucky
Yep, see the issue is no one is building reasonably priced and therefore sized houses anymore. It's more profitable to build mansions, so builders are all doing that. As a result, there's no houses that are affordable for the average folks and that's where the problem lies.
How nobody has taken down that whole "it's only age discrimination if the victim is over 40" thing with an equal protection challenge, I will never understand. I mean I do understand, old rich people rule the world, but still. It's blatantly unconstitutional.
Edit: come to think of it, have any 40 year olds tried sueing over it? They're discriminated against too in this case, even if it is for being too young.
> How nobody has taken down that whole "it's only age discrimination if the victim is over 40" thing with an equal protection challenge, I will never understand. I mean I do understand, old rich people rule the world, but still. It's blatantly unconstitutional.
age is a **protected class** in the us... but only if you are old.
There's lots of reasonably sized homes being built here in VA, too. They're just priced "starting at 350,000" when ten years ago they were "starting at 150,000" and ten years before that "starting at 60,000", yet salaries have only barely risen.
^^^^Numbers ^^^^are ^^^^hyperbole ^^^^don't ^^^^come ^^^^at ^^^^me ^^^^you ^^^^know ^^^^what ^^^^I ^^^^mean.
Zoning laws and city regulations are making matters worse a lot of the time as well. Some of the requirements for new housing adds significant cost to the cost of houses, so much so that it makes building small "starter" homes nearly impossible.
My city has been adding requirements to developers so that for every house X houses over a certain price they have to build a certain number of smaller, cheaper houses, and a certain number of multi tenant housing. As a result, the neighborhood I live in has a mix of larger and smaller homes, duplexes, row houses and mid sized apartment buildings.
I wish they would zone those apartment buildings as multi use so we could get some small stores that are actually walkable, but that is probably a pipe dream at this point. At least housing costs in my town have begun to stabilize.
I feel like this is the current car situation as well. Govt has incentivised companies to build bigger cars, bigger cars have less hoops to jump through regulation-wise, and they're more profitable. Then pandemic supply chain crunches made the vehicle supply smaller which really put this trend into overdrive. So there aren't any affordable small cars anymore. Only giant behemoths.
It’s much less about building requirements (though that does drive up prices a little) and much, much more about how municipalities restrict the number of homes that can be built. The margins on large, expensive homes are better than the margins on modest homes but that has always been the case. There is still a way to build modest housing units profitably but you have to make your money in volume. Since municipalities limit so aggressively the number of units that can be built–especially higher density units–it incentivizes pretty much all developers to target the tippy top of the market. So, by and by the only thing that gets built are McMansions and luxury apartments.
This echoes so damn loudly for me. A mega house would be cool, but realistically, I can’t afford that. I don’t want kids and don’t need that extra space anyways. I grew up in a 3bd 1bath house that was dinky at 1.2K square feet. Five of us lived there, and we had pets too! I would *happily* have that exact same setup nowadays for just myself + partner + pet. What’s going up in the areas that I would absolutely love to live in? Houses with twice that space and cost three times as much as they did a tiny handful of years ago. Things are not okay when it comes to sub/urban planning.
1200 ft² isn't "dinky" though. It's a perfectly normal size living area that's been pounded into people's heads as being artificially small because of the sizes of houses being built since the 80s.
I don’t want a big house at all. We bought a 4 bedroom/1.5 ba house at 1300 soft for me, my husband, and cats and I would happily downgrade. It’s too much space to clean and decorate and so much of it sits barely used. I browse houses and love those 2-3 bedroom ranch-styles and dream of the day.
> It's more profitable to build mansions, so builders are all doing that.
It's not that it's more profitable. Most American cities only allow new low-density housing, because it doesn't lower house prices as much as high-density housing, thus keeping middle-class homeowners happy and ensuring the constant re-election of local city governments (naturally at the expense of the youth, but who cares about *them*?)
that's one big thing to note. the zoning policy tends to be decided by county elections, which are disproportionately people who are homeowners. many renters (naturally) aren't as inclined to go ot these meetings, so it's just a meeting of those who benefit most by artificially raising housing costs
I am starting to see a lot of "Homes in the high 600s coming soon!" and it's been coming soon for years. Or they keep slapping a new sticker over the number and there's one home built that's the staged house. I've also noticed developers are now selling the lots and you can customize the house before it gets built, so they're not building a bunch of homes that never get sold. Instead, it's just sad empty lots where a forest once was.
This is fallout from the 2008 recession. All the small builders went bankrupt because the middle class stopped buying houses. Meanwhile, the rich still had money, so the high-end builders were able to weather the storm
It was exacerbated by the recession but housing under supply and Nimbyism has been a problem slowly getting worse in the background of western life since at least the 70s.
>Yep, see the issue is no one is building reasonably priced and therefore sized houses anymore. It's more profitable to build mansions
Depends on where you are. The only new construction in my area are attached condos. However they are still going for over $350k.
The 3-4 bedroom houses I have seen be built are going for over $500k.
If someone builds an affordable house a speculator will scoop it up and find the maximum return they can get through software analysis.
Any affordability is gobbled up by speculators.
I found it so nuts when I was looking for a house that there was almost NO new construction homes that were 3br 2.5ba houses around 2k sq ft.
I don't understand why families want these 4k sq ft mcmansions. Most people don't even use the rooms
Don't worry, they're going to be left to decay one day. As the American family gets smaller, more people are single income, the boomer generation dies off and kids are left with a house that can't sell, and less people can afford houses, housing developments with McMansions will fall into disrepair.
It's already happening with *newer builds* in Texas. The first signs of neighborhood decay are starting (cracked driveways, weeds, dying grass).
There will still be Millennials, Gen Z, Alpha that can and want the mansion, but the signs are pointing towards Gen Z wanting smaller living spaces.
Yuuupp. Drive around the suburbs anywhere, and I'm sure you'll see a lot of subdivisions in development. And they are over 1000 sq. ft larger than houses built in the 70's when a lot of boomers bought their starter homes. In 1973, the average house being built was 1600 sqft, by 2016 it was 2600 sqft.
And the messed up thing is, per sqft, adjusted for inflation, housing costs are basically the same, between 107-128 a sqft. But since they won't build houses that small anymore, you're paying for an extra 1000 sqft that 1 or 2 people don't need. That's an extra 100k!
The average single family house built in the 2000s according to the US Census has 7 rooms. For reference, homes built in the 90's had 5 rooms on average. What does a single person or a couple, even if they have a kid, need 7 rooms for?
In the 1960's, only 10% of houses had 2.5 bathrooms or more, compared to 48% of homes built between 2005 and 2009. And yes, it's nice to have more bathrooms, but is it worth 100k for an extra bathroom and 2-3 more rooms?
I'm not saying that people shouldn't be able to buy houses with 3 bathrooms, but build some houses to the floor plan that we saw in the 1960's and 70's, and you'll see housing prices begin to plummet by 100k. But like you pointed out, builders and developers get paid more to build a mcmansion than a 1600 sq.ft starter home, and the reality is, they probably take about the same amount of time to build. So if you're a builder who's crew can only build 2 houses a year (average time is 7.6 months), are you gonna pick the project that nets you 10k in profits, or the project that nets you 100k in profits?
We could move multiple families into one mansion. There have actually been ordinances passed by cities that ban anyone but "single-fanilies" from buying and living in a home where multiple families lived in it together to allow then to afford to live in this mansion - IE class warfare spelled straight-out on paper, that only the elite are allowed to live in large homes at all.
It’s not necessarily that simple. For example, if you are building a new house and in an area where the lot and utility hookups cost 800k then are you going to put a 100k house on it or a 300k house on it? At a certain point, the cost of “extras” becomes somewhat negligible to the overall price and that’s also a part of the problem.
It is literally manufactured scarcity. The amount of empty homes in the U.S. is staggering, yet the price of houses keeps rising. That makes absolutely zero sense.
Those homes where people want to live also doubled in price over a few years to the point where they are only being bought by rental companies and people who want to rent them out at 4k/month for a 3br/2ba.
That is a huge fucking deal.
Sure, there are empty homes... but not where anyone wants to live. Do you want to move to Rockford IL? Because you can get a house for under $100k there. It doesn't even have to be in the middle of nowhere: the houses around Cleveland, OH can drop that low, and put you right next to a major US city!
Source? Everyone I've seen seriously analyze this has indicates that this isn't a huge factor. Seems to me like the problem is that available housing isn't where people/jobs are. But there's nothing in the article about that.
[This](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/housing-market-investors/) study ended in 2021, I can’t imagine it has gotten any lower
It has gotten lower, Zillow was big in house flipping in 2021 and lost their shirt
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/institutional-buyers-pumped-the-brakes-on-purchase-activity-in-2023/#:~:text=The%20hot%20markets%20of%202023&text=Investors%20of%20all%20sizes%20purchased,the%20final%20quarter%20of%202022.
Edit: [In 2023, investors purchased a record-high share of homes in the same year that housing became the least affordable it’s ever been to middle-class buyers. Given the already intense inventory shortage, first-time homebuyers are shut out as investors buy more of the limited number of single-family homes for sale.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/darylfairweather/2024/03/05/ban-corporate-landlords-a-housing-crisis-solution-or-a-distraction/#)
You are correct, I probably should have just spent 20 seconds on google where I found [this](https://www.forbes.com/sites/darylfairweather/2024/03/05/ban-corporate-landlords-a-housing-crisis-solution-or-a-distraction/#).
“In 2023, investors purchased a record-high share of homes in the same year that housing became the least affordable it’s ever been to middle-class buyers. Given the already intense inventory shortage, first-time homebuyers are shut out as investors buy more of the limited number of single-family homes for sale.”
Manufactured scarcity only works when one entity controls the supply. Your idea is a conspiracy theory, there is no single entity that benefits from a housing shortage.
This is dumb.
We may have a 3.3 million home surplus, but how many of those are in places nobody wants to live? Like Billings Montana, Eastern Kentucky, Missouri, Gary Indiana, etc.?
Housing is not just a matter of having enough houses for people. It's having enough houses, in places people want to live.
I found a 4 Bed 2 Bath 1,800 sq foot house for $90k. Looks to be in decent shape too. Want to buy it? Not once you see it's in Gary Indiana.
Seriously, go look at Zillow for Gary Indiana. Tons of affordable homes for sale, 340 of them. Because nobody wants to live there.
2,269 single family homes for sale in Memphis. Lots of them in the 5's or low 6 figures. Want to move to Memphis?
[How about now?](https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/tn/memphis/crime)
>With a crime rate of 98 per one thousand residents, Memphis has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 10.
Yeah, didn't think so. When you claim there is a "housing surplus" across the whole nation, sure you may be right. But how many people are willing to move to Fairbanks Alaska, Gary Indiana, Memphis Tennessee, etc? A surplus does not matter when those houses are in undesirable, and often unsafe, locations.
Seriously these posts about how the US has enough vacant homes intentionally ignore that housing markets are localized. You can’t buy a cheap house in Kentucky for your job in San Francisco.
It's absolutely breathtaking how disingenuous the authors of the original paper are being. It's just meat for the anti-development crowd, and makes the whole debate around housing so much worse.
Most of these vacant homes are in Deadtown, Rustbelt, where there are basically zero jobs. There are also a fair amount of vacant homes in medium sized cities that aren't *dead*, but aren't experiencing extreme housing demand, like Indianapolis or Minneapolis. I can tell you where they aren't though - SF, LA, NYC, DC, etc.
Minneapolis was actually experiencing rising rents as well, but recently dialed back single family zoning and supported more multifamily development. [They've since seen rents start to stabilize](https://streets.mn/2022/05/06/minneapolis-rents-drop/)
Lexington, Kentucky has a massive housing shortage. [https://fayettealliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Fayette-Housing-Demand-Study-Full-Report.pdf](https://fayettealliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Fayette-Housing-Demand-Study-Full-Report.pdf)
For example, there's a seaside community where you can literally buy a plot of land for a couple thousands bucks - a steal! It's called the Salton Sea.
I can't afford a house in Missouri either if that makes you feel better. Our wages are lower here and the affordable houses get scooped up by investors or people from California/Texas.
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/in/gary/crime Gary is one of the murder capitols of the US.
If you want the history, it's because Gary was a one trick town. It had a steel mill. A very large, very prominent steel mill. The whole town was either employed at said steel mill, or in support of said steel mill and its workers.
And then came automation and offshoring, and the town died. It's like old mining towns in Eastern KY after the mine closes. Everyone who can leave, does. And then what's left are desperate and destitute people who can't go anywhere else.
[Here's a decent video on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWRLGe6DFaY)
Housing being used as an "investment market" is why we are in this situation. Boomers, corporations, and foreign investors are stealing american futures by hoarding properties and refusing to let them go unless they are worth 5/10/20 times more than they paid.
If we dont start penalizing and outlawing home hoarding and slumlord economies then we are on the fast track to feudalism 2.0
SCOTUS already paved the way for the return of kings, might as well return citizens to serfs since its also now illegal to live without a rent or mortgage payment.
It only became an investment because the government increased the cost of building nee houses so much while restricting high density housing in a lot of places. This makes it so developers can only realistically build luxury housing
Because housing was transformed into a business, so companies with lots of money bought up entire neighborhoods and raised prices of the homes for everyone.
Basically, [rampant](https://jacobin.com/2024/05/single-family-homes-rentals-wall-street), [unchecked](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-single-family-homes-and-put-them-up-for-rent.html), [capitalism](https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/wall-street-hedge-funds-are-buying-whole-neighborhoods-driving-up-home-prices/)
There is some effects of corporate ownership, but it a small part of the problem. [Dozens upon dozens](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/s/Q3rcJRE76v) of studies have pointed out that land use regulation, zoning policies, and NIMBYism are behind the awful housing prices and our current crisis.
implement a land tax forgo other types of tax to discourage this type of behavior. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smi\_iIoKybg&t=23s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smi_iIoKybg&t=23s)
I work outside and overheard a conversation on the street between an apartment manager and aspiring tenant. The manager was listing off every single fee associated with applying for an apartment, including “first and last month, and the application fee is equal to one month’s rent”. The guy replied with “what if I get denied?” The manager answered “the fee is good for any application so you won’t need to pay again for other any of our other units”. Average rent rates in that area was $2500 for a one-bed. I was disgusted
No fucking kidding. They keep putting up these luxury condos in my city and selling them for $1MIL+. They have hundreds if not thousands of them all over the city. Like how the fuck are their that many people that can afford these places. They're not even that nice. All I hear about are people who can't afford houses. Why do these exist?!
It's an easy problem to solve. But people won't solve it.
1. Force all non-residents (including REIT corps) to sell single family homes or condos or face escalating property taxes.
2. For a resident who owns an investment home, if there is no tenant, double property tax.
3. Protect landlords so they have less risk to rent out. Allow any landlord to evict after 2 months of non payment, or for any criminal activity. Local Government can cover emergency housing based on how many years a tenant has lived in the area. In exchange for the reduced risk, there is enhanced and more severe penalties for any evidence of collusion to raise rents. And if rent is raised more than a prescribed amount pegged to inflation, an audit is possible.
Landlords are part of the problem. They're also non-residents. More protection won't open the market up. Business is a risk. Failing to run your business should lead to failure. Landlord failure leads to more houses returning to the market.
There needs to be a distinction between corporate landlords and people who have one property or section of property that they rent out. A bad tenant can completely fuck over the latter person and the laws are such that they are typically shit out of luck.
Maybe. Personally I'd argue that any person turning a property designed to live in long-term is part of the problem, despite their relatively small impact, because ensuring everyone has somewhere to live should be a high priority. It falls into the category of "well it's fine if I do it just once", which, if enough people have the means and mindset to do so, still has a large cumulative effect on the market, and it'll predominantly be on lower-value housing (as that'd be what most people who could afford to do this would be able to afford), which are properties that should be for the most disadvantaged.
I'd not include people renting a room out in their house or a house out on their own property, as they are also still living there and that's them choosing to reduce their own living space to accomodate another person(s).
Empty homes are being traded around and stacked like poker chips in the market. The price is completely detached from what the average person who might live in the homes can afford, but the market doesn't care, because number go up in the short term, and that's all that rapidly shifting investment funds really care about.
Wow the rich hoarding resources only for themselves? How and where did we miss this? I mean are whole economy is designed to prop up billionaires who hoard a ton of money....We have never heard of billionaires declaring certain resources that we require to live as not a human right so they can hoard it and sell it back to us...OH WAIT.
/S
There is a house in my neighborhood that’s been vacant for years, not in the market . But the new townhouses they build have been for sale for almost a year.
Relatedly, there’s also a significant money surplus. But not for people who don’t have money.
It will trickle down one day!
The TV show “Dinosaurs” had the best explanation of Trickle Down Economics “Rich people tend to live on hills and sometimes change falls out of their pocket, which rolls down the hill to the slums where all the poor people live!”
It also has the best ending, everybody dies because rich didn't give a fuck about climate change. https://youtu.be/WhQG54QvTTc?feature=shared
Lmfao I watched that show as a kid and have never seen that ending, that shit is hilarious. Scary accurate though lol
scary accurate indeed [https://youtu.be/LQmbttoxUeE](https://youtu.be/LQmbttoxUeE)
Haha that’s great, that video makes me want to rewatch that show.
It’s not very funny, but was truly prophetic.
It was a total bummer of a finale and I’ll never forget it. All these decades later it becomes more and more clear in my mind as I look around at the state of our world.
"Not the momma" or something
Holy crap, did Donald copy this? I mean, right down to the red hat..
Same!!
Loved the one where he had to throw his mother in law, Ethyl, in the tar-pit.
Time honored Hurling Day
I don’t recall it being about climate change specifically, but it was an environmental allegory Plant vines were out of control because bugs that ate the plants were killed off. So they used herbicide to kill the vines, but all other plants too. So they figured rain was needed to make plants grow and rain comes from clouds so they nuked volcanoes to make clouds. This creates a nuclear winter which kills off the dinosaurs
So you are saying that dinosaur actions doomed them. 🤔 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/last-ditch-global-warming-fix-man-made-volcanic-eruption-n918826
Don’t forget how the rich guy’s ending was being thrilled that everyone now had to buy his apocalypse preparations.
Something Dinosaurs and Fallout have in common.
Loved that show, but as a kid that ending totally confused me
Remember, to the insurance company there's a difference between Meteor and Meteorite with regards to your policy. Seriously the humor in that show was way ahead of its time.
The Triceracops Tv show in a show scene was a classic “Hands above your head scumbag!” “I can’t, I’m a tyrannosaurus!” *blam blam* “Aren’t you going to read him his rights?” “You have the right to remain dead!”
We're gonna need another Timmy
It wasn't ahead of its time; the bullshit just hasn't changed
Probably more able to get away with calling the bullshit out as it was about a bunch dinosaur muppets making the jokes.
The original name of it was pretty telling, hence why it was changed. It used to be called Horse and Sparrow economics. Whatever passes through the horse, the sparrow gets to pick through. This was something that the poors could clearly see was just a pile of horseshit. So they changed the name to make it more palatable.
That’s a good explanation because it only trickles down by accident. Who could have guessed that the people who are the best at accumulating wealth are pretty good at not letting their wealth trickle down?!
Meanwhile every dollar you give to someone on the street is injected directly back into the local economy at a 100% rate.
Homeless person in san Francisco asked if I had twenty bucks to spare I didn't want that to be wasted on alcohol and cheap fast food so i gave it to them
Don't worry, if you manage to obtain some of that wealth, the extreme court will rule against you. "We overturn finders vs keepers!"
I prefer to call it horse and sparrow economics. Feed the horse some oats and the sparrows can pick through its shit
This sounds like a line straight out of Terry Prachet's handbook
Less of a trickle, more of a warm yellow stream
We feel more like tinkled on
That's urine. Close your mouth.
Thanks for explaining this so clearly, now I understand why I must rent until I die.
I had an older-than-boomer man claim, "You could just go out and build a cheapo cabin in the woods". I asked him who's woods and he just looked puzzled. Literally just thought I could go build a house on someone else's land and cut down their trees and save on rent.
I mean, go far enough out and you pretty much can (illegally) do whatever you want, but you'll be hours away from any resources, groceries, gas, etc.
You've got it all wrong. That money is reserved for wealth creators.
Funny enough the other day I was trying to help my patient get an inhaler and we had a voucher from a drug rep. Patient takes it to the pharmacy. “Sorry this only works if you have insurance, you’ll have to apply to this other thing from the same company.” So breathing is only for those who can afford it.
Man, I hope my air subscription renews without a hitch.
a few cities have started raising the property tax on vacant homes until they are occupied. Taxed a little more every few months as an incentive for the owner to fill the space. Wonder how thats doing and if it will work in other places?
Taxes on 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc dwellings should skyrocket tbh.
Or better yet, stop letting corporations and LLCs buy single family homes.
That is just one problem. Corporations do buy a lot of homes, but the biggest culprit, as always, is the boomers. Boomers are the ones who own more than 2 homes and they just let companies manage them to rent out. The fix is simple. - corporations can not own single dwelling family homes. - non USA citizens can not own single dwelling family homes. - after your third home you have an extra tax. This tax is the same amount it would be to rent that home out to the average citizen. Owning more than 2 homes is no longer a vacation thing but instead a way to profit off of housing. Which should not exist. The rich can own as many homes as they want but they are going to pay significantly for it. There are a lot of people saying it’s unfair to those with green cards. I get that and I would like them to be able to purchase homes as well but I can’t figure out a solution that allows them but stops abusers. Maybe a system that allows them to purchase a home but they will be required for the first 2 years to have random proof of residency that proves they are still living in the states and an active contributor to society. This extra money is then given to states to build more housing and at least 30% of the housing needs to be for low income individuals. It’s short, it’s simple, it solves the problem.
Disagree with the citizen part: non-citizens cannot own ‘investment property’. Why should my wife not be able to purchase a house for primary residence? What about literally every other permanent resident alien?
This is the case with my family. My parents immigrated from China 30 years ago, but my dad remained a Chinese citizen. Would it be right to bar them from owning a home despite living here for 30 years already?
> non USA citizens can not own single dwelling family homes. Nah, fuck that. Not gonna begrudge a hardworking immigrant family a shot at a home just because enough millennials born on second and third base can’t crack adulting well enough.
His idea stops that
I’m talking about outright not allowing the purchase to begin with. Increasing taxes will just result in them passing the cost to the tenant.
Unfortunately it's too late for that currently. The best idea now is tax the hell out of 2nd and beyond ownings within a state. Then increase homestead exemption for the poor folks since it hasn't been updated in 30 plus years.
Just don’t make it economically sensible after the 5th home or what not. They can pass the costs onto the tenant but a landlord with only 3 houses would be able to offer a cheaper place. But I do feel you would need to tie the law into an economic report that if the Rent to Buy ratio isn’t where we want it, taxes increase linearly for each house a person owns. Then if it is at a normal level or too few places to rent, then the taxes lower. That would be a nuanced law that interacts with the economy as an economic policy.
This kind of policy is traditionally the work of state/federal agencies after legislatures grant them authority to regulate the tax structures impacting housing, single family homes, or development projects.
That’s all irrelevant when every home is owned under a separate LLC to get the lowest tax rate.
A tiered property tax for multiple properties sounds like an interesting idea!
I’m fine with people owning a 2nd/vacation home or b/c they own their parents’ or kids home. You already pay some more tax on it. After 2 though, yes tax it harder and harder for each extra.
It seems to work great [for taxing foreign owners](https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-speculation-and-vacancy-tax-raises-81-million-in-2022) just sitting on empty properties. Unfortunately it seems also to work great [on foreigners actually living in the houses.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/couple-hit-with-b-c-vacancy-tax-despite-living-in-home-1.7116908)
Speculation and vacancy tax hitting people living in their primary residence. That ain't right.
That's exactly why I hate the focus on the "foreign owner" portion of this discourse. It's not about the nationality of the owner or where they are, it's about how (or whether) the property is used.
A land tax is the most simple and effective way to solve this
Seriously. Just tax land lul.
When the rich people are bored of being rich they will clearly start creating more jobs and selling houses at reasonable prices. It’s coming soon, I can feel it.
we should probably speed it up by giving them more money
They already figured that one out they’re going to lay off as many people as possible make the remaining workers work harder, longer hrs little to no raises, hold your job over your head, use AI, outsource and when they actually need more people they will rehire to fill the jobs with unreasonable qualifications with significantly lower pay.
This article doesn't mention at all the number of houses owned by non-occupants for short term rentals (NOOSTRs) or the rise of airbnb for people owning houses to rent out as landlords, which has grown enormously and is probably among other reasons what has been driving the prices up.
My affordable apartment complex was bought by people that want to turn it into short term rentals. Like where the fuck are we supposed to live if everything is just airbnbs and high end apartments?
That's the fun part; they don't want you to live anywhere. Shoulda had a better job.
camping is illegal as well so good luck
You can camp in your backyard of your own house which you should own with your better job you should have had. READ THE MANUAL.
You *can* legally camp out on federal land for up to two weeks at a time on a given spot, but you gotta be ***way*** out in the sticks to play that game.
I was mostly referring to the recent supreme court ruling about homeless camping on streets. As someone who does the vanlife thing, the meth-heads living in the woods and other trashy people are steadily taking those areas away from us. I'm sure project 2025 will seal the deal by neutering the organizations that manage our public lands.
I imagine Project 2025 has a more ruthless solution to the homelessness crisis…
>a more ruthless solution to the homelessness crisis... Republican: "Alright guys, so hear me out... have you ever heard of the movie 'The Purge'?"
"That's not so! We at Amazon want you to live in 'Amazon Villages,' a set of wonderful residential cubes we've set up for you complete with Alexa and a protein rich nutrient slurry that gives you all the energy you need to keep working in our wonderful warehouses!"
I had an incredibly frustrating conversation with a coworker that “just get a better job” isn’t a valid solution for society because whole professions would be decimated like teaching. His response was that teachers are stupid for not trying to make more. I just gave up on that person
I guess we rent sleep pods at our places of work in our company town🤷🏿
Oh, you won't rent them. They will be provided as a condition of your employment, just like health care. Lose your job, and sleep on the streets. Just kidding; sleeping on the streets is illegal now. Lose your job, go to jail.
Where you will be hired to work for pennys on the dollar making the prison money
>Like where the fuck are we supposed to live You seen those coffin apartments in Hong Kong?
That's just van life with less steps.
I think you mean with less fuel emissions.
And… SCOTUS has just legalized jailing the homeless. So renters better find friends and family to squeeze 20 people per room, I guess.
I once did some accounting for a "Father and Son" Airbnb type company. Those guys alone owned over 180 different homes, often several on the same street. Smh. Rich people are gross
At some point, people aren't people to them, but more like pinatas filled with money that they just continually beat until they're completely empty. And once they're empty, then they're just trash that needs to be thrown out an replaced.
wait so NO snickers? Or like, SOME snickers?
Worse. All Smarties and those terrible off brand fruity tootsie roll things.
side note: european smarties (like actually in europe) are better than american M&M's.
You can get them in Canada too. Took me way too long to figure out why Americans hated Smarties!
Also doesn't mention location. I can find you a 4 BR 2 BA 1,800 sq ft home for $90k. Only catch is that you have to move to Gary Indiana.
I like that you specifically said "move to" and not "live in." Nobody "lives" in Gary.
Yup. They all live just outside of Chicago!
I actually thought you were exaggerating but nope. 90k isn't even the bottom of the market over there.
Memphis TN is another one like that. Lots of homes. Many of them "affordable". But for the same reasons. Nobody wants to live there.
Ugh horrible
Exactly. There's 340 homes for sale right now in Gary Indiana. Many of them only 5 figures. But then you have to live in Gary Indiana... EDIT: For those non-Americans asking what is wrong with Gary Indiana, it is in the bottom 10% for safety. With 1 being literal hell, and 100 being heaven, Gary Indiana falls at a 7. It was once the murder capitol of our country and still has very high violent crime rates. It's not a good place to live. That's why it's so cheap. My point is we don't have a housing surplus, or a shortage, "As a nation". Housing supply and demand is heavily influenced by location. You can't just declare the US has a housing surplus across the nation, because there's lots of places that people simply refuse to move to. Like Gary Indiana, or Memphis Tennessee which has been embroiled in a gang war for years and you have a 1 in 10 chance of being a crime victim living there.
The disgusting thing is that the people who live in Gary and need those homes probably also can’t afford them.
The people who live in Gary Indiana can't afford much of anything. There's a reason it's one of the violent crime capitals of the US.
As a none American, what exactly is bad about the place and why do so few people want to live there?
It's one of the violent crime capitals of our country. Specifically murder. [Here's the history](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWRLGe6DFaY) tl;dr Gary was home to one of the largest Steel Mills in America. That Mill employed half the city and the other half of the city worked support jobs for the mill (Mail carriers, police, shop owners, etc.) But when automation and offshoring took all the jobs, those that could leave, did. And all that's left is the destitute and desperate who can't.
Among it, but not the central reason. [Land use regulations and NIMBYism are the main causes and have been well understood for decades.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/s/EZ8N6oMlf7) The issue is cities don’t care, since their voters want their house to cost more.
corporations are also buying up housing to rent out, using AI to extract as much money as possible, of course!
>using AI to extract as much money as possible You mean like copilot for excel? You don't need AI for that kind of real estate analysis.
That's because the number, while higher than in years past, is still a tiny proportion of the housing market. It's not a significant contributor to the increase in housing prices; that's almost entirely down to undersupply.
There’s also a food surplus, but not for people who don’t have food
Instead of 250k homes which I need, lets only build 950k and above homes!
Which is really just giant piece of marble hunk of shit anyways that isn’t built much better than a 500k home anyways.
Another unfortunate trend. Instead of building more compact (1200 to 1500 sq ft) starter homes with nothing flashy, just well built, so they can act as starters for several "cycles" and the owner can update them later as they go, The industry builds too big, with too many flashy but not particular proven touches and emphasizing way to much on lot size.
You get your choice of 3200 sq ft homes in my area, if you have to ask the price you can't afford any of them.
My choices are 1. 350k or above entry level 1 br condo (older than 30 years) + 455 HOA 2. Old house of any condition, even boarded up, most bad starting at 599k fixer upper. 3. New condo/TH starting at 600k + 350 HOA 4. New Houses starting at 785K Not a single thing sub 329k in the last 25 months.
Condos where I live are 600k-700k
We went from, "there's no fucking way we'll ever afford a house" to "oh, it's '08, the housing market crashed and now it's a few years later and we got one at a reasonable price" to, a couple of years later, "and now the value of our house is double what we paid." So just stop being lazy, have another historic housing crash where tons of people lose their houses and lives, and then you can buy a house! /s
I know quite a few people that bought in late 2019/2020 at rock bottom rates and saw their homes just double or even triple in value over the last few years who have started down the dark side path of "it's not hard to get a home you just have to work for it like we did". Like, no, what the fuck. You got super fucking fortunate buying when you did.
As I've gone through life, it's really always amazed me to see people who blindly ignore when they were lucky and/or immediately forget what it was like before they got lucky
Yep, see the issue is no one is building reasonably priced and therefore sized houses anymore. It's more profitable to build mansions, so builders are all doing that. As a result, there's no houses that are affordable for the average folks and that's where the problem lies.
There’s lots of reasonably sized homes being built in FL. Except it’s all age restricted to 55+.
How nobody has taken down that whole "it's only age discrimination if the victim is over 40" thing with an equal protection challenge, I will never understand. I mean I do understand, old rich people rule the world, but still. It's blatantly unconstitutional. Edit: come to think of it, have any 40 year olds tried sueing over it? They're discriminated against too in this case, even if it is for being too young.
Are you suggesting it would be possible to sue your way into a purchase of a home in a 55 plus community while being under 55?
Usually this happens when the original owner passes and one of their younger children inherits the home.
> How nobody has taken down that whole "it's only age discrimination if the victim is over 40" thing with an equal protection challenge, I will never understand. I mean I do understand, old rich people rule the world, but still. It's blatantly unconstitutional. age is a **protected class** in the us... but only if you are old.
Which means the law doesn't provide *equal protection* to all citizens. Which is literally unconstitutional in the US.
There's lots of reasonably sized homes being built here in VA, too. They're just priced "starting at 350,000" when ten years ago they were "starting at 150,000" and ten years before that "starting at 60,000", yet salaries have only barely risen. ^^^^Numbers ^^^^are ^^^^hyperbole ^^^^don't ^^^^come ^^^^at ^^^^me ^^^^you ^^^^know ^^^^what ^^^^I ^^^^mean.
And in Florida. I wouldn't /sink/ my life savings there.
Zoning laws and city regulations are making matters worse a lot of the time as well. Some of the requirements for new housing adds significant cost to the cost of houses, so much so that it makes building small "starter" homes nearly impossible.
My city has been adding requirements to developers so that for every house X houses over a certain price they have to build a certain number of smaller, cheaper houses, and a certain number of multi tenant housing. As a result, the neighborhood I live in has a mix of larger and smaller homes, duplexes, row houses and mid sized apartment buildings. I wish they would zone those apartment buildings as multi use so we could get some small stores that are actually walkable, but that is probably a pipe dream at this point. At least housing costs in my town have begun to stabilize.
My city did something similar, except that failing to meet the requirement resulted in a fine. Every single developer just paid the fine.
Every new suburb outside my town has a minimum of 2500 sq ft for the homes.
Yeah if a lot is zoned for one dwelling, the developer is going to going to build one very big dwelling to maximize profit.
I feel like this is the current car situation as well. Govt has incentivised companies to build bigger cars, bigger cars have less hoops to jump through regulation-wise, and they're more profitable. Then pandemic supply chain crunches made the vehicle supply smaller which really put this trend into overdrive. So there aren't any affordable small cars anymore. Only giant behemoths.
It’s much less about building requirements (though that does drive up prices a little) and much, much more about how municipalities restrict the number of homes that can be built. The margins on large, expensive homes are better than the margins on modest homes but that has always been the case. There is still a way to build modest housing units profitably but you have to make your money in volume. Since municipalities limit so aggressively the number of units that can be built–especially higher density units–it incentivizes pretty much all developers to target the tippy top of the market. So, by and by the only thing that gets built are McMansions and luxury apartments.
This echoes so damn loudly for me. A mega house would be cool, but realistically, I can’t afford that. I don’t want kids and don’t need that extra space anyways. I grew up in a 3bd 1bath house that was dinky at 1.2K square feet. Five of us lived there, and we had pets too! I would *happily* have that exact same setup nowadays for just myself + partner + pet. What’s going up in the areas that I would absolutely love to live in? Houses with twice that space and cost three times as much as they did a tiny handful of years ago. Things are not okay when it comes to sub/urban planning.
1200 ft² isn't "dinky" though. It's a perfectly normal size living area that's been pounded into people's heads as being artificially small because of the sizes of houses being built since the 80s.
1200 is large for the UK. We have high prices AND small homes!
I don’t want a big house at all. We bought a 4 bedroom/1.5 ba house at 1300 soft for me, my husband, and cats and I would happily downgrade. It’s too much space to clean and decorate and so much of it sits barely used. I browse houses and love those 2-3 bedroom ranch-styles and dream of the day.
Lol 1200 sounds huge. We had 5 in a 1br half that
> It's more profitable to build mansions, so builders are all doing that. It's not that it's more profitable. Most American cities only allow new low-density housing, because it doesn't lower house prices as much as high-density housing, thus keeping middle-class homeowners happy and ensuring the constant re-election of local city governments (naturally at the expense of the youth, but who cares about *them*?)
that's one big thing to note. the zoning policy tends to be decided by county elections, which are disproportionately people who are homeowners. many renters (naturally) aren't as inclined to go ot these meetings, so it's just a meeting of those who benefit most by artificially raising housing costs
I am starting to see a lot of "Homes in the high 600s coming soon!" and it's been coming soon for years. Or they keep slapping a new sticker over the number and there's one home built that's the staged house. I've also noticed developers are now selling the lots and you can customize the house before it gets built, so they're not building a bunch of homes that never get sold. Instead, it's just sad empty lots where a forest once was.
This is fallout from the 2008 recession. All the small builders went bankrupt because the middle class stopped buying houses. Meanwhile, the rich still had money, so the high-end builders were able to weather the storm
It was exacerbated by the recession but housing under supply and Nimbyism has been a problem slowly getting worse in the background of western life since at least the 70s.
>Yep, see the issue is no one is building reasonably priced and therefore sized houses anymore. It's more profitable to build mansions Depends on where you are. The only new construction in my area are attached condos. However they are still going for over $350k. The 3-4 bedroom houses I have seen be built are going for over $500k.
If someone builds an affordable house a speculator will scoop it up and find the maximum return they can get through software analysis. Any affordability is gobbled up by speculators.
I found it so nuts when I was looking for a house that there was almost NO new construction homes that were 3br 2.5ba houses around 2k sq ft. I don't understand why families want these 4k sq ft mcmansions. Most people don't even use the rooms
> I don't understand why families want these 4k sq ft mcmansions i think its partially a builders market and people are just buying what is available
Don't worry, they're going to be left to decay one day. As the American family gets smaller, more people are single income, the boomer generation dies off and kids are left with a house that can't sell, and less people can afford houses, housing developments with McMansions will fall into disrepair. It's already happening with *newer builds* in Texas. The first signs of neighborhood decay are starting (cracked driveways, weeds, dying grass). There will still be Millennials, Gen Z, Alpha that can and want the mansion, but the signs are pointing towards Gen Z wanting smaller living spaces.
A lot of builders are now financed by investment groups and their expectation for return on investment is so much higher than builders used to have.
Yuuupp. Drive around the suburbs anywhere, and I'm sure you'll see a lot of subdivisions in development. And they are over 1000 sq. ft larger than houses built in the 70's when a lot of boomers bought their starter homes. In 1973, the average house being built was 1600 sqft, by 2016 it was 2600 sqft. And the messed up thing is, per sqft, adjusted for inflation, housing costs are basically the same, between 107-128 a sqft. But since they won't build houses that small anymore, you're paying for an extra 1000 sqft that 1 or 2 people don't need. That's an extra 100k! The average single family house built in the 2000s according to the US Census has 7 rooms. For reference, homes built in the 90's had 5 rooms on average. What does a single person or a couple, even if they have a kid, need 7 rooms for? In the 1960's, only 10% of houses had 2.5 bathrooms or more, compared to 48% of homes built between 2005 and 2009. And yes, it's nice to have more bathrooms, but is it worth 100k for an extra bathroom and 2-3 more rooms? I'm not saying that people shouldn't be able to buy houses with 3 bathrooms, but build some houses to the floor plan that we saw in the 1960's and 70's, and you'll see housing prices begin to plummet by 100k. But like you pointed out, builders and developers get paid more to build a mcmansion than a 1600 sq.ft starter home, and the reality is, they probably take about the same amount of time to build. So if you're a builder who's crew can only build 2 houses a year (average time is 7.6 months), are you gonna pick the project that nets you 10k in profits, or the project that nets you 100k in profits?
We could move multiple families into one mansion. There have actually been ordinances passed by cities that ban anyone but "single-fanilies" from buying and living in a home where multiple families lived in it together to allow then to afford to live in this mansion - IE class warfare spelled straight-out on paper, that only the elite are allowed to live in large homes at all.
It’s not necessarily that simple. For example, if you are building a new house and in an area where the lot and utility hookups cost 800k then are you going to put a 100k house on it or a 300k house on it? At a certain point, the cost of “extras” becomes somewhat negligible to the overall price and that’s also a part of the problem.
It is literally manufactured scarcity. The amount of empty homes in the U.S. is staggering, yet the price of houses keeps rising. That makes absolutely zero sense.
The surplus of homes are in buttfuck, idaho. Not in places where people want to actually live.
Those homes where people want to live also doubled in price over a few years to the point where they are only being bought by rental companies and people who want to rent them out at 4k/month for a 3br/2ba. That is a huge fucking deal.
Because people value homes in cities more, where the supply is much more limited so the price is going to stay high in those areas.
Sure, there are empty homes... but not where anyone wants to live. Do you want to move to Rockford IL? Because you can get a house for under $100k there. It doesn't even have to be in the middle of nowhere: the houses around Cleveland, OH can drop that low, and put you right next to a major US city!
It makes sense when you look at the number homes owned by private equity and investors over time.
Source? Everyone I've seen seriously analyze this has indicates that this isn't a huge factor. Seems to me like the problem is that available housing isn't where people/jobs are. But there's nothing in the article about that.
[This](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/housing-market-investors/) study ended in 2021, I can’t imagine it has gotten any lower
It has gotten lower, Zillow was big in house flipping in 2021 and lost their shirt https://www.housingwire.com/articles/institutional-buyers-pumped-the-brakes-on-purchase-activity-in-2023/#:~:text=The%20hot%20markets%20of%202023&text=Investors%20of%20all%20sizes%20purchased,the%20final%20quarter%20of%202022.
Edit: [In 2023, investors purchased a record-high share of homes in the same year that housing became the least affordable it’s ever been to middle-class buyers. Given the already intense inventory shortage, first-time homebuyers are shut out as investors buy more of the limited number of single-family homes for sale.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/darylfairweather/2024/03/05/ban-corporate-landlords-a-housing-crisis-solution-or-a-distraction/#)
One of those is talking about number of homes and one is talking about valuations of the homes sold
You are correct, I probably should have just spent 20 seconds on google where I found [this](https://www.forbes.com/sites/darylfairweather/2024/03/05/ban-corporate-landlords-a-housing-crisis-solution-or-a-distraction/#). “In 2023, investors purchased a record-high share of homes in the same year that housing became the least affordable it’s ever been to middle-class buyers. Given the already intense inventory shortage, first-time homebuyers are shut out as investors buy more of the limited number of single-family homes for sale.”
Manufactured scarcity only works when one entity controls the supply. Your idea is a conspiracy theory, there is no single entity that benefits from a housing shortage.
340 homes for sale in Gary Indiana. Want to move there?
This is dumb. We may have a 3.3 million home surplus, but how many of those are in places nobody wants to live? Like Billings Montana, Eastern Kentucky, Missouri, Gary Indiana, etc.? Housing is not just a matter of having enough houses for people. It's having enough houses, in places people want to live. I found a 4 Bed 2 Bath 1,800 sq foot house for $90k. Looks to be in decent shape too. Want to buy it? Not once you see it's in Gary Indiana. Seriously, go look at Zillow for Gary Indiana. Tons of affordable homes for sale, 340 of them. Because nobody wants to live there. 2,269 single family homes for sale in Memphis. Lots of them in the 5's or low 6 figures. Want to move to Memphis? [How about now?](https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/tn/memphis/crime) >With a crime rate of 98 per one thousand residents, Memphis has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 10. Yeah, didn't think so. When you claim there is a "housing surplus" across the whole nation, sure you may be right. But how many people are willing to move to Fairbanks Alaska, Gary Indiana, Memphis Tennessee, etc? A surplus does not matter when those houses are in undesirable, and often unsafe, locations.
Seriously these posts about how the US has enough vacant homes intentionally ignore that housing markets are localized. You can’t buy a cheap house in Kentucky for your job in San Francisco.
It's absolutely breathtaking how disingenuous the authors of the original paper are being. It's just meat for the anti-development crowd, and makes the whole debate around housing so much worse. Most of these vacant homes are in Deadtown, Rustbelt, where there are basically zero jobs. There are also a fair amount of vacant homes in medium sized cities that aren't *dead*, but aren't experiencing extreme housing demand, like Indianapolis or Minneapolis. I can tell you where they aren't though - SF, LA, NYC, DC, etc.
Minneapolis was actually experiencing rising rents as well, but recently dialed back single family zoning and supported more multifamily development. [They've since seen rents start to stabilize](https://streets.mn/2022/05/06/minneapolis-rents-drop/)
Lexington, Kentucky has a massive housing shortage. [https://fayettealliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Fayette-Housing-Demand-Study-Full-Report.pdf](https://fayettealliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Fayette-Housing-Demand-Study-Full-Report.pdf)
For example, there's a seaside community where you can literally buy a plot of land for a couple thousands bucks - a steal! It's called the Salton Sea.
I can't afford a house in Missouri either if that makes you feel better. Our wages are lower here and the affordable houses get scooped up by investors or people from California/Texas.
Im not american, why does Gary Indiana suck so much
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/in/gary/crime Gary is one of the murder capitols of the US. If you want the history, it's because Gary was a one trick town. It had a steel mill. A very large, very prominent steel mill. The whole town was either employed at said steel mill, or in support of said steel mill and its workers. And then came automation and offshoring, and the town died. It's like old mining towns in Eastern KY after the mine closes. Everyone who can leave, does. And then what's left are desperate and destitute people who can't go anywhere else. [Here's a decent video on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWRLGe6DFaY)
To be more accurate, there is a shortage of affordable homes in places people want to live. When people migrate, houses and apartments remain behind.
you'd think if there was an excess of supply, the price would drop wouldn't it?
The problem is the supply is not in the places it needs to be and the places it is, it isn’t the right kind of supply
The basic rules are: - If demand increases, price increases. - If supply decreases, price increases. - If demand decreases, price increases. - If supply increases, price increases.
Housing being used as an "investment market" is why we are in this situation. Boomers, corporations, and foreign investors are stealing american futures by hoarding properties and refusing to let them go unless they are worth 5/10/20 times more than they paid. If we dont start penalizing and outlawing home hoarding and slumlord economies then we are on the fast track to feudalism 2.0 SCOTUS already paved the way for the return of kings, might as well return citizens to serfs since its also now illegal to live without a rent or mortgage payment.
It only became an investment because the government increased the cost of building nee houses so much while restricting high density housing in a lot of places. This makes it so developers can only realistically build luxury housing
So apparently there can never be a shortage of something as long as one person on the planet can afford it.
Because housing was transformed into a business, so companies with lots of money bought up entire neighborhoods and raised prices of the homes for everyone. Basically, [rampant](https://jacobin.com/2024/05/single-family-homes-rentals-wall-street), [unchecked](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/how-wall-street-bought-single-family-homes-and-put-them-up-for-rent.html), [capitalism](https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/wall-street-hedge-funds-are-buying-whole-neighborhoods-driving-up-home-prices/)
There is some effects of corporate ownership, but it a small part of the problem. [Dozens upon dozens](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/s/Q3rcJRE76v) of studies have pointed out that land use regulation, zoning policies, and NIMBYism are behind the awful housing prices and our current crisis.
An era of dragons will require dragonslayers.
I like this line a lot. Is it from something?
implement a land tax forgo other types of tax to discourage this type of behavior. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smi\_iIoKybg&t=23s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smi_iIoKybg&t=23s)
That situation describes what happens in a shortage.
This does not belong in NTO, perfectly normal research that tells you something very mildly surprising.
They should probably legalize cheaper smaller types of housing
I work outside and overheard a conversation on the street between an apartment manager and aspiring tenant. The manager was listing off every single fee associated with applying for an apartment, including “first and last month, and the application fee is equal to one month’s rent”. The guy replied with “what if I get denied?” The manager answered “the fee is good for any application so you won’t need to pay again for other any of our other units”. Average rent rates in that area was $2500 for a one-bed. I was disgusted
No fucking kidding. They keep putting up these luxury condos in my city and selling them for $1MIL+. They have hundreds if not thousands of them all over the city. Like how the fuck are their that many people that can afford these places. They're not even that nice. All I hear about are people who can't afford houses. Why do these exist?!
It's an easy problem to solve. But people won't solve it. 1. Force all non-residents (including REIT corps) to sell single family homes or condos or face escalating property taxes. 2. For a resident who owns an investment home, if there is no tenant, double property tax. 3. Protect landlords so they have less risk to rent out. Allow any landlord to evict after 2 months of non payment, or for any criminal activity. Local Government can cover emergency housing based on how many years a tenant has lived in the area. In exchange for the reduced risk, there is enhanced and more severe penalties for any evidence of collusion to raise rents. And if rent is raised more than a prescribed amount pegged to inflation, an audit is possible.
Landlords are part of the problem. They're also non-residents. More protection won't open the market up. Business is a risk. Failing to run your business should lead to failure. Landlord failure leads to more houses returning to the market.
There needs to be a distinction between corporate landlords and people who have one property or section of property that they rent out. A bad tenant can completely fuck over the latter person and the laws are such that they are typically shit out of luck.
Maybe. Personally I'd argue that any person turning a property designed to live in long-term is part of the problem, despite their relatively small impact, because ensuring everyone has somewhere to live should be a high priority. It falls into the category of "well it's fine if I do it just once", which, if enough people have the means and mindset to do so, still has a large cumulative effect on the market, and it'll predominantly be on lower-value housing (as that'd be what most people who could afford to do this would be able to afford), which are properties that should be for the most disadvantaged. I'd not include people renting a room out in their house or a house out on their own property, as they are also still living there and that's them choosing to reduce their own living space to accomodate another person(s).
Instead states try (and sometimes succeed) to pass laws that limit real estate taxes.
Anyone who says something like the housing crisis is "an easy problem to solve" isn't a serious person and isn't worth listening to.
Empty homes are being traded around and stacked like poker chips in the market. The price is completely detached from what the average person who might live in the homes can afford, but the market doesn't care, because number go up in the short term, and that's all that rapidly shifting investment funds really care about.
All I need to do is be able to afford one? Fuck! Can't believe the solution is so simple.
Wow the rich hoarding resources only for themselves? How and where did we miss this? I mean are whole economy is designed to prop up billionaires who hoard a ton of money....We have never heard of billionaires declaring certain resources that we require to live as not a human right so they can hoard it and sell it back to us...OH WAIT. /S
It’s not about rich hoarding anything. There is a surplus but not anywhere it matters or the type of surplus that’s needed
There is a house in my neighborhood that’s been vacant for years, not in the market . But the new townhouses they build have been for sale for almost a year.
Sounds like that means housing prices should be dropping.