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Re:The end of the housing supply debate (maybe) by quotemstr on Thursday November 09, 2017 @06:52PM (#15666785)
It's not as contingent as you think. We normally model the supply curve as a line going up and to the right, indicating that price increases stimulate the creation of additional supply. The demand curve has the opposite slope and effect. These curves form an "effective field theory". They explain what's happening at a high level. In reality, supply and demand curves aren't necessarily linear, and at small scales, they can wiggle around a bit. This wiggling is where your "it depends" factors come into play.

It's disingenuous, however, to argue that this wiggling invalidates the crystal clear overall direction of the supply and demand curves or somehow invalidates the idea that the way to increase the amount of affordable housing is to increase the amount of housing.

Re:The end of the housing supply debate (maybe) by AnimalMuppet on Thursday November 09, 2017 @07:21PM (#15666952)
Not necessarily. There are things called "Veblen goods". For them, the demand rises as the price rises, because the higher price confers additional status. You pretty much have to be in prestige, luxury goods for this to happen, though, so it's (probably) not relevant to a discussion of entry-level housing.
Re:The end of the housing supply debate (maybe) by d1zzy on Thursday November 09, 2017 @07:55PM (#15667105)
That doesn't seem to apply in this case however. This article is talking about people paying >$1 mil for shitty shacks in Silicon Valley. It seems very hard to think of people buying those because it confers "status", actually, anecdotal evidence from my coworkers and I, we are ashamed of telling folks back home how much we payed or showing pictures of our new house.
Re:The end of the housing supply debate (maybe) by AnimalMuppet on Thursday November 09, 2017 @08:02PM (#15667134)
I agree; I don't think it applies in this case either. I was merely pointing out that one small part of quotemstr's argument didn't hold.