Re:Ever-increasing home values are a Ponzi scheme
by kelnos on Monday June 21, 2021 @07:13PM
(#27585765)
I assume you are saying this to claim that if housing is "merely" affordable, no one will be incentivized to build houses.
That's not really how it works. Developers can make a profit when building new housing on vacant land, or on improving existing housing. That does not preclude the resulting housing from being affordable, though.
This is an unfortunate overloading of terms, but "profitable" in this sense doesn't mean just the usual "get more money out than you put in". It refers to the practice of land/housing speculation, and buying housing with the intent to hold and then sell at a profit without doing anything meaningful with it.
That's not really how it works. Developers can make a profit when building new housing on vacant land, or on improving existing housing. That does not preclude the resulting housing from being affordable, though.
This is an unfortunate overloading of terms, but "profitable" in this sense doesn't mean just the usual "get more money out than you put in". It refers to the practice of land/housing speculation, and buying housing with the intent to hold and then sell at a profit without doing anything meaningful with it.