US Housing Affordability Hits Worst Point in Nearly Four Decades

Re:US Housing Affordability Hits Worst Point in Nearly Four ... by whimsicalism on Monday August 21, 2023 @02:48PM (#37213725)

Someone has to own it if people are renting it, and renting provides a valuable use case in the economy and makes places to live accessible to young people, poor people, etc.

Renting is good - and requires the type of economic activity you would want banned.

> Housing should be consumption, not an investment,

Housing should be subject to market forces so housing developers can get signals about price. If people anticipate demand for homes is going to increase and start buying homes in anticipation of that (speculating), if we didn't have our stupid zoning laws, homebuilders would be able to build more homes and resolve the demand imbalance before it happened. This is a good thing. The problem is our stupid zoning laws, NIMBYism, etc.

> deadweight loss in the economy.

...no

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Re:US Housing Affordability Hits Worst Point in Nearly Four ... by mcphage on Monday August 21, 2023 @04:34PM (#37214999)

> Someone has to own it if people are renting it, and renting provides a valuable use case in the economy and makes places to live accessible to young people, poor people, etc.

It would be better if the people renting it and living there were the owner.

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Re:US Housing Affordability Hits Worst Point in Nearly Four ... by whimsicalism on Monday August 21, 2023 @04:44PM (#37215112)

How in this world do you imagine I would ever be able to move somewhere? I would have to buy the whole home?

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