Re:Priced out of home ownership – 'It makes me want to throw...
by AnthonyMouse on Tuesday May 28, 2024 @06:45PM
(#40506400)
> Can you think of a city that built so much housing that rents became cheap (relative to local income)?
Most cities with a declining population. They built more housing than they needed, then people moved out, so now housing costs there are low.
It's hard to find other examples of places that have built too much housing, because there is no market incentive to do that. In practice the best you can do is prevent there from being too little.
But the areas with less restrictive zoning do have lower housing costs.
Houston metro, not very restrictive zoning:
Per capita income: $68,344
Median home price: $192,500
Riverside metro, California zoning:
Per capita income: $50,407
Median home price: $393,000
> Meanwhile, more and more people and jobs are moving in, attracted by all that new housing. The area becomes ever more popular and more expensive.
It isn't the housing that attracts them, it's jobs etc. The housing is then needed to give them somewhere to live, or you get California.
In some ways having more people will create more jobs and attract more people, but the idea that it's not possible to keep up with demand is just defeatism. You can't build a million new units overnight but neither do a million new people move in overnight, and even if they did, you would then be better off to build a million new units over five or ten years than to not do this.
Whereas the argument is simply that building the units should not be prohibited. You obviously don't need a law against it if your actual problem was people not doing it fast enough, right?
Most cities with a declining population. They built more housing than they needed, then people moved out, so now housing costs there are low.
It's hard to find other examples of places that have built too much housing, because there is no market incentive to do that. In practice the best you can do is prevent there from being too little.
But the areas with less restrictive zoning do have lower housing costs.
Houston metro, not very restrictive zoning:
Riverside metro, California zoning: > Meanwhile, more and more people and jobs are moving in, attracted by all that new housing. The area becomes ever more popular and more expensive.It isn't the housing that attracts them, it's jobs etc. The housing is then needed to give them somewhere to live, or you get California.
In some ways having more people will create more jobs and attract more people, but the idea that it's not possible to keep up with demand is just defeatism. You can't build a million new units overnight but neither do a million new people move in overnight, and even if they did, you would then be better off to build a million new units over five or ten years than to not do this.
Whereas the argument is simply that building the units should not be prohibited. You obviously don't need a law against it if your actual problem was people not doing it fast enough, right?