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Re:What Happens When Housing Prices Go Down? by carlosjobim on Monday July 21, 2025 @10:07AM (#44635275)
> No matter how nice a place people live, they always want it to be nicer.

I'm trying to make sense of your argument. No matter how nice a vehicle people have, they always want to have a nicer one. But we don't see normal cars costing 50-80 years of your life to purchase.

Re:What Happens When Housing Prices Go Down? by Apreche on Monday July 21, 2025 @10:27AM (#44635494)
Cars are depreciating assets. They can only be maintained and upgraded to a certain extent before they must be replaced.

A public park, a street, a school, these also depreciate, but most of them can not be thrown out and replaced like a car. They require constant maintenance. They also have nearly unlimited capacity for upgrades. The school gym can get new equipment. The street can be repaved. The park can get new landscaping. Wherever you live, the public amenities can always be improved. There is always demand from the residents to make those improvements.

Nobody ever tells their town to uglify the neighborhood. They always ask to beautify it. That means they are always asking to increase demand, and therefore to increase housing prices.

Re:What Happens When Housing Prices Go Down? by carlosjobim on Monday July 21, 2025 @01:41PM (#44638056)
But under the current global monetary system, buildings increase in monetary value as they physically depreciate. If they are maintained or improved, their value only increases more.

> Nobody ever tells their town to uglify the neighborhood.

Young people move out of towns until they are more or less ghost towns. During this entire process, real estate keeps increasing in value, although demand is steadily and predictably vanishing.