A proposal to increase housing supply
The problems: 1) baby boomers are holding onto large homes, living longer, never selling 2) investors/private equity firms bought up a ton of property at super low rates and can just jack up rates and squeeze people, never selling 3) consequently, millennials with kids can’t buy homes, anyone who doesn’t own is squeezed. homelessness, homeless encampments, and crime increases. Americans have fewer kids. 4) Housing costs are also driving inflation for everyone — if your waiter’s rent increases 30%, the price of your burger is going to increase, also. The solution: 1) tax people who don’t live in the extra home(s) they own. Keep property taxes low where they are for homestead exemption (living in your one domicile) and increase property taxes on all the other residential property owned. Keep increasing taxes on extra properties until investors and pe firms start freeing up existing inventory. 2) use part of the tax revenues from 1) to give low interest loans to home builders. Cap the loan by square footage and price to incentivize smallish, average-priced 3-4 bedroom single family homes. We are in an inflation spiral — high interest rates mean builders can’t build, which raises existing housing prices, which increases inflation, which increases interest rates, so builders can’t build, and on and on. 3) also use tax revenues from 1) to give grants to local governments to build more housing for seniors, so older people have nice, fun, low maintenance communities to move to (if they choose), also freeing up existing homes. 4) provide ways to streamline the permitting process to free up land to develop and to make construction easier and faster.
High housing prices are by design. The people in power want it this way. I’m starting to think the only solution is revolution. That’s the only way the policies you mention can be enacted.
Or, we can pass laws that improve the situation. Did you know that it wasn’t until 1974, with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, that women gained the right to open bank accounts on their own without their husband? People didn’t just sit around complaining that people in power would never let anything change unless there was a revolution. Congress passed the law, the president signed it, and women could open bank accounts. Did you know there used to be no federally protected minimum maternity leave and that parents could be fired for taking a month off to care for a newborn? But the Family Leave Act of 1993 provided federal legal protection for people to take a medical leave to give birth or for medically necessary reasons. You would think “the people in power” like employers would never let that happen — being required to let mothers to take leave to give birth — and yet it happened. It happens but it requires citizens to not give in to cynicism, to be informed, and to demand solutions from their government. Cynicism, hopelessness, hate, obstructionism all block us from taking steps to improving life. If people in America’s past were this cynical, we never would have gotten the Clean Air Act, Medicare, or highways.
Stop illegal immigration. Stop scammers doing H1B visas on their body shops, abusing US system. Problem solved.
Grind harder
There’s plenty of housing, you just don’t like where it’s located. Move to a different city or farther out. This is how we continue to evolve our cities as a nation. No ones worried that Cleveland is no longer the financial capital of the country from 100 years ago. Times change. Decide with your feet.
This is true. You can buy a house in Michigan for less than the down payment on that shitty single family home in San Francisco
There are several problems with this. For one, regional competitive advantage is a real, studied thing. LA, NY and Atlanta (and Georgia generally) have booming entertainment production. You need to be able to grow industries that are growing, it is good for the whole country and the economy. Second, multiple ownership and non-resident ownership is driving much of the shortage. We ran a virtual 0% interest rate from 2017-2021 which concentrated buying power at a level unprecedented in American history, and there are consequences that need to be fixed. There are states and regions with DECREASING populations and increasing prices, which is clearly driven by people owning homes they don’t even live in.
There are some potential solutions that we don’t know the impact of. 1) stop requirements on how big homes can be. Allow tiny homes. 2) severely reduce the red tape around ADUs 3) allow modular homes in more places. Not mobile homes, but you can get mod homes that are nice and can be set up very fast. 4) stop building low income housing (that’s for sale). This only puts more pressure on market rate housing. Keep low income housing as a rental only.
This. Too many regulations making it hard to build. Only homes with big profit margins (luxury) get built because they can justify all the red tape.
5) Reduce demand for housing by sending 50+ million illegal immigrants home.
All that needs to happen is for interest rates to rise enough to cause a recession.
I don’t think that will do it this time. Too many dynamics in the economy have changed. There is too great a concentration of wealth and an even greater concentration of credit. Large firms have found ways to restrict supply and then squeeze consumers. It’s like a private equity firm buying all the companies that make a specialized cancer drug for children, then restricting supply and jacking prices up 100x fold. Having a recession isn’t going to get those prices down. It will take government action to increase supply — in both examples.
A deep enough recession will. 2007 was similar where prices looked unsustainable. They fell hard starting 2008 and didn’t bottom till much later. Some jurisdictions do have a particular problem with where people are allowed to build, but that is a self inflicted one that should be possible or change as the older generation dies out.
De-population is a better proposal for any resource shortage problem.
Evicting the 50 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. would make everything more affordable.
Only a simpleton thinks their one obsessive issue can solve everything in a complex, multifaceted world.
Simpleton? Speak for yourself
Get rid of zoning laws. People don't need to live in SFH. Hey rod of suburban USA. Everyone lives in apartments, much closer, much better infrastructure, small walking distances, easier commute. It's the Nibys who are the issue.
You are proposing a binary solution to a fuzzy problem. Homeownership is a very dynamic problem and owning a home means different things for different people. Being fair and being right is not the same thing.
It's not a complicated issue. Increase supply, or reduce demand. We can't build fast enough to meet the demands of the millions of illegals entering the country, so reduce demand by sending them all home. Easy peasy.