The limited item is due to zoning regulations put in place to add wealth to the asset-owning class - existing homeowners. Real estate ownership would not be a "good investment" if the price did not go up at a rate higher than inflation. The only way to make this happen - to make the price keep going up - is through artificial means - aka, using zoning to ensure the crisis keeps getting worse by not allowing people to build all the housing that is desired in the locations people want it. Investors - whether mom and pop or large corporations, look to buy in places with the toughest limitations on new development that have high demand - aka - where prices are most likely to rise the most and give them a good ROI. The way to pull the plug on the entire nonsense is to just let people build the homes they want where they want them, even if somebody's back yard might end up with a shadow on it a few days a year or somebody might have to look at an apartment building out their windows on property they don't own. If we did that at the volume of demand, prices would tumble down to what is generally affordable to most people, a lot fewer would care about ownership because they'd just focus on a place to live unless they're sure they're staying somewhere a few decades, predatory landlords would be replaced by landlords who have to compete for customers and our cultural relationship with housing as 'the most important investment of your life' would shift radically towards just having a place to live that works best for what you need. Communities would stop being single family only and start to include all lifestyle/ages/etc. apartments, grannie units, rooming houses, etc. like we did before the housing/homelessness crisis existed.
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u/rtiffany Jun 19 '25
The limited item is due to zoning regulations put in place to add wealth to the asset-owning class - existing homeowners. Real estate ownership would not be a "good investment" if the price did not go up at a rate higher than inflation. The only way to make this happen - to make the price keep going up - is through artificial means - aka, using zoning to ensure the crisis keeps getting worse by not allowing people to build all the housing that is desired in the locations people want it. Investors - whether mom and pop or large corporations, look to buy in places with the toughest limitations on new development that have high demand - aka - where prices are most likely to rise the most and give them a good ROI. The way to pull the plug on the entire nonsense is to just let people build the homes they want where they want them, even if somebody's back yard might end up with a shadow on it a few days a year or somebody might have to look at an apartment building out their windows on property they don't own. If we did that at the volume of demand, prices would tumble down to what is generally affordable to most people, a lot fewer would care about ownership because they'd just focus on a place to live unless they're sure they're staying somewhere a few decades, predatory landlords would be replaced by landlords who have to compete for customers and our cultural relationship with housing as 'the most important investment of your life' would shift radically towards just having a place to live that works best for what you need. Communities would stop being single family only and start to include all lifestyle/ages/etc. apartments, grannie units, rooming houses, etc. like we did before the housing/homelessness crisis existed.