While we have intelligent people discussing pie-in-the-sky solutions, barely-related tangential issues, and even misdirected injection attacks, the causes of the housing crisis are not only well-known to (honest) economists [1], but can be verified by looking at the market pre- and post-1970.
It's hard enough to tune in to the correct analysis in the cacophony. When once in a blue moon it comes from the bully pulpit [2], it still gets shot down in a sea of misdirection.
[1] https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/0...
[2] https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/obama-takes-on-zoning...
[1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/11-350-sustainable-real-estate-s...
[2] https://www.edx.org/learn/sustainable-development/massachuse...
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63Np7g0Xtk9...
there are enough homeowners that they vote for politicians and policies that will increase the value of their "investments". All this does is simply steal money from the next generation. Our entire economic system is designed to transfer wealth from the young and poor and the old and wealthy.
There is a distinction here to be made between "private property" (what we have now) and "personal property", which would be a far more ideal outcome.
Personal property simply means that you're allowed to own your own home. You're either not allowed to buy up huge tracts of homes to restrict supply and jack up prices or, if you do, you're taxed punitively for it.
Landlords. We need to get rid of landlords. 50+ years ago, the UK came close to this with a surprisingly simple solution [1].
This alone isn't sufficient but it's an important part. The other big part is to have a supply of social housing [2] so the private sector simply can't manipulate hte market.
Unfortunately, when Americans in particular hear a term like "social housing" they lose their minds and they immediately go to ghettoes or projects. Don't think that. Think Vienna [3][4].
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-...
[2]: https://www.allianceforhousingjustice.org/us-social-housing-...
[3]: https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-archit...
[4]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-soc...
Just read the comments, “housing provider” you can’t even admit your a landlord, it is amusing to read comment like these, very interesting to see how NIMBYs think.
Tax something like $1,000 per day that a unit is unoccupied (aka not in residential lease or commercial with x number of employees assigned there).
Buy and hold empty is not sustainable. Also Airbnb can go to hell.
Those who own real estate and rent it out should be motivated to create more housing. They should get tax breaks. Not penalized with more taxes.
Thats the only sustainable way.
Beware that in the past a condo was cheaper than a home per apartment because there was only one roof, a bit less in equipment and so on. BUT that's in the past where there was not much about anti-seismic design, fire safety, HVAC and so on. Today a modern "green" condo cost more in raw materials than equivalent single family homes PLUS the condo can't evolve. A tower? Even FAR worse. Just the mere structure need more steel than homes, just the elevators alone cost more. Similarly modern rails cost MORE than people moving with personal cars. The narrative of course it's the opposite because finance capitalism need big things and profit from rent and services in such setups, but the narrative and the reality are really different.
Today the sustainable real estate economy is those of spread single-family homes mixed with small commercial buildings (sheds, essentially) to reduce significantly the amount of commuting residents needs just to buy some groceries, modern small buildings built locally with mass produced components produced around the territory in most cases in not so big setups simply because there are standards like home appliances sizes or Chinese battery tools connectors (the same battery works essentially any tool from any vendor) or cars (yes, most component of Chinese cars are the same even if cars came from various brands). Essentially today sustainable real estate is a FLOSS/open hardware one spread/personal and built around the world without megafactories for most of the component (we still need some big scale for steel, for some electronics, mining etc, but not much more). This real estate of course is VERY opposed by any means by large actors who know well this model is for individual ownership, SMEs not for them.
Or maybe it's a tiered system. W/e.
On a related note, does anyone have anecdotal stories about the efficacy of Georgist tax policies?