this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024

165 points (97.1% liked)

United States | News & Politics

1922 readers

288 users here now

Welcome to [email protected], where you can share and converse about the different things happening all over/about the United States.

If you’re interested in participating, please subscribe.

Rules

Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech.

Post anything related to the United States.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

165

Biden-Harris Administration Takes New Actions to Lower Housing Costs by Cutting Red Tape to Build More Housing. (www.whitehouse.gov)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 21 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Oh, good, even shittier build quality. How about rezoning?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Do they think the new homes pricing is going to reflect actual supply/demand or the twisted nightmare that is venture capital investment plans in real estate?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago

And where do you want to PUT these bungalows? We won't see the density we need, and it'll just be more sprawl of shitty little wooden urban huts.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

How will building more housing break up corporate landlords exactly?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

If more houses are built and become available, rental markets drop. Landlords are not going to keep buying houses and letting them sit empty. It's not that complicated.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

This is such a non fix being spun into a fix that this premise is garbage.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Put caps on how many homes any family/llc/company can own. Stop any foreign entity from owning more than two single family homes in the US, and the problem will be fixed.

Homes aren't scarce because housing is scarce. Homes are scarce because way too many people are making their living as landlords and property investors.

[+] [email protected] -8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Limiting the number of homes people can own will reduce the incentives for people or real estate developers to build more. You may end up with lower supply of homes, which may drive up price.

Modern economies usually depends on economies of scale to make profits. Imagine if a law was passed to limit the number of groceries people can buy in a supermarket because the government think it'll help poor people by hoping the law will drive down price. This would probably backfire, prompting the supermarket to buy less from distributors, and sell at a higher price because now they can't count on economies of scale.

In short, I'm saying your solution is naive.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Good

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There's already plenty of homes if they quit being ran as BNB's.

As far as incentives for builders to build homes, you're currently in a self harming system. For a single family home the price per square foot average has literally doubled over the past 15 years. A house that would have cost $120,000 just 15 years ago to build, now costs $250,000. Building supplies are through the roof because demand is already so high for them.

Enough houses already exist. Stop the bullshit house collectors, then the market actually have houses available to buy and prices will drop, so building new ones sliws, so building supply prices lower again, and houses stay a bit closer to being affordable again.

I paid $130k for a 3 year old house. Now it's a 17 year old house but it's currently worth around $300k. That's absolutely stupid.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

You're saying there's plenty of homes as if they are natural resources to be distributed. They aren't. Someone who spends money to build the homes and covers the costs necessary to even start building the homes need to get their return.

Even if they are natural resources to be distributed and enough houses already exists, what are you proposing? Just give the homes away?

You're paying a house and now its worth is more than double the amount you paid 17 years. Sorry, you're an idiot if you think there's a "correct" price of anything. That's the point of prices in market economy. They rise and fall depends on countless economic circumstances. I don't think your old house lives in a vacuum not affected by the economic changes surrounding your town/city or neighborhood.

If you're thinking about housing price cap, let's even stop this discussion because clearly you are not familiar about macroeconomic causes and effects.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Don't try to strawman away into another argument. Know when you've lost.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

This isn't really about winning or losing (defined by what, exactly? Upvotes? Lol)

It's good argument on differing ideas.

And I only mentioned price caps because you mentioned capping houses owned. Not my intention to strawman you.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago

It's both.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Someone should make a pie chart of how much a house cost is labour, materials, taxes/government shit, and how much just goes to the landlords pocket.

If we really want to solve the problem we mine as well use proper data to see where efforts would be best spent

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's going to depend heavily on state, municipality, and zone type of where each project is taking place. You'd also need to control for local labor prices and materials cost.

There's too much variability in local conditions to make broad statements.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

For sure, and like any study its going to be bias towards its creator, but even some sort of frequency analysis I believe would be telling to say at the least

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

It's going to be telling in certain places and under certain circumstances.

Some places require certain (high) insulation values for all new construction housing. Building housing in those places costs more. Neighboring states and municipalities that do not have those laws will have lower costs.

Similarly, some areas are in high demand. Housing there sells for a higher price.

It ain't rocket surgery.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Developers in Canada are going bust because houses aren't worth the building costs. No amount of clearing red tape changes the insane cost of materials.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 months ago

More house for llc. Make law to house people not corporation.