• SCB@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Wall Street is not the problem, a lack of new housing is, according to David Howard, the chief executive of the National Rental Home Council, a trade association. The country needs anywhere from 2 million to 6.5 million units of new housing, according to various estimates.

    “Policies really need to be shaped and crafted so that they support the production, investment and development of new housing,” Mr. Howard said. “I think bills that work against that ultimately are just going to perpetuate the challenges we’re already facing.”

    While I certainly disagree with this person on some of their specifics, and don’t necessarily agree with the “teeth” of this bill (10k per home owned isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things, and can just be priced in to an already out-of-control market), seeing a trade organization argue for the actual long-term solution bodes really well for the future of solving the housing crisis.

    • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s crazy that they say we need more housing when there are so many empty houses sitting on the market from corporate real estate investing and other house flippers. “Wall Street is not the problem, a lack of new housing is” really sounds like the guy with gasoline and matches in hand saying “it wasn’t me” at the scene of an arson fire.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        A lack of housing is very explicitly our problem. Houses that are empty are not unowned.

        Until housing is no longer seen as an investment, which can only happen if we are allowed to build sufficient housing, housing will continue to go up in value, and thus more people will invest

        Anyone who sees their home as their “nest egg” is part of the problem.

        • prole@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Until housing is no longer seen as an investment, which can only happen if we are allowed to build sufficient housing

          It can happen through legislation.

        • HandBreadedTools@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          So you build 500,000 new homes and blackstone or other companies buy 450,000, meaning you only actually generated 50,000 new homes. No, corporate interests are the vast majority of the problem with housing. Your neighbor renting out their house after buying a 2nd isn’t the issue.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Assuming some large capital group buys all those homes, they’re going to do it to try to make money off of it.

            More supply means lower prices

            • Katana314@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Constraining supply, either by not building, or by buying everything available, means higher prices, so they don’t have to sell as many houses to make the same revenue.

              • SCB@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Gonna go ahead and throw out that people whose job it is to make said revenue saying that selling more makes them more revenue makes this not track

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The head of an organization that represents landlords is advocating for building more houses. Now why do you think that is?

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Because they want to build more to make more money.

        Please explain how this is a bad thing? This is rental org explicitly stating that the lack of supply is hurting their growth and profit.

        That means they believe that the supply/demand curve is so out of whack that cheaper housing will make them more money.

        This is absolutely and 100% a win-win.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Because I believe, in general, landlords are a bad thing.

          This guy is getting priced out of the market by big money hedge funds the same way he prices out families looking to buy their single homes. Making housing “affordable” by increasing the supply of new houses disproportionately benefits the wealthy. After all, if you have $100 million you want to spend on property ownership, would you rather buy one hundred $1 million properties, or one thousand $100,000 properties of the same size?

          You want to make housing affordable? Stop letting parasites like these buy dozens of houses.

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Making housing “affordable” by increasing the supply of new houses disproportionately benefits the wealthy.

            • Arbiter@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Some people need to imagine how they can get cheap thingies while the people who they bought from still make a profit. Does this matter? With cheap houses they will have many children which will push for more houses until either the earth becomes just houses or their demands are squashed and they become sardines.