Hacker News Reader

Housing prices increasing because of slow zoning and regulations has been debunked already. Typical argument used by property developers.

The reality is that building houses for investment is more profitable for developers so they keep building it. As opposed to affordable housing actually used for living. The result is a glut of luxury investment apartments and lack of affordable nonluxury housing.

View on HN

No, they just can't build enough. It's not as though building high-rise condos and houses is mutually exclusive.

In Japan, houses don't really appreciate. People just knock them down and build new ones with much more ease. There's certainly no shortage of developers wanting for "investment" apartments, it's not the deciding factor. The demand can actually be met there.

I'm not seeing that luxury investment housing, though. The newly built houses are usually +/- cheap junk at premium prices. At the same prices there's a low supply of 30-40 year old homes, but of a way way better quality. And in any case, new construction + available supply is nowhere near enough to meet the demand. What folks without 500k/year are doing I don't know.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com