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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

I don’t disagree that zoning impacts prices, but it’s still “fair market price”, no?

I choose to move to SF knowing that rents were absurd compared to other cities I could have moved to. But I choose to roll the dice on SF being the better choice.

I get it that people who grew up in SF face a different choice - leave or not. But it’s still a choice for them.

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If someone owned all the water in the world, then "fair market price" is whatever they choose to set the price at. That doesn't mean that as a society we should be comfortable with allowing one person to own all the water in the world.

Established landlords have friends on the local council, and can determine who gets a building permit. Prices are set by the two or three biggest players, who all know each other. That stuff happens all the time.

Sure, but someone still makes a decision “yes this rent is worth it” or “no I’ll go somewhere else”.

With a greater supply the clearing price will be lower. That's a trivial statement.

The real problem is elsewhere - by constraining supply landowners are inhibiting economic development. Newcomers have a choice, if accommodation is too high they'll go elsewhere, so economic growth in productive industries will take place elsewhere.

Man, not too long ago I shitcanned a new job 4 days in over the insane housing prices. A good number of my colleagues had a sideline in Airbnb, that asset inflation machine.

There's far too much capital sunk in real estate, where it could not be more unproductive.

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