Comment by CountSessine | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CountSessine | Hacker News Reader

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That other problems exist is not a valid reason to prevent fixing something if that fix actually helps in some way

That scarcity exists is the whole reason we're focusing on foreign buyers in 2022. And blind-bidding in 2021. And investors in 2019. And money-laundering in 2018. And Chinese money in 2017. All of these things should be addressed, but every one of them has provided political cover for the real reason that housing is so expensive in popular cities, which is scarcity.

None of these things will matter one whit to housing affordability. "Helps in some way" is fine as long as we understand that it has nothing to do with high housing prices. "Helps in some way" is fine as long as we measure our claims and admit that this is about basic fairness and respect for the law. "Helps in some way" is alright except that "helps in some way" has been sold for the last 6 years, politically, as, "this is the reason you can't buy a home! Surely it has nothing to do with NIMBYism and our suburbs! Please don't ask me, as your elected representative, to take on suburban voters and start talking about housing equity as it relates to affordability!"

Every one of these things should be dealt with. Canada should probably have anti-racketeering laws. Real-estate boards should have less power and should be compelled to publicize their sales data. Etc, etc, ...

Just quit the bullsh*t about this being about addressing housing affordability.

> the real reason that housing is so expensive in popular cities, which is scarcity.

This isn't really true though. Housing is expensive everywhere, even in unpopular cities, even in cities losing population. (Except for a few specific cities), housing is not scarce, we just pretend it is because we pretend all these fake financial transactions count as valid 'demand'.

> we're focusing on foreign buyers in 2022. And blind-bidding in 2021. And investors in 2019. And money-laundering in 2018. And Chinese money in 2017. All of these things should be addressed, but every one of them has provided political cover for the real reason that housing is so expensive in popular cities, which is scarcity

And why is housing "scarce"? Because we waste housing on fake buyers (every single thing you just mentioned). That's why it's all in focus so much.

My midwestern city has built 2x to 3x more housing units than it's received in new residents, for almost 15 years straight now, and housing still goes up 15% each year like clockwork. You can outbuild new resident growth (many places already do), but you can never outbuild investor demand while housing is federally forced to appreciate like this.

I'm so sick of people bullsh*tting that 'zoning' and 'nimbys' are why housing is expensive, when we have dozens of major cities with no meaningful zoning restrictions, no 'nimbys', and no restrictions on growth or construction of any kind -- and even in these cities, housing is shit and expensive.

> This isn't really true though. Housing is expensive everywhere, even in unpopular cities, even in cities losing population.

Calgary? Its a hugely popular city, with a similar growth rate as vancouver and yet housing is much cheaper (relatively speaking)

Very true. The same house I just sold in Calgary for 400k is worth 1.2M in Vancouver and area. Which is why there is so much money coming from Vancouver and the GTA to Calgary and Alberta.

The growth of remote work, fuelled partly, but not entirely by the pandemic has supercharged our market which is two and a half hours outside the GTA. Such a temporary solution though because equilibrium will be achieved with or without Federal intervention. Sadly we won’t probably even get high speed rail transit to and from the GTA out of this.

> None of these things will matter one whit to housing affordability.

> "Helps in some way" is alright except that "helps in some way" has been sold for the last 6 years, politically, as, "this is the reason you can't buy a home! Surely it has nothing to do with NIMBYism and our suburbs! Please don't ask me, as your elected representative, to take on suburban voters and start talking about housing equity as it relates to affordability!"

That isn't what the commenter you originally replied to was stating, nor was it my position. While your argument may have merit, it's a non-sequitur when used as a rebuttal to either that commenter or myself.

> Just quit the bullsh*t about this being about addressing housing affordability.

I get it, you have a point you want to make. There are more constructive ways to do so than to misconstrue the arguments of the people you are replying to.

That isn't what the commenter you originally replied to was stating, nor was it my position. While your argument may have merit, it's a non-sequitur when used as a rebuttal to either that commenter or myself.

The poster is literally responding to a news article about housing affordability with the declaration about blind-bidding, "This is such a huge deal".

It really isn't. This is the difference between English vs Dutch auctions and the relative merits in an open and sane market can be debated. Sealed auctions are not a market failure. Sealed auctions do not necessarily lead to higher bids. Sealed auctions do not necessarily lead to market asymmetries. The effects of these two auction choices is largely irrelevant as long as we have the demand curve pushed out to crazy-town.

Do research on the property! One of the big advantages of Dutch auctions is that bidders don't get information on how you value something! Except of course that everything is valuable because of scarcity so yeah actually I guess sealed bids won't really provide a lot of value for the buyer.

Adjust your bid as others bid! English auctions allow you to make lots of adjustments based on what other bidders think something is worth! Oh, except of course everything is in demand so everyone just keeps bidding and the frenzy makes other participants unpredictable... so yeah, actually I guess open bids won't really provide a lot of value for the buyer.

I get it, you have a point you want to make. There are more constructive ways to do so than to misconstrue the arguments of the people you are replying to.

I'm really just tired of the bs.

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