The US clamped down on Mexican border crossings. Guess what? There’s no labor. Who would have thunk it.
Now, the border is more porous than ever. There's plenty of labor -- go to any home improvement store parking lot. And that's just the illegal labor -- boost wages and you could recapture legal workers.
But for now, go to any construction site in California, and you'll hear only Spanish spoken between the carpenters, roofers, etc. and their supervision.
I wouldn’t assume all or even most labor on constructions sites are illegal immigrants just because they speak Spanish, if only because the USA has a lot of legal first-gen Hispanic immigrants.
Back here on earth, roofers are making $36/hr. My brother’s restaurant is paying $28-32/hr for line cooks and dishwashers.
They could raise their prices too. When they say "it's not profitable" they mean "we would like to have workers at low pay, but still enjoy selling at low prices".
there is a market for hand-made furniture but Ikea stuff dominates.
And boyyyyy is there a gap between these. I feel like I’m either paid $100 for shitty pressboard or thousands upon thousands for hardwood.
Thankfully, there are some decent pieces left from 50 or so years ago that are both solid and dirt cheap at thrift/antique shops.
The market is more efficient, on average, than other methods of price setting. It’s not perfect efficiency (or even close to it).
They do (sans outcompeting). We just call them luxury goods. It's a different market.
[1] https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/how-much-does-it-cost-...
Does it? I've read time and again that land is the largest part of the cost - in any place where cost is significant.
On the other hand, the jobs also bring in a lot of money for the islanders who perform them, and the wages are relatively high by international standards due to NZ’s high minimum wage.
We already have a cost of living crisis, and raising the price of fruit and vegetables by removing these visas for seasonal workers seems like it would hurt everyone without helping anyone in particular.
It helps local labor sellers to be in higher demand and hence negotiate higher prices who may have taken the option to pick fruit and vegetables.
This practice should be stopped, or we should reconsider the so called "free market" if the government can manipulate it to bail out the business owning class whenever they're not profitable.
There is no housing shortage, there are just people who aren't willing to pay the market rate for housing. Up your price that you are willing to pay and you will have housing. If you can't pay the market rate for housing, do not be surprised when you do not have housing.
Basic economics.
If it costs 500k to permit and inspect a house, you can absolutely complain
That said, I have spoken to builders who described city costs of several hundred thousand dollars for renovating or building single family/duplex homes. For start, SF permit costs are a % of construction with 6-9% for the basic permit. If you do the work yourself, you have to pay a % of the market cost if you were to contract it out. Then there are a plethora of additional fees and permits, and you can find some of them here {1}.
I think you are right that the single biggest cost is code conformance, minimum size, construction ect. Some of the requirements are ridiculous. For example California requires electrical outlets every 48 inches along countertops, independent of if I want them at all. This mentality extends to every part of the the permitting process.
https://sf.gov/step-by-step/get-building-permit-house-review
There are all sorts of restrictions on what type of labor is legally allowed. Age restrictions, hours, licensing, unions, plenty of other regulation. But when there is a story on this site about how employers say there is a shortage of workers, the typical answer is "there is no shortage, raise wages". That's because the typical reader of this site isn't someone trying to run a low margin business, the typical reader of this site is someone who moved to one of the most expensive areas of the world and subsequently realized that for some reason, housing is expensive there, so the government needs to make changes.
But that's not a shortage. Just because you can't afford something at the market clearing price doesn't mean there's a shortage. And just because you can't afford something at the market clearing price doesn't necessarily mean the government needs to make changes. You might need to make changes instead.
That's literally the definition of a shortage[1], "a condition where the quantity demanded is greater than the quantity supplied at the market price".
> But that's not a shortage. Just because you can't afford something at the market clearing price doesn't mean there's a shortage. And just because you can't afford something at the market clearing price doesn't necessarily mean the government needs to make changes. You might need to make changes instead.
In the case of housing, the government creates the condition whereby there is not enough housing in places where there is the most economic activity. It's a huge drag on the overall economy and well documented.
Or who are unable.
I have a sincere question, though. What about the (potential, I’m still mulling this over) distortion introduced by foreign players flooding the market? I can tell you firsthand that places like Seattle, Vancouver, London, Los Angeles, and New York City experience heretofore unheard-of amounts of money coming in from prosperous but less stable economies like China.