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Comment by frankfrankfrank | Hacker News Reader

I think what is being referred to here in typical mush mouth obtuse language is the "monopolization" that corporations are engaging in buying up massive amounts of real assets with essentially free money the fed it printing at the rate that even the "printing press goes brrrrrr" meme does not do justice.

I don't know that people are really aware of the scale of what is going on here. The big finance houses have essentially been handed over ownership and control to corner the whole housing market ... by the captured and corrupt government.

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The monopolization the paper refers to is how industry and government prevent the adoption of factory methods in construction, increasing construction costs.

Eh, it’s a lot more than that. But the paper is specifically pointing out that cost of land seems to be the driving factor, not cost of construction which is relatively flat.

A cheaper manufactured home would of course be nice if looking at costs, but dropping it on a $1.5m acre lot isn’t going to change the math that much.

Sure, if you are only building SFH.

I get that especially here people would love to think that "factory methods in construction" are wonderful, but the reality is that it is way more "human soul crushing communist block building" and far less utopian wonderland.

In defence of brutalist architecture, at least its functional, spacious, and sensibly planned enough to build communities around those blocks. The concrete monstrosities of the 1960 and 70s built in London are still standing and are worth just as much as the newer builds which typically sport newer materials but come with higher rents and smaller spaces.

In defense of the "human soul crushing communist block buildings", at least they were less soul crushing than living with multiple other families in the same apartment, sharing bathrooms and kitchens.

Post WWII there were an actual housing crisis in the USSR, and those block buildings helped a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchyovka

Impact of Institutional Buyers on Home Sales and Single-Family Rentals: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31594034

> The big finance houses have essentially been handed over ownership and control to corner the whole housing market ... by the captured and corrupt government.

A couple things to try to contextualize this claim:

1. Institutional investors are purchasing single-family homes at a greater rate than they used to, but they account for a minority of all purchases: "During the first three months of this [2021], investors bought nearly 15% of U.S. homes, up from about 10% during the previous three quarters."

2. Their overall share of the market remains small: "Yet of the roughly 15 million single-family rental homes in the U.S., institutional investors own only about 2%, according to real estate consulting firm RCLCO."

Source: https://www.realtrends.com/articles/institutional-ownership-...

Overall share probably doesn't matter. Adding 15% extra demand will certainly influence price.

It is irrelevant whether land is owned by corporations or private persons for the rent seeking behavior you describe. You’ve reinvented Georgism but with extra unnecessary steps.

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