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Comment by kriops | Hacker News Reader

> (...) there should be heavy state intervention (...)

This has been tried so many times throughout different cultures and time periods, and by different means. It will not benefit whoever is actually living on the properties, but will detract from their situation.

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt has several concrete examples of attempted interventions, and is written to give a basic intuition on why this happens (Spoiler: Opportunity costs).

The only permanent solution is just to build more buildings, or at a political level simply making it easier to build new buildings, which directly increases supply and thus causes the lowering of prices. This makes perfect sense when you think about it: There are not enough buildings, so we need to have more buildings.

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It continues to be disappointing to see so many people turn to state power as a solution to the problem of scarcity. Scarcity is solved through production not political power.

Can't produce more land. Best we can do is tax people for hoarding it

Best we can do is certainly not increase the cost of land, and thus increase the required price of rent/housing to break even.

Less regulatory obstacles to increase supply, i.e. build housing, is the correct answer.

Land Value Tax would decrease the cost of land as it makes land speculation less attractive. People won't be willing to bet on much on real estate if increased prices come with a tax penalty.

Land value tax reduces the cost of the land needed for housing since it incentivizes density. Building taller means each person lives on less land.

You can increase density.

That's a pretty broad assessment.

It's not without its flaws, but Singapore has an extremely effective public housing program run by the government's Housing & Development Board (HDB) where 89.9% of Singaporeans are homeowners.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/664518/home-ownership-ra...

The "just build more" supply argument doesn't hold water when you have an unlimited source of demand from institutional investors and speculators that use housing as a place to park their money.

Isn't the heavy state intervention already here in the form of zoning?

Those are not even the only regulations, but you are absolutely right. Hence the prices.

Isn't "just build more" what we've been doing for decades, and exactly how we got into the situation we're in now?

but what if they just build more 1000ft tall buildings with only 40 uber-luxury units? how does that help?

It sounds like incentives in Manhattan are stacked in a way that 1000ft tall buildings with only 40 uber-luxury units are the only kind of buildings that can be profitably built.

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