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Comment by thinkingkong | Hacker News Reader

Almost everyone has taken an econ101 class but it will not reduce the cost of housing. At all. When large corporate interests control this many resources they keep the price pinned. Simultaneously the cost of building new property has gone up especially now that the materials and the demand for housing is collectively understood. Add in inflation. The price of housing will never be reduced.

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Since I have taken Econ 101 and taught it, it’s worth pointing out that literally no one thinks this is how housing markets work.

You can draw a set of supply and demand curves which keep prices the same under a supply increase, but not bc “large corporate interests keep prices pinned.” More important is that that special case is not relevant to housing markets.

There is also relevant empirical work on this issue. Increase supply and prices will fall. I’d bet you a billion dollars on that outcome.

Not an expert here but one thing I've noticed is that large / corporate landlords prefer to let a property sit empty rather than reduce the rent as supply/demand theory would indicate. My understanding is that this is because there are special tax benefits like you can write off the loss to lower your tax burden. How does this factor in?

You have a contradiction, basic Econ tells us it will reduce prices.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Yes-th...

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040215/how-does-law...

Edit: And downvoted, follow the Science^TM except Economics, in that case follow randos

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