At what point can a hostile housing market be considered a discrimination issue (on financial basis)?
Until we make housing into a much less attractive "Investment" we will see obscene pricing levels. The only way to do that is to increase supply of housing. The hands down best way to do that is to end R1 zoning, minimum offsets, and parking minimums. At least within 20 miles of major cities.
The solution is quality social housing, built by the state in large enough quantities to disrupt the market.
Something like this would be a huge improvement and reduce housing costs.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/6/6/toward-dynamic-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danchi
Housing didn’t become a depreciating asset there over night. It was the express result of the state intervening in the market.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/09/19/modest-decli...
Cities have been writing laws and zoning that prevent economies of scale from kicking in for decades. If they just stop doing that, we'll get more housing.
You're stating this like it's a fact, but you haven't explained why. In a free market, competition is on the basis of price and quality.
Imagine if you are currently owning and occupying a house and have a chance to pay your mortgage by building a rental property on the unoccupied half of your lot. A lot of people would be very happy to do so if it were legalized.
Edit: But you are totally right that socialized housing would be an excellent solution.
That isn't the only way.
We could eliminate the many tax benefits like: accelerated depreciation, 1031 exchange, step up cost basis for inherited property, etc.
Heck, there's no policy justification for having the stepped-up basis at all.
Decrease the benefits for owning an investment property, then the number of people purchasing investment properties will be lower and prices will likely fall.
Yeah same for health, education, insurance, internet, medicine etc.
https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2021/03/16/who-benefits-f...
Granted, those are paper gains, but still, better to have that option than to be priced out of the market completely, as many are.
> The only way to do that is to increase supply of housing
And gave some examples of reduced regulation (zoning, parking) that would make it easier to build. They didn't say anything about government subsidies.
You said
> No, the best way is to build housing
Aren't you both saying the same thing?
I think you might have stopped reading at "don't make housing such a good investment" and not considered the substance of their argument.
Soviet style block housing with mixed use development would be awesome but rich Americans would HATE it. Especially when you are building on a 10 acre lot next to their $2M 3 bedroom house, 3-5 miles from downtown, to build 4,000 units for the poors that make them coffee and deliver their Uber Eats.
It's much more politically viable to allow them to build a 20 unit apartment building on their 1/3 acre lot and rent it for $40,000/month to help pay for their $2M mortgage.
The only way to increase the housing supply is to increase the price of the house. So you're left with a death spiral. Build to lower prices, but the actual building is costing more than what people are willing to pay for a house, let alone the markup needed to justify KB homes (or others) to get involved at all.
Sure they're building, and you can go to job sites, but they're not going to charge what you think they will at the end. Long gone are those signs that say NEW HOMES LOW $400s!!!
And if you do, they're undesirably small condos. The sales cycles are extended or, unfortunately, they're just going to keep selling at the $800 prices you're seeing for a new home.
Besides - even if there weren't many success stories to draw from, which there are - things can be improved on. Just because the first bicycles kinda sucked, doesn't mean that modern e-bikes aren't amazing. There are similar examples everywhere.
What's going on right now is a horror show. It's stupid, economically and morally.
There are lots of places all over the US, that have some forms of public housing.
And yet most people prefer private housing.
By all means, the government should compete in the housing market like everyone else.
And then the consumer should decided.
But, my feelings are that most people are currently choosing private housing markets for a reason.
Zoning rules like height restrictions, floor area ratio, lot coverage, setbacks, parking minimums, square footage minimums, lot size minimums, and other zoning restrictions place extreme limits what can be built before we even mention exclusive single family zoning.