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The short sightedness is the problem. As far as I know, NIMBY is endemic in the USA, precisely because home owners are so worried about lowering the value of their home.

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Exactly. If you stop seeing your house as an investment, and you own it, it doesn't matter if it's value goes down, if it goes along with the market. It even means it's easier for you to trade up.

For the poor souls that have decades of interest left to pay on a loan it's a different story, but somehow, someone has to lose something for most people to have decent housing costs.

Yeah, it's a very difficult situation. Either few people from younger generation will have access to affordable housing and even fewer will own a home, or we cause a lot of misery and hardship like during the 2008 crash, but for even longer. Hard to tell which is the lesser evil.

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