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Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

> ...and within 10 years we went from a housing bubble to a housing shortage where rent is the primary cause of national inflation.

Either this article is misinformed or I am. The housing bubble was a bubble in asset values not inventory, right? I don't seem to recall that there was an abundance of excess housing even then.

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It is an odd remark, but during the housing bubble crash, there was an inventory uptick. A lot of it was bought up by cash investors and even institutional investors securitizing housing. However, if you were still employed and had decent credit, there was a lot to choose from and prices were lower than rent. It didn’t last though - 2009 through 2012 was probably the best, then every year it ticked up until just before Covid. With Covid some areas shot up others went sideways for a bit.

> during the housing bubble crash, there was an inventory uptick

Of course, people did not have money to pay, and were under. There were forced liquidations.

And the parent comment was talking about the bubble, not the aftermath which is what you are talking about.

They are actually referring to now. Hard to take this article seriously when all the examples are California centric and that $5T of COVID relief more or less went straight into assets during the period referred to in that quote.

I think the idea is that the bubble implies prices are detached from a utilitarian valuation, whereas high rents are more attached to the value the housing directly provides.

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