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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Build Moar seems to be too simplistic. There's just too much demand and too much investment capital seeking profit. No matter how much you build, most of the housing supply is going to get sponged up by investors, landlords, and private equity, and the price isn't going to go down. You'd probably have to 4X to 5X the current housing supply to make a dent in prices.

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>You'd probably have to 4X to 5X the current housing supply to make a dent in prices.

Not at all. The important thing here is that price is set on the margin. Relatively modest supply increases can have outsized price effects. As an example, consider rents in Austin - something like 30% housing stock increase led to 16% drop in median rent, all while Austin simultaneously had massive in-migration, i.e., rents fell despite demand surging.

As another example of margin behavior: vacancy rates matter a lot, a modest vacancy rate increase can crater rents, which we see in the CRE market.

It's interesting to say something sounds simplistic when your argument is basically "I feel like __________" and in fact the evidence shows exactly the opposite.

> most of the housing supply is going to get sponged up by investors, landlords, and private equity

To earn a return through renting or appreciation. If there are more houses than buyers returns drop.

> You'd probably have to 4X to 5X the current housing supply to make a dent in prices.

So do that.

When investors buy housing they almost always rent it out, increasing the supply of rentals and decreasing rent prices relative to the alternative universe in which no new housing is built.

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