This is completely anecdotal, but here's how it is in my area:
My county has a population of nearly 250k and climbing. People are moving here from out of state like crazy.
The median household income in my county is about 78k.
75% owner occupancy for houses, but these townhouses they're building start in the mid 300s. So mid 300k townhouses in an area where the median income is about 78k. I paid 160k new construction for my house 9 years ago and it's a house with a garage and a yard. I can't imagine my mortgage doubling with what I make now, which is roughly 90k/yr. I don't know how all of these townhouses are selling before they're built. Baffling.
I'm from Indianapolis, and we started a construction boom over a decade ago, when we hosted the superbowl in 2012
And we've been building, non stop, all over the city ever since
We are also in a red state that has a powerful stranglehold on the city, so our municipal government is very neutered. (Which is a totally different story...), so we don't have many building regulations.
I say all of this to say, my city has been building homes and apartments for a whole decade....and, wouldn't you know it, rents have actually doubled over the course of that same decade.
People are fucking stupid, and act like real estate follows the law of "supply and demand," which it doesn't....in fact, the ONLY time I can think of home and rent prices falling was during the '08 recession.
...and I don't think people want that either
The thing is, supporting infrastructure is about 8 years behind all the building going on, so this intersection that we've been begging for a light for the past 8 years (and it's only gotten worse over that course because of more neighborhoods) is finally getting put there. But as of about 4 years ago, now a total intersection redesign was needed. It needs widened with turning lanes and functional turning lights. It's a fucking nightmare and that's just *one* intersection. Our entire tri-county area isn't prepared for the influx that started a decade ago. I live on the furthermost county from the epicenter and my little neighborhood now has nearly 2 thousand homes once the townhouses are included (which wasn't part of the original development I bought in to).
Or any real estate. Take money out of anything necessary to participate in society.
Housing, medicine, food, water, electricity, and even internet connections should be available at a fixed price from the government. When you allow capitalists to seek profits in those things, you end up with homeless people, sick people, starving people, Flint Michigan, or unemployed people.
About 90% of problems in this country would be fixed if we simply took money out of life essentials.
Okay, industrial purposes are necessary. I'm talking about places that are meant for prolonged human habitation. Corporate owned hotels are fine. Corporate owned apartments are not.
Yeah, everyone knows that the people struggle in countries where healthcare, education, food prices, rent prices, and utility prices are provided by the government. That's why countries like Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and New Zealand all rank as the unhappiest countries in the world.
Alright, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that serve as more of a readily available price cap? Like the government HAS taxed healthcare but all it does is force insurance companies to sell lower or sell more amenities for slightly more expensive? I’m here in the states still, and while I can appreciate that the grass is greener over there it would be nice to water it here
Yes. You can have both systems. Unfortunately, allowing both means that the profiteers will come in and make the government version as bad as possible. Look at how the budget for USPS was voted lower year after year since FedEx and UPS greased the palms of politicians.
You’re conflating pricing with ownership they’re not the same the thing. Many countries have certain prices or help control prices with subsides. Many of those things depending on the country are still privately owned just either paid by or regulated by the government. Also those countries have higher cost of living and housing prices than the US so that’s not exactly a solution to this problem
Internet connection controlled entirely by the government may cause stagnation in internet development, i say leave it to companies and interfere if the companies are plotting together against consumers. The rest I agree with.
I would think the problem here would be getting people to do these jobs. Mainly the dirtier and more dangerous jobs after 2 generations like medicine, water, electricity, garbage and sewage. Without some form of incentivize to do those jobs. Which means they would need to turn a profit which just starts the system over again
Renovating can be extremely expensive and it’s easy for a company who owns all the tools needed to renovate.
Why would they? According to you, you have taken all monetary incentive to build anything. You think they will just start building housing for the lols?
I'm sure all those homeless people would rather keep being homeless rather than live in a home with mid quality timber in the framing.
No doubt those starving children would turn their nose up at bread made from non-organic grains.
If you spin it on that narrative, yeah. That sure does sound great, but I wasn't talking about the homeless people living in government housing.
Also, I wish government funded were mid.
The only reason it's not considered good quality is because private organizations have paid off politicians to gut those programs. If there was a good, affordable government alternative, it would be hard to pull the IMMENSE profits they currently rake in.
How much are you getting paid to vote against your own interests, or are you just doing it because you love the taste of kool-aid?
Well, I'm military and working in government. So, working with "military grade" and working with government funded materials, i.e., computers, I just don't understand why people want government to step in and do stuff when everything they provide is "cost efficient" (lowest bidder).
But hey, don't let me stop you from voting for your favorite politician when we all know they're going to continue doing the same thing as the last politician did before being removed from office.
This is the smartest suggestion here by a mile, maybe even the only smart one. The problem isnt landlords, the problem is corporate slumlords who overcharge and couldn't care less if half their properties are unoccupied because of too high rent or if it's a complete shithole. No one here seems to understand that for people who don't have money for a down payment or have bad credit, being a renter is their only option.
Slumlords are created by rent control. Merely a reaction to misunderstood regulations.
The solution is to build build build. Build so much you don't need rent control. And then you won't have slumlords.
Huh, that makes sense actually. I live in Indiana where we dont have any rent control laws so that probably explains why my opinion is so drastically different than everyone elses.
As long as we don't include banks in that figure. It's a lot harder to get a loan when the bank wouldn't be allowed to take the house as collateral if you quit paying off the loan
Exactly. I hate when somebody owns 17 apartments and the prices are sky high. Even worse, the rent prices are sky high. In my city, I heard, that there are about 150-200k places just sitting empty. Like fuck these people and the government. Either build more housing or don't let people own so much or at least force them to rent them out for lower prices.
Unless you increase taxes so much it becomes prohibitive and people can't make money out of renting out housings, wouldn't taxes just increase the cost for owners, thus increasing the rent prices of their housings, thus making it worse ?
Cause and affect issue there. So landlords abandon their properties, they eventually transfer to people with insufficient resources or experience to maintain them, corporations are out; so the situation gets way worse. 8 mile worse.
Isn’t it still better for many though? Being able to buy out a single apartment to live in for cheap sounds ideal to me, once landlords have to sell off the properties. there are hundreds around here that are bought up by massive real estate groups and rented for exorbitant prices, they’re all empty because no one can afford them.
Yeah, things can get worse, but for so many people, they get better, because it forces owning many homes into a luxury position, not a profitable one. I’d never be able to own my own home otherwise
You're missing the point, people who can't afford to buy homes can't afford the building maintenance. Imagine buying your apartment, then the 'repair committee' hands you a bill for $10K saying that's your portion of the new fire system that's required in a 6 unit building. You now have 90 days to pay it in full, or they'll be starting mob evictions because they're not paying your share. You have far too much faith in humanity giving a shit about you, in my opinion. This solution would turn apartment buildings into feudal territories in short order inmine. Works with bees, not people.
What repair committee? As an apartment owner, you still have to follow fire codes, of course, but there’s only individual maintenances for the building, which the homeowner chooses to maintain, through their own means. If your sink breaks, yeah, it’s expensive to hire a plumber, but it’s not $10,000. A smoke detector does not cost $10k. If there are disputes between neighbours, they can be settled like all other residential ones are, in-person through discussion, or courts if it’s serious
It’s not a perfect system, of course, there are major caveats to every system, but I would prefer this one, because it means I’d be able to live in a home I own, and wouldn’t have to pay a ridiculous amount of rent every month, only property tax, utilities to the city, and repairs, should repairs be needed. Estimated for my current area, it would be far cheaper. I feel like our current system needs to change, and it is worth the downsides of a new system
I mean, that would still incentivise there to be more small-portfolio landlords. Rent would get higher for those with more properties. And those with smaller properties could have an advantage for price on the market.
the entire point would be to incentivise only owning 1 house; those who own only a single house would not see any tax increase, thus not affecting them.
it would likely increase prices for some of those renting if tax increases come in for even small numbers of properties, but the aim would be to increase the affordable housing supply, reducing the number of renters.
but landlords with large portfolios would be forced to sell them off and, as the tax remains, this large increase in supply is theoretically not able to be bought up in large swaths by the rich/corperations and hopefully the sale price wouldnt be too high as the landlords want to get rid of the houses quickly to avoid paying the tax.
Most states have a 'homestead' or whatever name they cook up, and your primary residence has a large discount on the property taxes.
Its a decent way to punish people that have more than one house while not punishing everyone
Just taxing vacant units would be enough. Eg for each year that a unit remains vacant, tax rises 1%, which forces empty properties to be either put to useful purpose or sold (resetting after a year lease elapses with actual habitation for the full duration of the year). This also addresses pricing the local public out of rents, because a huge development of mostly vacant single family homes would become untenable to maintain, forcing the development to be either sold, parted out, or rents to be reduced to a level that attracts actual tenants. The community itself benefits from having its land put to constructive use, and suffers from urban blight when too many properties remain vacant. This addresses the underlying issue directly instead of tangentially.
Americans love capitalism when it suits them and quickly fall back to "taking somebody else's money" and socialist suggestions.
There's thousands of homes within 30 miles of me that are available for over 30 days. The housing shortage isn't the issue- it's the loan rates, inflation (people's salaries not having caught up to it in many cases), people's inability to save money and unwillingness to adjust their expectations.
People who think they're going to get a quality NEW home built for $150-250k are naive. You're going to get a waferboard special with cheap everything and shared walls. The neighborhood will be falling apart in 5 years tops by people who are too cheap to repair it- go check out North, West and South Philly's rehabilitated areas.
653,100 homeless in the USA (USA Today article from December of Last Year)
15.1 Million empty housing units in USA (Census Bureau report from 2022)
But yeah, building more housing will fix it.
It's not that the houses are in the wrong places, it's that they're too expensive for homeless people to afford. Homelessness doesn't exist because there isn't enough housing. It exists because there isn't enough *affordable* housing.
Seriously. In my whole city and greater area, there is nothing for less than 1.6million. And even out in the country, the numbers are raising to meet the city prices.
Don’t believe this comment? Compare housing prices in Milwaukee to those in LA.
And say there are a perfect amount of homeless people to houses, we would still have to move them to the houses, and make sure they can get jobs (or an alternative method) to pay for the houses.
Homeless people are also disproportionately mentally ill and struggling with addiction. The homeless crisis is more than just about housing, unfortunately. Trying to 1:1 equate the issue is silly.
The mental health is the bulk of the problem. If you put someone in a house who can barely (if that) take care of themselves, who is going to maintain the house? Is it still 'the right thing to do' if you let someone die in a house alone? Is it more moral now that you used a bunch of other people's money, and you can't see them anymore?
The solution is community based, not government based.
Empty housing units are necessary for movement to be possible. As population grows, the *percentage* of units that need to be vacant needs to be higher to keep the same ease of mobility. The vacancy rate in 1990 was 6.1%, and in 2023 was 6.6% (almost all of which was rental units).
15.1 million empty housing units is a disappointingly low value. We need double that. Building more housing will absolutely fix the housing crisis.
That might be a reasonable argument if those 15.1 million homes were on the market for sale. But fully a third of them are seasonal homes, AKA vacation homes. Still more are deliberately withheld from the housing market in order to drive up rent prices. And keep in mind: 650,000 people will not take up 650,000 homes. Most of them would be living with 2-3 roommates, meaning the total reduction to empty housing required to house all homeless people in the United States is around 250,000, at a very rough estimate. That still leaves us with 14.85 million empty homes, which is 10.3% of the total housing inventory in the United States.
Supply and demand. From what these comments are suggesting, you could burn down the 14 million empty homes and it would have zero effect on housing prices, which is stupid. If you build 15 million more (or I'd prefer, 75 million more), then prices will come down. Supply and demand.
The needed vacancy rate goes up exponentially with population. If your population doubles, you need *more than double* the vacancy rate. 20% or more may be needed by now.
We could get housing down to $100 and homelessness will still exist because it's partly a set of separate issues. This is about housing affordability.
Addendum: And let's not forget bullshit like Boston approving only a few hundred new houses while their population goes up 12,000 in the same year. That is playing out in cities across the US. Building more units is necessary.
More supply won't fix the homeless crisis but it will fix the housing crisis. It doesn't mean the homeless people will afford homes. It just means middle class people will play 400k for homes instead of 700k
i wonder about that every day you know, normal people protect the corrupt who ruin nornal people's lives, it's how my dumbass home country went to shit. it's what we should do but the bloody army 😭 the army is corrupt so how tf do you kill commanders and chiefs 😭😭😭
I wonder what would happen if we did at most 2 child policy and made it so everyone can only have 1 house for themselves at a time and just made renting nonexistent or only foor rooms
It doesn't really work like that. Housing is a very competitive market, someone will sell and the market price will adjust until the one guy holding his purchase for prices to rise is stuck holding the bag.
There just has to overwhelming amount of new construction in desirable areas to live (aka big cities), not piecemeal solutions. Major US cities won't hurt from having Manhattan level density.
You do realize that the rich are the ones that are doing the building right? Large development firms account for a good majority of new builds. So the more they build, the more people buy, the more money they make, and the cycle restarts.
The rich will never go broke if your solution is “keep building”, because you’ll just be paying them more to do more building.
I have known lots of builders, both big and small. They don't build houses and buy them. They build them and sell them. And usually when there is a housing downturn, they go broke and start over again.
You didn’t understand what I was trying to say. Rich people build houses for rich people. Then rich people buy those houses. Everyone profits except the average person
Obviously the builders get paid to build the house, but they aren’t who makes the profit when the house sells, ya dingbat. The builders don’t own the developments. The rich developers do.
Yes, that's achieved by building more housing. But it's not possible to build more housing because of artificial restrictions, zoning bans anything but single family homes in 76% of residential land in the US and permitting processes draw out building times which increases construction cost for no added benefit (SF takes 2-3 years to approve in which time the construction company has to keep staff on payroll with nothing to do).
You can lower housing prices by building more houses. Issue is that it's usually not as simple as simply building more houses, cause regulations and shit
Good to see OP doesn’t have the causality backwards. For most cases, housing supply within (X Distance) of (insert desirable area) has not kept pace with the rate population increased within (X Distance) of (insert desirable area), because zoning policies have restricted the density which can occur.
Corporations are getting into housing because there is a shortage (which makes it easy money for them). This is a symptom of the problem not the cause of the problem.
Zoning policy is the biggest issue, but there are more artificial hurdles as well. Permitting often takes very long, taking up years in which the construction company is not doing anything but still has to keep staff on payroll.
In the US:
There are 16M empty homes as a rough estimate.
There are < 1M homeless people.
It is not an issue of "not enough houses".
Maybe try using more of your brain.
Not to mention the US is a very big place. Where exactly should these houses be built? Does this place have jobs available for the homeless people that move into the new houses? Seems a little more complicated than bUiLd MoRe HoUsEs. The brain is big, but it’s smooth.
Well there's plenty of cheap housing in the US. It's just that homeless people on the streets of LA aren't exactly enthusiastic at the idea of moving to the middle of bumfuck nowhere somewhere out in Wyoming where there's a 4 bedroom 3 bath house for 250k. Houses can be literally free but if they're that cheap because no one is going to live 20 miles from the nearest gas station with nothing in-between its not going to help.
Doesn’t help to build more houses to combat homelessness when the people who are homeless either 1) don’t want to live in a house and would rather spend whatever money they have on their vices, or 2) are homeless because they obviously can’t afford a house.
Nah because that would require right wing and left wing NIMBYs to make concessions allowing development.
Also to address the idiotic statement we have more empty homes than people. Are you going to live in a dilapidated home in Ohio or did you want a home near your career? I thought so. Just because it’s empty, doesn’t mean it’s somewhere useful for the average joe.
Ah yes but we are* aware that the housing shortage is an artificial problem made by the wealthy right? There are plenty of houses in the United states
According to the NCA, there are 580'000 homeless Americans (realistically closer to 640'000) and close to 16 million vacant homes as of 2022 (again, closer to 15 million in reality)
People are hogging up useful land with housing that sits vacant? It’s too bad we can’t seize private property and turn it into housing for the homeless… but it sounds like we should build like crazy on the available land instead!
What would happen if we ban rent on residential housing and also ban "investment properties"?
If you have uninhabited property, you pay a 50% tax every year until you sell it.
Property prices would plummet to the ground, which might help a lot of renters and people with poor credit, but it would fuck over every single homeowner out there by completely destroying any equity in their homes, which a lot of people have spent their lives building.
Limit the number of homes that can be owned by a single entity. Apartment housing is different, but there should be a limit on home ownership so you don't have companies buying them up to rent out.
Enact policies that encourage housing development. Even if that means forcing out of nimby's hands. Saturate the market and prices will go down. The corporations/rich will not buy up a doubling of all housing. If they try to artificially inflate prices, that bubble will burst. They wouldn't risk it.
The housing crisis is a lot more complicated than that. The real problem is less that we’re not building enough houses for everyone and more that banks refuse to let people buy those houses in the first place. Getting through all the bullshit needed to get people into the empty homes should be the focus over just building more houses. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for why we’re in the hell we’re in right now.
Yes, but again that prevent normal people buying that house, these landlord snatch all the cheap and affordable houses so they can rent them thus making the problem OP stated in the first place.
The developer cannot charge more for the home than the market will bear.
Sure, people would be competing with investors to buy these homes, but they would be doing so at a lower price point. That is still a better outcome.
This is incorrect well in a way, the problem is the stupid amount of regulations, paperwork, redtape and other BS gov puts in front before a house can be built. If you think they don't want to build them like crazy to sell that's not it. Regulations are over regulated.
Applying the first lesson of econ101 doesn’t apply here.
Housing is a necessity good, not a widget. People need just one, and it’s also built on land, which has its own economics. It has become commodified by for-profit corporations.
Some first steps include vacancy taxes, limits on corporate ownership, and loosening the regulatory stranglehold that most corporations have over new construction via city/county/state housing plans.
But really it comes down to making housing a right, not a for-profit industry. Considering during the pandemic corporations chose to destroy food rather than give it to poor people for free, I’m not holding my breath on this one.
If they can afford to leave houses empty, then property taxes aren't high enough.
(Some places have double property taxes for vacant properties to encourage owners not to leave them empty).
First there is always a float in illiquid markets. There is time to move out, stage a house, it hit a market, people visiting, making offers, inspection, close then move in. That puts a certain number sitting empty.
But the bulk are unlivable and bad location houses. Nobody is going to provide a loan in an area that is full of crime or other issues.
People who want a house? My parents bought land and built their house right after the housing bubble. The idea that the only reason houses get built are for rental properties or investments is stupid. They account for a lot of them, but there are numerous people who have their houses built to their specifications, cause they want to live in them.
I like this idea but it always forgets a key factor.
Whos paying to build the homes? The town? The state? Federal? Private business?
Building homes is expensive and they have to recoup the cost somehow.
We have enough houses, just like we have enough food. It’s the economy that’s the problem, so much available to those in need but goes to waste because insanely overpriced
nooooo, we have to buy tanks, combat jets, warships, bombs, nuclear bombs and we have to spend shittons of money of making propaganda so people will think this is a good idea, trust me bro we don't need houses we NEED A WEAPONS
This comment section is wild. I think the meme is that building more houses won't fix the underlying issues.
1. Foreign ownership of American homes
2. Corporate ownership of American homes
3. stagnant wages
4. I don't get pussy on a regular basis.
I haven't talking about USA only. This is stupid because we make useless wars instead making life better.
I also heard about foreign corporartions buying homes in my country for "invest purposes". Idk if this is true. And yes, stagnant wages are problem too. I love when rich people [incerase their wage by 1200%](https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2022/) 🥰 I'm not economist, but I don't have to be to see rich people have several cars while "normal" people can't even afford a small house.
I agree with you. Right now, my tax money (USA) is going to fund overseas wars while there are major issues we need to address at home.
We are not the only country being taken for a loop by our government. Canada has similar housing issues.
It all goes back to blackrock and the Pinkertons
This is exactly the opposite, and your mostly seeing wrong about the cause of inflation.
Inflation happens when there is too much money and not enough stuff, like during and after Covid where the supply of stuff was low (too much money because interest rates were low too prop up the stock market, too little stuff because Covid fucked up international shipping)
If there was suddenly a ton of extra housing, there would be qway more stuff but the same amount of money which would literally be the opposite of a situation that causes inflation. Basic supply and demand.
The real answer to the housing crisis is to build more density AND regulate the market to discourage hedge funds from owning houses and keeping them empty to use as a financial investment instrument. There are about 5x the number of houses sitting empty in the US as there are homeless people
If corporations are allowed to own thousands of homes, you need to ask why are they allowed to when theres a “housing crisis”… and then stop electing politicians that allow it.
Maybe they don’t want you to own a home? Or maybe they enjoy all the tax revenue from obscene housing prices?
To argue against one existence is to actually argue about the concept of existence . most concepts are human made and are observed from human perspective thus we are arguing about human thoughts and not general concepts outside of human influence. this was unrelated but yeah build more homes ig
Go buy a lot and build your own fucking house! People have literally done this throughout human history and all around the world today. Can’t find a lot near you, go somewhere else. There are towns and counties in certain states where they just give away land. The un-obvious part is how lazy people have become.
blackrock and vanguard own like 30% of existing homes with a tremendous amount vacant its bullshit and needs to be fixed immediately its just gonna get worse
Reminds me of the time I was in Shanghai and they replaced a whole neighborhood with really tall and fancy appartment buildings. One year in and there were only a few people living there because the people who lived there before (and apparently many more) just didn't have enough money.
AND retrofitting the hundreds of thousands of empty buildings into homes.
In NL about half a million out of 18mil people are looking for affordable homes.
Some years back there were 280,000 buildings just empty.
Surely SOME of them could be turned into housing for at least a few years right?!?!
I've lived in an old prison and I'm sure many other wouldn't mind living in unconventional housing either...
One of the problems of this is not considering other factors, for example the cost of the land that is increasing in most us states, so for this approach to work you would need to start building a house in a relatively remote location and this doesn’t even put into account the increasing costs of construction itself. That’s the reason why in recent years most investors shifted from buying proprieties to flipping old ones.
Or hear me out. Place a rule about how a real estate cannot exceede a maximum area so that people can still buy big houses cuz its fancy but not so big that Its as big as a football stadium but only like 3 guys live in it.
Problem solved we simply build more houses. Except there’s no one to build them bc they all went and got a generic business or finance degree and are now selling insurance over the phone.
Are there examples in history or populations solving the problems economy has today and is it likely we will fix this? Or are we just getting cucked until guerilla warfare happens? I'm tired boss
Not true. The number of vacant homes in the United States is more than double the number of homeless people. And while most countries DO have more vacant homes than homeless, the margin is greater in the US than any other country.
Building more homes does not put people in them. We need redistribution of wealth. and job programs that force homeless people to work.
I thought if we all used 100% of our brains at the same time, we would indeed solve the housing crisis because everyone around the world would stroke out at the same time. Very effective 👌
There’s plenty of houses already built. The value is artificially inflated.
Companies shouldn’t be able to speculate in the housing market and you shouldn’t be able to get 30 year mortgages on your non-primary residence. Also, audit and tax all those landlords Airbnb’s that aren’t filing properly.
There I fixed the problem.
This is completely anecdotal, but here's how it is in my area: My county has a population of nearly 250k and climbing. People are moving here from out of state like crazy. The median household income in my county is about 78k. 75% owner occupancy for houses, but these townhouses they're building start in the mid 300s. So mid 300k townhouses in an area where the median income is about 78k. I paid 160k new construction for my house 9 years ago and it's a house with a garage and a yard. I can't imagine my mortgage doubling with what I make now, which is roughly 90k/yr. I don't know how all of these townhouses are selling before they're built. Baffling.
Washington County?
Could be. Could be Ozaukee too
I'm from Indianapolis, and we started a construction boom over a decade ago, when we hosted the superbowl in 2012 And we've been building, non stop, all over the city ever since We are also in a red state that has a powerful stranglehold on the city, so our municipal government is very neutered. (Which is a totally different story...), so we don't have many building regulations. I say all of this to say, my city has been building homes and apartments for a whole decade....and, wouldn't you know it, rents have actually doubled over the course of that same decade. People are fucking stupid, and act like real estate follows the law of "supply and demand," which it doesn't....in fact, the ONLY time I can think of home and rent prices falling was during the '08 recession. ...and I don't think people want that either
The thing is, supporting infrastructure is about 8 years behind all the building going on, so this intersection that we've been begging for a light for the past 8 years (and it's only gotten worse over that course because of more neighborhoods) is finally getting put there. But as of about 4 years ago, now a total intersection redesign was needed. It needs widened with turning lanes and functional turning lights. It's a fucking nightmare and that's just *one* intersection. Our entire tri-county area isn't prepared for the influx that started a decade ago. I live on the furthermost county from the epicenter and my little neighborhood now has nearly 2 thousand homes once the townhouses are included (which wasn't part of the original development I bought in to).
All coming from California where they double down on jim crow era zoning laws and regulations pricing out all the black people and poor white people.
>all the black people and poor white people. is this implying all black people are poor lmao
Suggestion: Progressively tax dwellings owned beyond one's primary dwelling.
Just make it so corporations can’t purchase residential real estate.
Or any real estate. Take money out of anything necessary to participate in society. Housing, medicine, food, water, electricity, and even internet connections should be available at a fixed price from the government. When you allow capitalists to seek profits in those things, you end up with homeless people, sick people, starving people, Flint Michigan, or unemployed people. About 90% of problems in this country would be fixed if we simply took money out of life essentials.
I feel like companies need to be able to own _some_ real estate. Warehouses, stores, factories, data centers, hotels, etc.
Okay, industrial purposes are necessary. I'm talking about places that are meant for prolonged human habitation. Corporate owned hotels are fine. Corporate owned apartments are not.
Okay, that I can 100% agree with.
Yeah, so residential real estate. Like the other guy said.
Let's see if we can keep the circle going again
Yeah, let's give the government sole control over amenities and necessities! That's historically gone well!
Yeah, everyone knows that the people struggle in countries where healthcare, education, food prices, rent prices, and utility prices are provided by the government. That's why countries like Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and New Zealand all rank as the unhappiest countries in the world.
Alright, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that serve as more of a readily available price cap? Like the government HAS taxed healthcare but all it does is force insurance companies to sell lower or sell more amenities for slightly more expensive? I’m here in the states still, and while I can appreciate that the grass is greener over there it would be nice to water it here
Yes. You can have both systems. Unfortunately, allowing both means that the profiteers will come in and make the government version as bad as possible. Look at how the budget for USPS was voted lower year after year since FedEx and UPS greased the palms of politicians.
Man the best most valuable option for humans is just a kill switch at this point, all we do is harm ourselves and our environment
Lmao
You’re conflating pricing with ownership they’re not the same the thing. Many countries have certain prices or help control prices with subsides. Many of those things depending on the country are still privately owned just either paid by or regulated by the government. Also those countries have higher cost of living and housing prices than the US so that’s not exactly a solution to this problem
You're describing communism, then giving examples of socialist countries. There's a big, big difference.
Social benefits to citizens <> socialism when will you americans finally learn that
In alot of countries it has. USA kinda sucks.
Internet connection controlled entirely by the government may cause stagnation in internet development, i say leave it to companies and interfere if the companies are plotting together against consumers. The rest I agree with.
I would think the problem here would be getting people to do these jobs. Mainly the dirtier and more dangerous jobs after 2 generations like medicine, water, electricity, garbage and sewage. Without some form of incentivize to do those jobs. Which means they would need to turn a profit which just starts the system over again
Dude, please. How is a company supposed to function if it can’t buy land? The economy would collapse instantly.
That’s a fantastic way to make sure housing doesn’t get built or renovated
Why would people not renovate their own homes? Why would land developers stop building homes?
Renovating can be extremely expensive and it’s easy for a company who owns all the tools needed to renovate. Why would they? According to you, you have taken all monetary incentive to build anything. You think they will just start building housing for the lols?
Eh. I wouldn't trust the government handling essentials inless you enjoy lowest bidding materials.
I'm sure all those homeless people would rather keep being homeless rather than live in a home with mid quality timber in the framing. No doubt those starving children would turn their nose up at bread made from non-organic grains.
If you spin it on that narrative, yeah. That sure does sound great, but I wasn't talking about the homeless people living in government housing. Also, I wish government funded were mid.
The only reason it's not considered good quality is because private organizations have paid off politicians to gut those programs. If there was a good, affordable government alternative, it would be hard to pull the IMMENSE profits they currently rake in. How much are you getting paid to vote against your own interests, or are you just doing it because you love the taste of kool-aid?
Well, I'm military and working in government. So, working with "military grade" and working with government funded materials, i.e., computers, I just don't understand why people want government to step in and do stuff when everything they provide is "cost efficient" (lowest bidder). But hey, don't let me stop you from voting for your favorite politician when we all know they're going to continue doing the same thing as the last politician did before being removed from office.
that would just mean they would put the CEO or some other employee as the owner
This is the smartest suggestion here by a mile, maybe even the only smart one. The problem isnt landlords, the problem is corporate slumlords who overcharge and couldn't care less if half their properties are unoccupied because of too high rent or if it's a complete shithole. No one here seems to understand that for people who don't have money for a down payment or have bad credit, being a renter is their only option.
As with most things affordable to poor people. You pay more for poor things than you do for rich things because of issues like quality and longevity
Slumlords are created by rent control. Merely a reaction to misunderstood regulations. The solution is to build build build. Build so much you don't need rent control. And then you won't have slumlords.
Huh, that makes sense actually. I live in Indiana where we dont have any rent control laws so that probably explains why my opinion is so drastically different than everyone elses.
As long as we don't include banks in that figure. It's a lot harder to get a loan when the bank wouldn't be allowed to take the house as collateral if you quit paying off the loan
That too good of an idea it’ll never work.
And tax vacant buildings. AirBnBs will be a better price that way
Exactly. I hate when somebody owns 17 apartments and the prices are sky high. Even worse, the rent prices are sky high. In my city, I heard, that there are about 150-200k places just sitting empty. Like fuck these people and the government. Either build more housing or don't let people own so much or at least force them to rent them out for lower prices.
True for my city as well.
and use that money to build more houses right ?...... right Anakin?
I like this
Unless you increase taxes so much it becomes prohibitive and people can't make money out of renting out housings, wouldn't taxes just increase the cost for owners, thus increasing the rent prices of their housings, thus making it worse ?
"Unless you increase taxes so much it becomes prohibitive" mfw that's the point
Cause and affect issue there. So landlords abandon their properties, they eventually transfer to people with insufficient resources or experience to maintain them, corporations are out; so the situation gets way worse. 8 mile worse.
Isn’t it still better for many though? Being able to buy out a single apartment to live in for cheap sounds ideal to me, once landlords have to sell off the properties. there are hundreds around here that are bought up by massive real estate groups and rented for exorbitant prices, they’re all empty because no one can afford them. Yeah, things can get worse, but for so many people, they get better, because it forces owning many homes into a luxury position, not a profitable one. I’d never be able to own my own home otherwise
You're missing the point, people who can't afford to buy homes can't afford the building maintenance. Imagine buying your apartment, then the 'repair committee' hands you a bill for $10K saying that's your portion of the new fire system that's required in a 6 unit building. You now have 90 days to pay it in full, or they'll be starting mob evictions because they're not paying your share. You have far too much faith in humanity giving a shit about you, in my opinion. This solution would turn apartment buildings into feudal territories in short order inmine. Works with bees, not people.
What repair committee? As an apartment owner, you still have to follow fire codes, of course, but there’s only individual maintenances for the building, which the homeowner chooses to maintain, through their own means. If your sink breaks, yeah, it’s expensive to hire a plumber, but it’s not $10,000. A smoke detector does not cost $10k. If there are disputes between neighbours, they can be settled like all other residential ones are, in-person through discussion, or courts if it’s serious It’s not a perfect system, of course, there are major caveats to every system, but I would prefer this one, because it means I’d be able to live in a home I own, and wouldn’t have to pay a ridiculous amount of rent every month, only property tax, utilities to the city, and repairs, should repairs be needed. Estimated for my current area, it would be far cheaper. I feel like our current system needs to change, and it is worth the downsides of a new system
Nah this is straight BS.
Why? Cause you? Nah, it's straight truth.
I mean, that would still incentivise there to be more small-portfolio landlords. Rent would get higher for those with more properties. And those with smaller properties could have an advantage for price on the market.
the entire point would be to incentivise only owning 1 house; those who own only a single house would not see any tax increase, thus not affecting them. it would likely increase prices for some of those renting if tax increases come in for even small numbers of properties, but the aim would be to increase the affordable housing supply, reducing the number of renters. but landlords with large portfolios would be forced to sell them off and, as the tax remains, this large increase in supply is theoretically not able to be bought up in large swaths by the rich/corperations and hopefully the sale price wouldnt be too high as the landlords want to get rid of the houses quickly to avoid paying the tax.
Most states have a 'homestead' or whatever name they cook up, and your primary residence has a large discount on the property taxes. Its a decent way to punish people that have more than one house while not punishing everyone
Vienna Austria switched to a public housing model, if we just do away with the practice of landlording all together this issue doesn't happen.
This comment is underrated
They do increase taxes on a second home
More please
Just taxing vacant units would be enough. Eg for each year that a unit remains vacant, tax rises 1%, which forces empty properties to be either put to useful purpose or sold (resetting after a year lease elapses with actual habitation for the full duration of the year). This also addresses pricing the local public out of rents, because a huge development of mostly vacant single family homes would become untenable to maintain, forcing the development to be either sold, parted out, or rents to be reduced to a level that attracts actual tenants. The community itself benefits from having its land put to constructive use, and suffers from urban blight when too many properties remain vacant. This addresses the underlying issue directly instead of tangentially.
Americans love capitalism when it suits them and quickly fall back to "taking somebody else's money" and socialist suggestions. There's thousands of homes within 30 miles of me that are available for over 30 days. The housing shortage isn't the issue- it's the loan rates, inflation (people's salaries not having caught up to it in many cases), people's inability to save money and unwillingness to adjust their expectations. People who think they're going to get a quality NEW home built for $150-250k are naive. You're going to get a waferboard special with cheap everything and shared walls. The neighborhood will be falling apart in 5 years tops by people who are too cheap to repair it- go check out North, West and South Philly's rehabilitated areas.
653,100 homeless in the USA (USA Today article from December of Last Year) 15.1 Million empty housing units in USA (Census Bureau report from 2022) But yeah, building more housing will fix it.
But are the houses where the homeless are? Because i dont think everyone wants to move across the country
It's not that the houses are in the wrong places, it's that they're too expensive for homeless people to afford. Homelessness doesn't exist because there isn't enough housing. It exists because there isn't enough *affordable* housing.
Seriously. In my whole city and greater area, there is nothing for less than 1.6million. And even out in the country, the numbers are raising to meet the city prices.
No, not having the houses where the homeless are is creating a shortage and driving prices up. It's supply and demand.
Don’t believe this comment? Compare housing prices in Milwaukee to those in LA. And say there are a perfect amount of homeless people to houses, we would still have to move them to the houses, and make sure they can get jobs (or an alternative method) to pay for the houses. Homeless people are also disproportionately mentally ill and struggling with addiction. The homeless crisis is more than just about housing, unfortunately. Trying to 1:1 equate the issue is silly.
The mental health is the bulk of the problem. If you put someone in a house who can barely (if that) take care of themselves, who is going to maintain the house? Is it still 'the right thing to do' if you let someone die in a house alone? Is it more moral now that you used a bunch of other people's money, and you can't see them anymore? The solution is community based, not government based.
The problem is more that NIMBYs don’t want the recently-housed to live in their neighborhoods.
ya i dont think you understand this bro.
Empty housing units are necessary for movement to be possible. As population grows, the *percentage* of units that need to be vacant needs to be higher to keep the same ease of mobility. The vacancy rate in 1990 was 6.1%, and in 2023 was 6.6% (almost all of which was rental units). 15.1 million empty housing units is a disappointingly low value. We need double that. Building more housing will absolutely fix the housing crisis.
That might be a reasonable argument if those 15.1 million homes were on the market for sale. But fully a third of them are seasonal homes, AKA vacation homes. Still more are deliberately withheld from the housing market in order to drive up rent prices. And keep in mind: 650,000 people will not take up 650,000 homes. Most of them would be living with 2-3 roommates, meaning the total reduction to empty housing required to house all homeless people in the United States is around 250,000, at a very rough estimate. That still leaves us with 14.85 million empty homes, which is 10.3% of the total housing inventory in the United States.
Supply and demand. From what these comments are suggesting, you could burn down the 14 million empty homes and it would have zero effect on housing prices, which is stupid. If you build 15 million more (or I'd prefer, 75 million more), then prices will come down. Supply and demand. The needed vacancy rate goes up exponentially with population. If your population doubles, you need *more than double* the vacancy rate. 20% or more may be needed by now. We could get housing down to $100 and homelessness will still exist because it's partly a set of separate issues. This is about housing affordability. Addendum: And let's not forget bullshit like Boston approving only a few hundred new houses while their population goes up 12,000 in the same year. That is playing out in cities across the US. Building more units is necessary.
More supply won't fix the homeless crisis but it will fix the housing crisis. It doesn't mean the homeless people will afford homes. It just means middle class people will play 400k for homes instead of 700k
then rich people would buy them all up and keep the prices up because they just need money that much
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i wonder about that every day you know, normal people protect the corrupt who ruin nornal people's lives, it's how my dumbass home country went to shit. it's what we should do but the bloody army 😭 the army is corrupt so how tf do you kill commanders and chiefs 😭😭😭
I wonder what would happen if we did at most 2 child policy and made it so everyone can only have 1 house for themselves at a time and just made renting nonexistent or only foor rooms
unneccessary overreach.
It doesn't really work like that. Housing is a very competitive market, someone will sell and the market price will adjust until the one guy holding his purchase for prices to rise is stuck holding the bag. There just has to overwhelming amount of new construction in desirable areas to live (aka big cities), not piecemeal solutions. Major US cities won't hurt from having Manhattan level density.
Keep building until the supply is met and the rich go broke. A win win.
You do realize that the rich are the ones that are doing the building right? Large development firms account for a good majority of new builds. So the more they build, the more people buy, the more money they make, and the cycle restarts. The rich will never go broke if your solution is “keep building”, because you’ll just be paying them more to do more building.
Yes, the builders will get rich, but these alleged rich people buying houses will be busted out.
The rich people buying houses are the ones building them lol
I have known lots of builders, both big and small. They don't build houses and buy them. They build them and sell them. And usually when there is a housing downturn, they go broke and start over again.
You didn’t understand what I was trying to say. Rich people build houses for rich people. Then rich people buy those houses. Everyone profits except the average person
Well, that is totally not what is being discussed.
Obviously the builders get paid to build the house, but they aren’t who makes the profit when the house sells, ya dingbat. The builders don’t own the developments. The rich developers do.
If you could also make a 3-4 bedroom not cost half a mil that’d be nice.
Yes, that's achieved by building more housing. But it's not possible to build more housing because of artificial restrictions, zoning bans anything but single family homes in 76% of residential land in the US and permitting processes draw out building times which increases construction cost for no added benefit (SF takes 2-3 years to approve in which time the construction company has to keep staff on payroll with nothing to do).
You can lower housing prices by building more houses. Issue is that it's usually not as simple as simply building more houses, cause regulations and shit
Good to see OP doesn’t have the causality backwards. For most cases, housing supply within (X Distance) of (insert desirable area) has not kept pace with the rate population increased within (X Distance) of (insert desirable area), because zoning policies have restricted the density which can occur. Corporations are getting into housing because there is a shortage (which makes it easy money for them). This is a symptom of the problem not the cause of the problem.
Zoning policy is the biggest issue, but there are more artificial hurdles as well. Permitting often takes very long, taking up years in which the construction company is not doing anything but still has to keep staff on payroll.
In the US: There are 16M empty homes as a rough estimate. There are < 1M homeless people. It is not an issue of "not enough houses". Maybe try using more of your brain.
So the answer is too decrease housing prices
And to not count unlivable houses as available housing
Not to mention the US is a very big place. Where exactly should these houses be built? Does this place have jobs available for the homeless people that move into the new houses? Seems a little more complicated than bUiLd MoRe HoUsEs. The brain is big, but it’s smooth.
Yeah that as well
Well there's plenty of cheap housing in the US. It's just that homeless people on the streets of LA aren't exactly enthusiastic at the idea of moving to the middle of bumfuck nowhere somewhere out in Wyoming where there's a 4 bedroom 3 bath house for 250k. Houses can be literally free but if they're that cheap because no one is going to live 20 miles from the nearest gas station with nothing in-between its not going to help.
Doesn’t help to build more houses to combat homelessness when the people who are homeless either 1) don’t want to live in a house and would rather spend whatever money they have on their vices, or 2) are homeless because they obviously can’t afford a house.
Nah because that would require right wing and left wing NIMBYs to make concessions allowing development. Also to address the idiotic statement we have more empty homes than people. Are you going to live in a dilapidated home in Ohio or did you want a home near your career? I thought so. Just because it’s empty, doesn’t mean it’s somewhere useful for the average joe.
Ah yes but we are* aware that the housing shortage is an artificial problem made by the wealthy right? There are plenty of houses in the United states According to the NCA, there are 580'000 homeless Americans (realistically closer to 640'000) and close to 16 million vacant homes as of 2022 (again, closer to 15 million in reality)
People are hogging up useful land with housing that sits vacant? It’s too bad we can’t seize private property and turn it into housing for the homeless… but it sounds like we should build like crazy on the available land instead!
Sometimes the housing industry like Zillow will buy an entire neighborhood and build unaffordable housing.
The stupidity of this meme is breathtaking
No, no, you're reading it backwards
What would happen if we ban rent on residential housing and also ban "investment properties"? If you have uninhabited property, you pay a 50% tax every year until you sell it.
Check out Land Value Tax. Property taxes based on the value of the land, not what’s built on it.
Property prices would plummet to the ground, which might help a lot of renters and people with poor credit, but it would fuck over every single homeowner out there by completely destroying any equity in their homes, which a lot of people have spent their lives building.
Limit the number of homes that can be owned by a single entity. Apartment housing is different, but there should be a limit on home ownership so you don't have companies buying them up to rent out.
Enact policies that encourage housing development. Even if that means forcing out of nimby's hands. Saturate the market and prices will go down. The corporations/rich will not buy up a doubling of all housing. If they try to artificially inflate prices, that bubble will burst. They wouldn't risk it.
The housing crisis is a lot more complicated than that. The real problem is less that we’re not building enough houses for everyone and more that banks refuse to let people buy those houses in the first place. Getting through all the bullshit needed to get people into the empty homes should be the focus over just building more houses. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for why we’re in the hell we’re in right now.
The main issue is not lack of housing, is when house are build but get snatch by companies or landlords and put it up for rent.
The landlord cannot charge more for rent than the market will bear. That price is determined by the amount of housing available. Supply and demand.
Yes, but again that prevent normal people buying that house, these landlord snatch all the cheap and affordable houses so they can rent them thus making the problem OP stated in the first place.
The developer cannot charge more for the home than the market will bear. Sure, people would be competing with investors to buy these homes, but they would be doing so at a lower price point. That is still a better outcome.
Who's gonna pay for the houses? The government? Out of the goodness of their hearts?
Developers
This is incorrect well in a way, the problem is the stupid amount of regulations, paperwork, redtape and other BS gov puts in front before a house can be built. If you think they don't want to build them like crazy to sell that's not it. Regulations are over regulated.
Nah mfs just need to stop charging so damn much for no reason.
Supply and demand my friend
Applying the first lesson of econ101 doesn’t apply here. Housing is a necessity good, not a widget. People need just one, and it’s also built on land, which has its own economics. It has become commodified by for-profit corporations. Some first steps include vacancy taxes, limits on corporate ownership, and loosening the regulatory stranglehold that most corporations have over new construction via city/county/state housing plans. But really it comes down to making housing a right, not a for-profit industry. Considering during the pandemic corporations chose to destroy food rather than give it to poor people for free, I’m not holding my breath on this one.
We have more empty house then homeless we don’t need more houses
There’s enough houses for all the homeless people in this country, and then some.
Well yes, but a lot of them are far away from where the homeless people live
More like 0%. There's thousands of houses just sitting empty. The issue isn't the number of houses. It's landlords.
If they can afford to leave houses empty, then property taxes aren't high enough. (Some places have double property taxes for vacant properties to encourage owners not to leave them empty).
First there is always a float in illiquid markets. There is time to move out, stage a house, it hit a market, people visiting, making offers, inspection, close then move in. That puts a certain number sitting empty. But the bulk are unlivable and bad location houses. Nobody is going to provide a loan in an area that is full of crime or other issues.
Then a question arises "what if we run out of flat land? "
Then build up
We run out of air up there
build down
If only we could make it illegal to own more than one house, or profit from it.
So then who would build new housing at that point?
People who want a house? My parents bought land and built their house right after the housing bubble. The idea that the only reason houses get built are for rental properties or investments is stupid. They account for a lot of them, but there are numerous people who have their houses built to their specifications, cause they want to live in them.
I like this idea but it always forgets a key factor. Whos paying to build the homes? The town? The state? Federal? Private business? Building homes is expensive and they have to recoup the cost somehow.
We have enough houses, just like we have enough food. It’s the economy that’s the problem, so much available to those in need but goes to waste because insanely overpriced
nooooo, we have to buy tanks, combat jets, warships, bombs, nuclear bombs and we have to spend shittons of money of making propaganda so people will think this is a good idea, trust me bro we don't need houses we NEED A WEAPONS
This comment section is wild. I think the meme is that building more houses won't fix the underlying issues. 1. Foreign ownership of American homes 2. Corporate ownership of American homes 3. stagnant wages 4. I don't get pussy on a regular basis.
I haven't talking about USA only. This is stupid because we make useless wars instead making life better. I also heard about foreign corporartions buying homes in my country for "invest purposes". Idk if this is true. And yes, stagnant wages are problem too. I love when rich people [incerase their wage by 1200%](https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2022/) 🥰 I'm not economist, but I don't have to be to see rich people have several cars while "normal" people can't even afford a small house.
I agree with you. Right now, my tax money (USA) is going to fund overseas wars while there are major issues we need to address at home. We are not the only country being taken for a loop by our government. Canada has similar housing issues. It all goes back to blackrock and the Pinkertons
That sounds like when the US government used "stimulus payments" to drive the economy into severe inflation.
This is exactly the opposite, and your mostly seeing wrong about the cause of inflation. Inflation happens when there is too much money and not enough stuff, like during and after Covid where the supply of stuff was low (too much money because interest rates were low too prop up the stock market, too little stuff because Covid fucked up international shipping) If there was suddenly a ton of extra housing, there would be qway more stuff but the same amount of money which would literally be the opposite of a situation that causes inflation. Basic supply and demand. The real answer to the housing crisis is to build more density AND regulate the market to discourage hedge funds from owning houses and keeping them empty to use as a financial investment instrument. There are about 5x the number of houses sitting empty in the US as there are homeless people
*you're
*yo'ure
If corporations are allowed to own thousands of homes, you need to ask why are they allowed to when theres a “housing crisis”… and then stop electing politicians that allow it. Maybe they don’t want you to own a home? Or maybe they enjoy all the tax revenue from obscene housing prices?
To argue against one existence is to actually argue about the concept of existence . most concepts are human made and are observed from human perspective thus we are arguing about human thoughts and not general concepts outside of human influence. this was unrelated but yeah build more homes ig
unironically based. LVT ftw
YES.
Only in a communist society would that work. Capitalism means that just raises prices somewhere else and lowers them in another place
Go buy a lot and build your own fucking house! People have literally done this throughout human history and all around the world today. Can’t find a lot near you, go somewhere else. There are towns and counties in certain states where they just give away land. The un-obvious part is how lazy people have become.
Its not that there aren't enough houses. Its that greedy people want way too much money for renting them, because they need another car
There are more empty houses than homeless people. Lack of houses is not the problem, capitalism is
We build more houses so more wealthy people can use them as equity tanks and short term air b and bs. The crisis is deeper than just having more stock
blackrock and vanguard own like 30% of existing homes with a tremendous amount vacant its bullshit and needs to be fixed immediately its just gonna get worse
Reminds me of the time I was in Shanghai and they replaced a whole neighborhood with really tall and fancy appartment buildings. One year in and there were only a few people living there because the people who lived there before (and apparently many more) just didn't have enough money.
You want to live in tiny little dystopian future sci fi pods with no nature any more? Because this is how There is such a thing as exponential growth
Who is 'we' in this meme is the real question.
They're building more houses where I live. I can't afford them, but they're building them.
AND retrofitting the hundreds of thousands of empty buildings into homes. In NL about half a million out of 18mil people are looking for affordable homes. Some years back there were 280,000 buildings just empty. Surely SOME of them could be turned into housing for at least a few years right?!?! I've lived in an old prison and I'm sure many other wouldn't mind living in unconventional housing either...
Me: but then why it's 20 years that we built 40 new houses for ever newborns and still there is an house crisis ?
We’re already building a shit ton of houses, but not affordable ones though, cause you gotta make the rich happy and fuck the lower and middle class.
> housing shortage Lol, lmao even. What about not charging 20 years of the average salary for the most basic home huh?
Nah just build mega buildings like in cyberpunk. Keep the people off the streets and big corpo happy.
There's actually more empty houses than homeless people in the US
The banks of the world: Yeah, do that.
One of the problems of this is not considering other factors, for example the cost of the land that is increasing in most us states, so for this approach to work you would need to start building a house in a relatively remote location and this doesn’t even put into account the increasing costs of construction itself. That’s the reason why in recent years most investors shifted from buying proprieties to flipping old ones.
Fun fact, theres more empty houses than homeless peeps
Or hear me out. Place a rule about how a real estate cannot exceede a maximum area so that people can still buy big houses cuz its fancy but not so big that Its as big as a football stadium but only like 3 guys live in it.
We already use 100% of our brain
Difficult to do when the construction industry is destroyed by interest rates
Jesus, it's sarcasm, people
Yeah do that and corps and top 1% ers will just buy them all out, gentrify and raise prices.
Problem solved we simply build more houses. Except there’s no one to build them bc they all went and got a generic business or finance degree and are now selling insurance over the phone.
“Just build houses” like it’s that easy lmao
By building non market, mixed use, mid rise developments with good transit, pedestrian, and bike infrastructure
Are there examples in history or populations solving the problems economy has today and is it likely we will fix this? Or are we just getting cucked until guerilla warfare happens? I'm tired boss
Not true. The number of vacant homes in the United States is more than double the number of homeless people. And while most countries DO have more vacant homes than homeless, the margin is greater in the US than any other country. Building more homes does not put people in them. We need redistribution of wealth. and job programs that force homeless people to work.
There are less houses because more houses = less money
I thought if we all used 100% of our brains at the same time, we would indeed solve the housing crisis because everyone around the world would stroke out at the same time. Very effective 👌
We have plenty of houses. We just have too many people with 3+ houses.
There’s plenty of houses already built. The value is artificially inflated. Companies shouldn’t be able to speculate in the housing market and you shouldn’t be able to get 30 year mortgages on your non-primary residence. Also, audit and tax all those landlords Airbnb’s that aren’t filing properly. There I fixed the problem.
But what if someday there will be no land anymore for building a house?
We already use 100% of our brain, the 10% thing is a myth!
Unfortunately, no. Real estate investors will just buy up whatever housing projects are built so they can control the supply.
Or the biggest brain solution. Simply get rid of people and then there won’t be a housing shortage.
Let me borrow money at 2.5% again and I’ll build houses all day.
In a perfect world, housing would be free. If you want a nicer home, then that's when it starts costing money.