Someone Explain This So Called Housing Crisis?

[Two Crows]

Just some random bits:

In the St. Louis exurbs, NIMBY has two major motivations:

1. Parts of St. Louis County are very poor, and apartment complexes are a risk to adopt income-controlled policies (AFTER they are approved and built; see Ashwood in St. Charles County for an example). Many (most?) of the people in the exurbs moved explicitly to avoid that population (see the mass exodus from North County since the 1980's, it has to be amongst the largest in the nation).

2. The whole exurb area(s) was/were small town/farms just 30 years ago, so nearly the entire local highway system is 2-lane, with major throughfares having a single suicide lane. The roads have crowed commercial development adjacent, so widening the roads would be extremely costly in various ways.
Now that some of these cities have reached ~100,000, and everyone has to drive everywhere (there is no public transport in St. Charles County), the traffic is astoundingly bad. Bad enough that even development of "high-end" properties is generally opposed. They simply do not want anymore traffic, under any circumstances.

Those both written, when we do see new developments in pocket municipalities or unincorporated areas, it is exclusively "Luxury Apartments" or McMansions on postage stamp lots. The land and development process is just too expensive to build anything else. (Excepting small commercial lots sitting on major roads, those are all carwashes or restaurants).

The whole thing makes home prices deceiving in the area, as you can get a home for under $90k in North County, but a condo will cost you over $200k just across the Missouri river.

 

[Andy Capp]

You want statistics that Contractors in Nova Scotia want cheap apprentice labor and a lot of tradespeople are laid off if their union doesn't get a bid in on jobs? I don't have those for you off the top of my head. Its Nova Scotia Specific. I can tell you while recruiting that I see hundreds of age 28-35 red seal tradespeople applying for labor jobs on career sites every week for the last few years and when i interview them, they are laid off all the time and not used in residential construction. A lot of them also get to within 1 month of completing their apprenticeship after years and close to getting red seal only to be suddenly let go just before they can when they are due for red seal certification.

Anyone who looks on indeed can see the wages being offered in residential construction in NS

And why is it only 43% of graduates of the Trades programs finish their apprenticeships? oh wait, they get ejected right before they get their red seal.

Nova Scotia is also shitty with overtime laws, particularly for construction workers. Construction workers are not entitled to overtime until they have worked over 110 hours in 2 weeks. Unions don't roll that way and have bargaining in place for OT after a threshold much lower so Contractors in NS will use them minimally as possible, if at all.

Well, let's face it, Nova Scotia stands head and shoulders above all other provinces in corruption, p4p.

You've got rackets within rackets there so it's no surprise there's all kinds of fucked up shit going on.

But I still need to see an actual source that says already-skilled construction workers are sitting home while immigrants do their jobs if it's to have any general application to my point.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

Idk. But from what I understand, while they are cramming houses closer together, they also don’t want to build starter homes. Maybe their profit margin increases if the houses they build are above a certain square footage. But either way, there really isn’t so much a shortage of houses as there is a run on houses by Wall Street.

Same issue with apartments. If you can build an apartment building, the financial incentive is to build luxury condos rather than affordable housing because you make a lot more money on luxury condos.

 

[wildchild88]

Funny, the so called experts were under the opinion that there would be a market crash in Toronto for the last 25 plus years, never happened.

Predicting future socio-economic events is extremely difficult.

While there would be a lot of good information explaining the housing crisis that's readily available.

 

[SummerStriker]

The stock market is up 30 percent over the last year while housing is down 2-3%. Didn't want to buy a new house a year ago, but I'm getting one soon. You have to value the housing market in relation to everything else. It's only a housing crisis for people who don't have some investments or cash saved.

 

[avenue94]

Same issue with apartments. If you can build an apartment building, the financial incentive is to build luxury condos rather than affordable housing because you make a lot more money on luxury condos.

It's not all in favor of luxury condos, which have higher costs and a smaller market. Not to mention you can't infinitely build them because eventually you would price out customers.

At any rate, governments can put their finger on the scale here. Plus ant housing is better at this point, a luxury condo reduces competition for every other kind of housing.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

It's not all in favor of luxury condos, which have higher costs and a smaller market. Not to mention you can't infinitely build them because eventually you would price out customers.

In Canada it is. They don't care about pricing out domestic customers. There are millions of rich foreigners buying them up.

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

I confess I"m a bit of a NIMBYist. People don't really handle poverty well in the Americas. Not that it's great elsewhere, but public housing brings in so much dysfunction into otherwise nice vibrant neighborhoods. Maybe I'm just a jerk.

 

[RoastBeast]

Home values are imaginary nonsense. Just like stock values are. They can literally be based on anything. The house I live in is currently valued at over $300k and I can tell you that anyone willing to pay that for this house is a blithering idiot. It's a bad investment, a money pit waiting to happen. This market has repeatedly been manipulated time and again when laws favor wealthier people and corporations. And just like in 2008, immigrants and poor people are always blamed for those who engaged in predatory practices against them.

Adding apartments to literally anywhere doesn't HAVE to devalue the homes there. What a nonsense take. You ever hear of luxury apartments? You can add more housing literally anywhere and merely fluctuate median home values depending on how it's done. You're just espousing anti-competitive crap, which is hilarious as it tends to come the hardest from people who simp for capitalism. You're arguing for a controlled market via the Gubment, more restrictions on what can and cannot be built and where. And the more we've adhered to this ideology the worse the wealth gap has gotten, the worse homeless has gotten, and people who sit on high-dollar properties just shrug their shoulders and vote for laws that criminalize that homelessness. But then b*tch their faces off when people from NY or Cali with their better buying power come into their towns because the homes are more affordable.

Home and stock values are imaginary nonsense? Wow lol

So that's how we're going to get out of the housing crisis? Luxury apartments? I feel like you don't really think your stances through very well.

Like I said, I would fight to not have my nice neighborhood get riddled with crime. I really don't care if that makes anyone mad or not. I worked hard and sacrificed a lot to get where I am and I'm not here to take one for the team for some venture capitalists.

Adding more housing supply is how you make housing cheaper. I'm not saying that we need to add a 15 floor apartment complex in the middle of a suburb but adding things like multiplexes and accessory dwelling units is a way to add density that better matches the character of existing neighborhoods.

The more you lower the barrier to building housing the more likely you will see small developers fill in these niches. In practice that looks more like your neighbor adding a granny flat to their yard to accommodate an elderly parent or converting their SFH into a duplex to rent out the other unit. Maybe a fourplex goes up with units that new grads can afford to live in, maybe someone converts their garage into an additional unit for their adult children to move back in while keeping some independence. These are things that the current laws make difficult to acheive and the more you make this kind of thing harder the more reliant the market is on big developers who can bear the costs that NIMBYs impose on new developments.

Where I live, multiplex housing is ghetto housing and doesn't belong in middle class neighborhoods. There's plenty of room out there to build new developments on, they don't need to build low income housing in nice neighborhoods. All that is going to do is drive people further away. Law abiding citizens with a little bit of money aren't going to want to live near people who are more likely to break into their cars and steal their shit. People work hard to get away from that life, not to welcome it back in after all their hard work is done.

 

[Kassitus]

I confess I"m a bit of a NIMBYist. People don't really handle poverty well in the Americas. Not that it's great elsewhere, but public housing brings in so much dysfunction into otherwise nice vibrant neighborhoods. Maybe I'm just a jerk.

Nothing wrong with not wanting your homeland ruined. Don't let the psyops get to you. Stay strong.

 

[Andy Capp]

Has TS ever returned to this thread?

 

[Super_Nintendo]

'Secret' RCMP report forecasts a bleak future in Canada​

'Secret' RCMP report forecasts a bleak future in Canada

A 'secret' Royal Canadian Mounted Police report paints a dark picture of Canada's future due to climate change, misinformation, a global recession and other troubling trends.

www.ctvnews.ca

"The coming period of recession will also accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations," the nine-page report predicts in a section titled "Popular Resentment."

It goes on to state that "many Canadians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live."

"The fallout from this decline in living standards will be exacerbated by the fact that the difference between the extremes of wealth is greater now in developed countries than it has been at any time in several generations," the report adds.

The report also includes sections on "Erosion of Trust," "Paranoid Populism" and "Effects of Climate Devastation."



we've been telling you about The Great Reset for years but hey, y'all keep voting for that commie globalist

 

[Beechwood]

Saw this today ~

Redfin CEO: How to fix America’s housing shortage​

Inventory slightly rose in recent weeks, but it hasn't dampened home prices, Redfin reported​

Redfin CEO: How to fix America’s housing shortage

Redfin Chief Executive Glenn Kelman argued that the housing supply crisis can be addressed as states focus on deregulation, which would help boost inventory.

www.foxbusiness.com

 

[avenue94]

In Canada it is. They don't care about pricing out domestic customers. There are millions of rich foreigners buying them up.

Again, same issue. If a million rich people are buying luxury apartments, that is a million less people competing for non-luxury apartments. You could also just close the standard Western perk of letting people expedite citizenship by purchasing property.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Why should your home be exempt from market forces? That's like arguing that there should be a limit on car production so that my brand new car holds its value better.

So you want to make housing even more expensive by increasing infrastructure costs to create new housing, and as a cherry on top, you want to make new housing purposefully less desirable by making sure it's in bumfuck and not near economic opportunities.

You might as well as have just said you want the government to tailor all of its policies to you the silly individual, and fuck the millions of other US citizens.

Even if so, it would make more sense for the gov't to just cut checks to homeowners than to manipulate markets to drive prices up.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Where I live, multiplex housing is ghetto housing and doesn't belong in middle class neighborhoods. There's plenty of room out there to build new developments on, they don't need to build low income housing in nice neighborhoods. All that is going to do is drive people further away. Law abiding citizens with a little bit of money aren't going to want to live near people who are more likely to break into their cars and steal their shit. People work hard to get away from that life, not to welcome it back in after all their hard work is done.

There isn't plenty of room to build new developments on though, most residential land in US metro areas is zoned for R1 which means SFH only.

Multiplexes being low income housing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. There's no reason a multiplex can't be high quality and located in a good neighborhood, it could even be "luxury housing"

To be clear I don't care about "affordable housing", I mainly care about increasing the supply of market rate housing.

 

[blackheart]

There is 0 difference between scalpers and landlords. But for some reason people get pissed at people scalping tickets or nikes, yet they consider being a "landlord" to be perfectly acceptable and okay. All you are doing is using your excess cash to scoop up extra housing to re sell at a higher price. When someone scalps the new Nikes you wanted, it fucks up your day. When the entire world's financial sector scalps all the housing, it's life and society ruining.

It should be illegal to treat homes as investment vehicles. Full stop. You should be able to own multiple homes, of course, but only as personal property. Subjecting housing and shelter to the effects of commodification and trading it like its oil futures, is obviously an insane, deeply immoral and stupid fucking idea.

 

[blackheart]

Vienna Austria consistently ranks as the best city on earth in terms of human happiness, prosperity, quality of life and well-being.

Austria is also considered an expensive place to live.

So explain to me how 75% of the housing in Vienna is government owned and rent Is capped at 15-25% of income?

I was told government housing is communism and can't be done. Yet somehow the #1 city on earth is mostly government housing and people pay very little in rent??

Somehow, some way, in 2024 when all major western countries are going through a housing crisis, Vienna is offering affordable housing in the best city on earth. My god what is their magic secret?

It must be because Vienna doesn't have black people. That's what it is. It's definitely not the very specific system of policies that were deliberately put in place to ensure human prosperity. Nope. It's because black people. Don't look into it anyyyy further. We should keep treating housing like we're trading stocks. Don't do anything differently.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

Again, same issue. If a million rich people are buying luxury apartments, that is a million less people competing for non-luxury apartments. You could also just close the standard Western perk of letting people expedite citizenship by purchasing property.

There's a massive shortage of non luxury apartments and the people buying the luxury apartments largely aren't coming from the existing pool of buyers - they're foreigners. So they don't affect the level of demand for affordable units at all.

If this problem was as simple as you want it to be, it wouldn't be a crisis.

Not everyone has skills that allow them to work remotely or I would recommend everyone do what I did - move to a small town and work online.

 

[Senzo Tanaka]

Normally what would happen is a builder would buy land and build property. Then they'd sell directly real estate agents or individuals. You take a loan out with the bank, you work out an interest rate and then you pay monthly on on it.

Now, businesses are buying entire neighborhoods before they even have a chance to go to market or, give crazy offers to existing home owners. They then usually lease them out instead of selling them to have a constant flow of income. It's basically apartment renting except they are homes.

Some states have proposed banning businesses from buying homes and I'd be totally down for that. If you as an individual want to lease our your home, that's on you but I think neighborhoods should be required to have at least 80% home owners instead of renters.