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Comment by jjav

3 days ago

> They don’t create supply in any way, the only ones who do that are builders.

For a house to be available for me to rent, both things need to happen.

Someone had to build it, obviously. But just as necessary, someone needs to offer it up for a rental.

One of these things precedes the other in time, however, which may be significant.

  • But not in the causal chain. The building happened because someone was willing to pay for a fungible asset. An asset is only fungible if there are buyers.

    • > The building happened because someone was willing to pay for a fungible asset.

      Building often happens because a developer believes someone will buy the homes they build. A lot of the time, they are right; some of the time they are wrong. Some developers will get buyers lined up first, to minimize the risks of being wrong; many do not. In the latter case, there's no inherent connection between the building and subsequent buyers.