Comment by SyzygyRhythm
8 hours ago
It's not very complicated; it's just that the solutions are deeply unpopular. Making housing affordable by definition means driving down prices. But existing homeowners don't like to see their home prices go down! And about 2/3 of the US public lives in a house owned by a resident.
I'm semi-convinced that the reason why we see so many bad ideas in housing is because the good ideas negatively affect too much of the voting public. Or, they perceive the ideas as negatively affecting them.
You're mistaken about the reasons why solutions are unpopular. Have you actually talked to the most active NIMBYs who oppose new housing development? Most of them are barely aware of affordability and home prices. They have lived in the same neighborhood for decades and intend so stay there until they die so prices don't impact them at all. Instead they are concerned about quality of life issues: traffic, parking, noise, petty crime.
“Making housing affordable by definition means driving down prices.”
This is not true.
Not that it matters as I don’t think this is what motivates NIMBY’s but for anyone reading that believes so, this is incorrect.
The old single family home next to the new apartment building gains land value. And this shows up county after county [1]. Building more housing is a valuation win-win, the pie just grows.
[1] https://gardner.utah.edu/news/recent-apartment-construction-...
But unless you intend to sell up then what you now have is a more crowded neighborhood and in some cases higher property taxes.
IDK if things are fundamentally different in Czechia, but I talked to a lot of Czech NIMBYs and they almost never mention home prices. What they usually obsess about is change in a neighborhood that they are used to and want to keep intact. The resentment against new people and new buildings is just palpable, even if the newcomers would be solid middle class.
Noise and dust from construction are often mentioned as well. Construction means heavy trucks entering places where they usually don't intrude.
> But existing homeowners don't like to see their home prices go down!
As a homeowner I don't want to see my home price go down relative to all other homes as that leaves me in a precious position if I need to move, but if all homes fall in price together then that actually makes the prospect of moving less risky as, if I have to move into a house that is a step-up from the one I have, the cost to do so is lower. That would be an improvement over the status quo. High housing prices are a problem even for those with significant equity in a home.
But who doesn't want to see their wage go down is those who build houses. This is the bottleneck. The vast majority of people cannot afford a new house, which means they're stuck in their used houses, which means there is no inventory opening up for those with no houses.
> it's just that the solutions are deeply unpopular.
Is it? The solution in motion is to use AI to push software developers out of software development so that they have to become construction workers, thereby increasing the supply of construction workers, pushing construction wages down. It doesn't seem that unpopular (at least not outside of HN, but even on HN many welcome it with open arms). Maybe it will become unpopular once the motions are complete? That's a tad bit late, though.
Saying, "2/3 of the US public lives in a house owned by a resident" sounds like a phrase talking around the problem that young people can't afford to move out of the family home. A true fact but with a story behind it.