this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Geez sure sounds like this real estate market should be like. Heavily controlled and limited by the government. So that objectively good things, like less daily commuting and therefore less greenhouse emissions, can happen without toppling society.
I will never work in an office again. I literally couldn't afford my rent and my food costs if I also had to afford a daily gas expense. I am very much not alone in this.
This is a stupid question maybe, but how does a real-estate crash topple anything?
There's over $1.5 trillion in commercial real estate value that's spiraling in value due to numerous factors, but so many offices going fully remote has definitely contributed to an non-insignificant degree. Additionally, many cities/counties get a shit ton of their tax revenue from the property taxes on that same commercial real estate. If the value of those properties plummet, then tax revenue also plummets. Then you also have a lot of commercial real estate investor that foolishly over extended themselves over the pandemic by buying up a lot of shit when some loan rates were almost 0% at one point. Now, those investments don't look so hot and they're massively in debt and at risk for faulting on those properties.
Tldr; from on my understanding, it's sorta like the 2008 subprime crash, but with commercial real estate and different circumstances.
That being said, fuck those investors and fuck cities heavily relying on property taxes for the bulk of their revenue. Teach them all a lesson, just like they'd unsympathetically teach us common folk a lesson when we fuck up
the same local governments that just raised my property tax by $190/mo?
Go to elec. If there are no good candidates - be good candidate.
I've got a full time job and kids. Don't have time to also get into politics.
I've been to the city council meetings and I vote. Nothing seems to change
The real estate market is in shit because it is already heavily regulated.
Yes... heavily regulated... thats why an entire generation of people live with their parents because housing costs are many orders of magnitude too expensive for them to afford. Yup. That's a clear sign that the government is putting heavy regulations on the cost and distribution of real estate.
I'm sorry, but the very premise that in our present society real estate is even lightly regulated is utterly ridiculous on its face value. As is the concept that deregulation will make housing affordable. Letting landlords and capitalists do whatever they want with all property will somehow make property cheaper? People motivated solely by profit will make everything cheaper? No, they will continue to sell property at increased costs so they can increase their profits as they always have.
You have no clue what zoning does to buildability, do you.
Hint: insane ass zoning rules are government regulations. You really want revised government regulations.
Zoning is not federal in US
And way up this thread was referring to localized laws. And you can force certain changes at higher levels, just gotta be prepared for the lawsuit that follows. State of NJ having a huge issue with affordable housing, and Fair Share basically taking a court ruling and running with it and essentially forcing towns to build, or else.
Or Newsom just flat out removing zoning restrictions via state law in Cali.
What a Chad.
All people who think more gov controlling everything should do is look at places like Europe where it's basically impossible to build and family homes are generational things handed down and you live with your parents until they die and hand over the home to you
"look at places like Europe" is the clearest signifier of someone who has never left the States ever in their life.
In Europe, there are 50 countries, over 150 distinct cultures, wildly different economies and styles of government representing each country, and over 746 million people living within European borders. Of those 746 million, 70% own their own home, compared to 65% of US Americans. Your generalization is absolute nonsense and you should probably not respond so confidently with your opinion.
ROFL, my family is from multiple countries in Europe. I've lived in there for multiple years and my wife is from there. I know all about it because I've lived it. You're a fool if you think people can just own homes or build houses there easily. The home ownership is handed down and most live with parents.
Hell it's not hard to even find this shit out:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/dependent-generation-half-young-european-adults-live-parents
"Europe" isn't just London and Paris. I did some research on real estate in France and Spain recently and it's significantly cheaper over there if you aren't living in a major city. Even cheaper than the rural area in the US I currently live in.
No shit...this happens in small towns as well. I would know my family is from multiple countries in Europe.
They're cheaper sure, but you also make far less than in the USA.
Yeah you do, but the housing was way more affordable at the same time. You can still make good money in Europe depending on what you do. In the US your income also gets reduced by things like heath insurance that are much cheaper in the EU even including the taxes. And groceries are cheaper in Europe as well.
That's absolutely not true where I live, so maybe be careful with the generalizations.
Where do you live, because a huge number of families do live in multiple generation houses.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/24/dependent-generation-half-young-european-adults-live-parents
Regulation doesn’t automatically mean better.
You can make regulations that benefit large real estate corporations and that’s still regulation.
We have a lot of that in the parts of US. There are rules encouraging landlords to keep high rental rates bc if they lowered it, they’d have to offer that to other renters as well. Many landlords choose to have empty rooms and keep that high rental rate.
This is literally why housing is so expensive. Local governments (or worse, federal), pass stifling legislation that prevents building, almost always due to localized pressure.
Meanwhile in Russia there is opposite problem: too much housing. And there are a lot of regulations.
And all of those regulations are extractive, but in the opposite direction
Well, I don't know where you live and maybe in your country nothing is regulated, but I live in Europe and in most European countries there are excessive building regulations which prohibit new developments. This results in severe stock shortage. And shortage drives the prices up. That's just a fact.
The whole problem is created by the government and they're the only ones responsible.
I live in Copenhagen, and there are new developments going up every day.
Well, good for you.
The point being that Denmark also has regulations...
Regulations can be different. Some regulations state what the quality of the building should be, but some state that developers can fuck off.
"Stock shortage", lol. Not enough paper being printed causes prices to go up?
I think he meant it as inventory
Ah. Well, we live on different planets. On my planet new appartment costs less than on secondary market. And there is oversupply of housing nobody knows what to do with it.
Dear god you are the poster child for "confidently incorrect"
Are you really that ignorant of the housing market? Zoning regulations are the #1 blocker for new housing being built. More regulation = less housing. Just think about it for half a second.
Also, more housing = lower cost. Supply and demand, dude.
I'd argue it's more the homeowners themselves. They don't want high density housing built near them because it drives down the value of their house, so it doesn't get built. Voting records tell that story extremely well.
You'd be wrong. Local homeowners don't vote on new construction. That's not how any of that works.
Homeowners absolutely have a say in their local elections, and there are many cases where they've directly prevented projects from moving towards.
...by convincing regulators
Local homeowners vote on zoning policy tho so he's basically being correct, just not about the mechanism.
Local homeowners typically vote on representatives who then set local zoning laws. But either way, guess what that's called? Yep, regulation.
You’re not wrong, but I feel like this is an over generalization. You’re right that the current housing shortage has been caused largely by local regulations. On the other hand, many state legislatures are realizing this fact and working to craft new regulations that loosen and supersede the local ones. E.G Oregon passed a law a few years ago that requires residential areas to be zoned for multi family units in cities over a certain size. I think that kind of law is going to be pretty important to getting the housing situation under control.
That happens only in US. Well, you can say that US is more regulated that EU. And then think about it.
US is actually over regulated in general. It's just that their regulations are a result of corruption (they call it lobbying) and are tailored towards protecting monopolies and not consumers or competitors.