Basic Human Need? Or Investment Asset? Housing Affordability in the US in 2023 and Beyond

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There may be no more important topic in urbanist thought today than housing affordability. Do you see housing as a monthly expense, or as an investment that will contribute to your net worth over time -- possibly the largest asset in your portfolio when all is said and done? Do existing single-family homeowners deserve to have more say in policy than renters or condo owners? Are all new apartments "luxury apartments" just because they're new??? So many questions -- some of which are actually addressed in this video!
How we think about the home ownership decision in the US has an enormous impact on housing supply, density, and affordability, with tons of downstream impacts on urban form, walkability, and the viability of high quality transit. I've only touched on housing tangentially so far on my channel, so consider this video a first attempt at defining the problem, with more to come in the future! Let me know which areas of this enormous topic you'd like to see me explore.
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Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
- The Cost of Car Ownership: • The All-In Cost of Car...
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Resources:
- Zillow Home Value Index: www.zillow.com...
- HIGHER URBAN DENSITIES ASSOCIATED WITH THE WORST HOUSING AFFORDABILITY by Wendell Cox www.newgeograp...
- The Wealth of Households 2020: www.census.gov...
- fred.stlouisfe...
- www.zillow.com...
- investor.vangu...
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Images
- Lloyd District tent camp By Graywalls - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikime...
- Tent camp In Oakland, CA, near Laney College campus By NeoBatfreak - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikime...
- Whoville Homeless Camp in Eugene, Oregon By Visitor7 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikime...
- "Mortgage" stock photo Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
- Lawnmower Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay
- Renovating Photo by Rene Asmussen: www.pexels.com...
- Updated kitchen Photo by Mark McCammon: www.pexels.com...
- Asphalt shingle roof By DMahalko, Dale Mahalko, Gilman, WI, USA -- Email: dmahalko@gmail.com - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikime...
- McMansion By Stilfehler - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikime...
- Ranch House Image by yourhomebylori from Pixabay
- Modern McMansion Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay
- Rowhouses By John Phelan - Own work, CC BY 3.0, commons.wikime...
- Bungalow By Robert D. Hubble - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikime...
- Bungalow By David Sawyer - Flickr: Craftsman House, CC BY-SA 2.0, commons.wikime...
- Bungalow By David Sawyer from Rancho Murieta, California, United States - Craftsman House, CC BY-SA 2.0, commons.wikime...
- House for thumbnail Photo by Curtis Adams: www.pexels.com...
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Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (RU-vid music library)
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Inquiries: thecitynerd@nebula.tv

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29 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 1,1 тыс.

@Westlander857 Год назад

I’m 26, I have a good job and good education, very hard working. My parents still believe that I can simply afford a house by not drinking Starbucks and not doing anything fun. They really deny that housing is any more expensive or difficult to access than in the 80’s or 90’s. The lack of empathy that older generations have towards us doesn’t help.

@chazdomingo475 Год назад

Ask them how much they paid for their house and how much they made when they bought it. Then do the math for the same job and the same house today. That's when my parents finally got it. They would have needed to make 200k+ in today's dollars, straight out of high school with no degree, for the math to be similar to what I'm dealing with today.

@chazdomingo475 Год назад

@@xandercruz900 Even those places aren't as cheap as they used to be. You clearly don't get it.

@kaitlyn__L Год назад

@@xandercruz900 hmmmm

@robincrowflies Год назад

@@xandercruz900 OMG, you are doing just what Paul is talking about! Why don't you mention avocado toast fcs!?

@robincrowflies Год назад

@@chazdomingo475 Exactly. My in-laws raised three kids and bought a brand-new house in 1960. My father-in-law never went to college and my mother-in-law stayed home until the kids got older and she worked to help send them to college. It was a totally different world.

@EmilyChandlerj Год назад

I’ve lived in the SF Bay Area all of my adulthood and career. It’s home. I am committed at least until my kids are grown and college age (8 years) but I honestly don’t know if the lack of affordability makes sense in our empty nesting or retired years. Many friends come and go and even our kids know that people leave the area a lot due to affordability. A part of Living here is accepting the transient nature of the area and what that means for people of all ages. I worry our kids will never chose this area when they grow up and we will have to decide between seeing them infrequently or them living a very challenging (and likely renting as the only option) life. So affordable housing is a big deal for friendships and families and quality of life in ways that are hard to measure. Thanks for the great video ❤

@Donkeyearsa Год назад

I lived in San Diego Ca for 40 years before moving to Dallas Tx. For what you can buy in the lowest middle class neighborhoods in California you can buy some really nice houses in the upper middle class neighborhoods in Dallas. I talked to a guy who sold his house in LA that he still had over a decade left on his mortgage who sold his house and bought three houses in Idaho for cash not having any mortgages on any of the three houses. He lived in one and rented the other two out for a decent income. He was semi retired in his 40s from the income from the rentals and from peace meal work he did for extra cash. It might be possible for you to sell your house and buy your self a house for cash and give your kids the down payment for their own house if not buy it out right. It all depends on where you chose to move to. An example you can buy a decent house in Oklahoma in the low to mid 200s. If you have the right skills and follow the rules they set down the city of Tulsa Oklahoma is actually paying people to move to Tulsa. There are other places that will literately give you free land to build a house just to move to their county.

@emma70707 Год назад

It would be great to hear your thoughts (or more of them if you've touched on this briefly before) on rezoning downtowns given that a lot of office space is sitting empty for more urban dwellings. It seems like this could be a great solution for high-density housing close to public transit in high cost of living areas, though obviously there are challenges to renovating office space to housing. In college (Omaha, NE), I lived in the old telecommunications building since there's a company that specializes in renovating old office buildings there--a bunch of the housing stock downtown was built by them. It's always surprising to me that this isn't as much of a thing in larger cities.

@ihateregistrationbul Год назад

It's the way that the structures are built that make office buildings of any height extremely difficult due to the lack of plumbing and heating and air conditioning differences for habitable space. Adding all of that plumbing and heating and air conditioning adds to the live load of the structure and then there's major engineering concerns and one reason why you don't see quick turnover to residential

@barneyh5314 Год назад

Pittsburgh has had a lot of this- properties in downtown being converted from retail or office into residential properties. I think its great, as a growing number of people want to live in central cities and a lot of the office workers would rather do their tasks remotely or in suburban office parks which have better amenities for shopping and that.

@thom7463 Год назад

@@ihateregistrationbul this explains why so many of the office to condos flips we see are luxury $$$$ per square foot. Only way to make up the costs.

@CityNerd Год назад

Yeah, I don't know if it's a zoning issue as much as a feasibility issue -- office buildings are often built to different standards as far as windows, plumbing, etc. But maybe the zoning or comprehensive plan designation is a big deal? I don't know! It's definitely a chewy enough topic for me to dig into. Thanks for the prompt!

@colormedubious4747 Год назад

Keep in mind that the office buildings are why most people live in the metro area in the first place. If you convert too much office space to residential, there'd be no reason to live there. It's a balancing act.

@blacksaturn1 Год назад

Disclaimer: I am from the upper South now residing in the center of Tokyo. I want to bring this back to mass transit. As I mentioned in a previous episode (?) I have a 'yes and' mindset. I also believe that the government needs to ensure that its people can obtain Maslow's basic needs. Here in Japan, public transit ownership takes various forms, even in the Tokyo region. The central government owns some portion of the heavy passenger rail network, JREast, but the Tokyo metropolitan government also runs some train, subway, trolley, people mover, and bus lines. In addition to that you have private rail, subway, and bus companies. All of these networks laid on top of one another create a great system that can move people wide and far. It's the workhorse of the economic system. Getting permission to close a train line, bus route, or transportation link requires a bureaucratic process that sees the central government and its ministries getting involved. So transport providers are very attuned to market changes and are always looking to build demand and revenue sources beyond ticket sales. The transport operators here have gotten themselves involved in real estate development and sales. They buy up vacant land around their lines and routes and turn them into office, retail, or residential towers. They own supermarket chains that are either located within the station property or nearby on land owned by the transport operator. In conclusion, my point is housing and public transport in the US are horrendous because we tend to not think broadly or creatively about problems. It's 'either or' not 'yes and'. Why aren't public transit operators forced to find revenue sources to support their routes and lines? Why are we so quick to close down routes and lines vs making the process so onerous that it becomes easier to innovate a solution to declining revenue or ridership? I think that becomes the key to housing affordability, incentivizing public transit into the market.

@quiet451 Год назад

I would love to see a video on access to ski resorts in North America. Specifically, I-70 access west out of Denver and access east up Big/Little Cottonwood Canyons out of Salt Lake City. In Salt Lake a $550 million gondola is currently being proposed to access one of the canyons all the while UTA has cut bus access in half this year. What will it take to convince lawmakers and the general public to start supporting better public transit options?

@rashakor Год назад

$10/gal gas!

@quiet451 Год назад

@@rashakor Skiers are some high-income people. I think they would willingly pay $10/gal.

@emcity24 Год назад

I respect how CityNerd delivers his expertise with the demeanor of a vexed high school decathalon straight A student who's only B he got was a clerical error that got entered in the grading system incorrectly despite his best efforts to explain to the teacher that the math didn't average correctly. He took it personally. But I digress. Maslow's hierarchy of needs starts at the fundamental: (Food, shelter, clothing). Basic needs shouldn't be priced at the sole mercy of a market-based system, where the "buy low; sell high" mentality will leave so many people out (homeless) when profit margins (demand) respond to the disparity of the market volume (supply) since developable land in livable areas is an exploited finite resource. Then add all of the taxes, zoning restrictions, construction costs, HOAs, etc on top of that.

@davidrojas426 Год назад

I really like your videos man but please fix your camera settings.

@strongtowns Год назад

This was even-handed, thoughtful, and well-said. You navigated the "minefield" with nuance and snark in a way that only the one true Citynerd could. Love your line near the end, "don't close the door behind you." Excited for a hopeful follow up! (Citynerd Econ 102??)

@mattgalper5397 Год назад

Love the part about living how you want to live and not basing it on ROI! I sold my 2000 sqft detached house on the edge of town early last year after 3 years of being miserable in suburbia. Moved back into the city center in a small studio. Also replaced my car with an e-bike when my lease ended. Nice to hear I'm not crazy or that there's at least other people out there as crazy as me 😂. Regarding ROI, being able to drop, from my balance sheet, the car and cost of maintaining and fixing every issue that pops up in a 100 year old house has certainly helped in that regard.

@CityNerd Год назад

Yeah there's a bigger discussion to be had about what constitutes "ROI." I don't even mean in a touchy-feely, quality of life way. I mean, you literally save $$$ by reducing your car dependency, in so many ways.

@mattgalper5397 Год назад

@@CityNerd Definitely! I'm saving ~$600 a month just not having a car payment, parking, and insurance costs. Not even counting gas, maintenance, or registration/inspection fees etc. It would be more money for me to move out of the city despite rent being cheaper once you add in all the vehicle costs that would come with it.

@maumor2 Год назад

But for most Americans buying a house is as close as they are going to get to a 401

@mattgalper5397 Год назад

@@maumor2 I think that was true in the past, but I think most Americans are going to find in the coming years that their "investments" were not the guarantee they were made out to be. Homes were a good investment when they were built to last, were more modest, and wages afforded people the ability to maintain them. That's not the case anymore. The only thing that gets built are cheaply made, oversized, and overpriced McMansions that cause most people to be house poor and are only built to last 30 years and that's if the people who buy them are taking good care of them which many can't afford to do anymore. Fun fact: Did you know that 69% of Americans surveyed or 3 in 5 homeowners consider themselves house poor and didn't expect the costs of repairs, maintenance, and upkeep to be as high as they are? Did you also know that 40% of homeowners with mortgages said they work second, full time jobs to afford housing expenses? That's not a sustainable investment.

@badhombre4683 Год назад

@@mattgalper5397 And don't forget the implicit costs of car-ownership, such as pollution, and the worst of all, putting yourself and others in danger. People forget how dangerous driving is inherently, and how dangerous it has become in our car-brained country where the typical freeway is now 8+ lanes wide.

@RichardGreen422 Год назад

Homes also have a dividend--the rent not paid to a landlord. They also provide insurance against rising rent. And they are the only mechanism that allows households to get cheap investment debt from the capital markets. So given a long enough holding period, homeowning is a good investment, conditional on not being in a declining city. But this also creates a problem. The better return there is for homeowners, the worse the market becomes for those who do not own.

@CityNerd Год назад

Yeah, if you can do a sober assessment and convince yourself you're going to stay put for maybe 8+ years, it makes sense. It's hard to have that certainty, though! I've been lucky enough to stay put for 10+ years and done well, and I've been unlucky enough for life changes to come and had to sell before it was smart to. If you had a crystal ball you'd rent when the market was about to enter decline, and you'd buy and hold when the market was on the way up. You can't really know when these regimes are going to happen, though! I do agree I glossed over some of the benefits, though. Good comment.

@chazdomingo475 Год назад

The homeowners and the non-homeowners are inherently in conflict with each other for exactly that reason. A good market for renters is a bad market for homeowners. We built America on SFH since the WWII so it's no wonder homeowners have been winning these political battles so handily.

@PlaystationMasterPS3 Год назад

this has created a unsustainable system where the younger generation is priced out entirely and is understandably pissed about it. this has a lot of knock on effects and will eventually result in voter base rebellion once enough of the electorate has no personal investment in homeownership

@everacite Год назад

@@CityNerd one key thing here too - if you're selling in a down *market* other places are also likely cheaper too - so as long as you're staying in the property market you might have a loss on paper at the moment, but the new place you got will likely recoup that loss over time. This doesn't hold true if you're downsizing significantly, or switching to renting, or something hyperlocal caused the decline, but if you're staying in the same market or going to one affected by the same trends, you'll likely recoup the loss so long as you remain in the property market. I don't think it's so much time in *one* house that matters so much, as it is time in *any* house, so long as each subsequent house has a similar or nicer profile to the previous.

@rexx9496 Год назад

@@chazdomingo475 Homeowners are also older and they vote reliably.

@kelvinjohnson4 Год назад

Back in the day, when I purchased my first home to live-in; that was Miami in the early 1990s, first mortgages with rates of 8 to 9% and 9% to 10% were typical. People will have to accept the possibility that we won't ever return to 3%. If sellers must sell, home prices will have to decline, and lower evaluations will follow. Pretty sure I'm not alone in my chain of thoughts.

@williamsbrown4026 Год назад

If anything, it'll get worse. Very soon, affordable housing will no longer be affordable. So anything anyone want to do, I will advise they do it now because the prices today will look like dips tomorrow. Until the Fed clamps down even further, I think we're going to see hysteria due to rampant inflation. You can't halfway rip the band-aid off.

@LionTowercoporation Год назад

Home prices will come down eventually, but for now; get your money (as much as you can) out of the housing market and get into the financial markets or gold. The new mortgage rates are crazy, add to that the recession and the fact that mortgage guidelines are getting more difficult. Home prices will need to fall by a minimum of 40% (more like 50%) before the market normalizes. If you are in cross roads or need sincere advise on the best moves to take now its best you seek an independent advisor who knows about the financial markets.

@KelvinWallace Год назад

@@LionTowercoporation I will be happy getting assistance and glad to get the help of one, but just how can one spot a reputable one?

@KelvinWallace Год назад

@@LionTowercoporation Thanks for the contributions, I will look her up online and do my due diligence. If She seem proficient. I`will write her an email outlining my financial objectives and scheduled a phone call.

@joelv4495 Год назад

Anything with the slightest whiff of financial content and the shills come out of the woodwork 🙄

@thewittyusername Год назад

I'd be fine renting the rest of my life if every landlord I've ever had has not done their best to extract as much money out of me while doing the least amount of maintenance as possible. Even if you find a good one you are back into the terrible landlord roulette again if they sell your building (if you don't just get straight up evicted by the sale). Owning a house is not an investment opportunity for me; it's an escape from abuse.

@chazdomingo475 Год назад

Another lifelong renter here and that is precisely it. Maybe if we had more tenant's rights but as it is for most of America, renting is predatory.

@CanonessEllinor Год назад

Renting isn’t inherently exploitative, renting in a system where landlords extract profit from rent is. If all housing was owner communally/by the governemt/whatever and ran as a non-profit amenity, renting could provide incredible freedom compared to the system of debt bondage we have today. I would love for housing to be simply a monthly amenity rather than an anxiety-inducing debt gamble. But in the current system, renting long-term screws you over.

@josephk.4200 Год назад

Housing unaffordability is a symptom of our society treating housing as a capital financial asset instead of a necessity commodity.

@Shawn-id7gc Год назад

Writing something to the same narrative. The problem is how housing is being traded on these days as an asset. Sort of the sane reason of the NIMBY problem

@bobbirdsong6825 Год назад

What’s really ironic is that so much more money could be made for longer with more dense mixed-use development

@zwatwashdc Год назад

It’s a sign that the government jacked asset prices to buy support for its Covid policies from the white collar classes.

@TheSteinbitt 5 месяцев назад

We tried state owned, regulated housing, and it’s too expensive for the state to maintain and fall into disrepair quickly. All over the world this has been tried without success.

@josephk.4200 5 месяцев назад

@@TheSteinbitt Right. Without success. Like in Austria, Singapore, Vietnam, Finland, Britain? Just because you don't know the examples of successful public housing policy doesn't mean the private market of housing hasn't completely failed us here in North America. And it's not like conservatives across the continent weren't trying to sabotage it from the start.

@JHZech Год назад

The answer is to build build build. The speculators can be left holding the bag. There's severe undersupply driving up prices. I earn more than I ever dreamed of but still can't afford a house in my area. There's a reason younger generations are completely disillusioned.

@evanoc Год назад

What about amenity effects? Building market rate apartments in low income areas can increase the price of surrounding rents for low-income apartments

@donaldlee6760 Год назад

I bought a house I couldn't afford in the SF Bay Area. My wife and 3 young children moved into one bedroom, so 5 people in 1 bedroom, and rented out the remaining bedrooms. We lived like goats for 2.5 years, at which point we were in a financial position to no longer need to rent rooms. I believe that it is OK to live like goats for 2.5 years as long as you know there will be an end to the pain.

@neckenwiler Год назад

There’s a solid body of evidence that supply effects (driving the price down) overwhelm amenity effects (driving the price up). Lemme go pull some papers and get you links.

@matthays9497 Год назад

@@donaldlee6760 Agreed. I had roommates both as a young adult and because my family shared housing with other families for a couple periods when I was growing up. I'm surprised more people don't do this.

@thedapperdolphin1590 Год назад

This can help in part. But you would need to build an absurd amount of market rate housing and have it all come around the market at the same in order to bring prices down. It’s particularly hard to drive down prices in high demand areas. You also need housing that is explicitly affordable, which could be done by having inclusionary zoning in areas that see a lot of sense development. Otherwise, more money needs to go into the housing voucher program, and an effort needs to be made to have affordable housing outside of areas of concentrated poverty

@pacerdanny Год назад

Potential topic: When new housing is proposed in a city with housing affordability issues, it's not uncommon for some homeowners to claim the new housing will lower their property values (because of crowding/traffic/shadows, not usually bringing up supply vs. demand), while others (often in rent-controlled apartments) claim it will increase property values (because of gentrification). Only one of these things can actually happen, at least to any given property. What determines which outcome takes place?

@lentilreflection2676 Год назад

Good question. That would make a good topic

@nunyabidness3075 Год назад

I can tell you that good governance or any real sense of fairness does not decide the outcome. Anti gentrification movements are the greediest dirt politics ever. I’ve lived in rental property half my life, and likely will again. I’m sorry, but there was a reason renters didn’t get to vote for a long time, and it wasn’t all bad. Just mostly bad. NIMBYism also gets out of hand. People will scream bloody murder over things which will very likely not negatively impact them or over which they should have no say. If you buy a home because it’s got a view of some private property, and that property owner then decides to develop it, you should sit down and rethink your life before trying to use the government to protect your view. Housing affordability is almost exclusively a government caused phenomenon. And, most of the problem is actually home affordability programs. It’s basic economics.

@ethanstump Год назад

while i acknowledge this topic is complex, and i'm no expert, i fall back onto property value graph's over the long term, which state as the population has increased, so too has the demand for housing, which has increased prices. in other word's, the only way we have value stability in housing is to have population stability. that being said, since so much current value is predicated on future value(and thus future growth), any sort of even plateauing of growth, would then lead to steep corrections (hey, kind of like now!).

@CityNerd Год назад

I mean I feel like if there's upzoning, that should increase land values, but not necessarily housing prices -- if dense housing actually gets built!

@SpencerHeckwolf Год назад

@@CityNerd spot upzonings raise property values, but if you upzone enough land, property values will fall.

@roccobierman4985 Год назад

It's much easier, from a process perspective, to build a subdivision of single family homes in the middle of a field than get zoning passed to build denser housing in many cities. You have to jump through all these hoops to prove the development won't have a negative impact on things such as traffic. We need to streamline denser buildings within our cities.

@neolithictransitrevolution427 Год назад

Also you only usually have to deal with a single land seller.

@jackieknits61 Год назад

No, it's still isn't necessarily that easy even starting from farmland. It may be easier, but it still isn't easy.

@Joesolo13 Год назад

@@jackieknits61 EasiER is the key word. Everything is relative, and being easier than the other thing does indeed make it easy on that scale.

@jeffreylee2993 Год назад

The traffic argument is just ludicrous for me. You have more traffic because you have more vehicles, not more people. The secret is to build a community to encourage people to give up their cars. I moved to Hongkong after living in DC, NY, Boston, now back to DC. Traffic in DC is far worse even though HK is >10 times as densely populated.

@neolithictransitrevolution427 Год назад

@@jeffreylee2993 Well to be fair Bureaucracy is ludicrous. But just like in many (most) North American cities you have to build minimum amounts of parking for a new building, you have to prove all the cars who's parking you're subsidizing don't clog the roads your also subsidizing.

@JonFairhurst Год назад

Great topic. Not as entertaining as a snarky top ten, but more important. Please continue to explore this space. Btw, I enjoyed the RU-vid curated adds for golf clubs and Peloton, because golfing outdoors and riding indoors cater to my suburban-programmed urban terrors. 😉

@CityNerd Год назад

Golf clubs and Peloton?????? I didn't agree to that!!

@truffles Год назад

I know it was a silly remark but there are certain types of ads you can disable in your AdSense settings. nothing specific like blocking Peloton ads but you can disable stuff like political/religious stuff + more. Just thought you might get some use out of that, or at least some knowledge

@jennyguy5001 Год назад

🤣

@StoneMTNboy2009 Год назад

Please do more videos like this, because housing affordability is such an important part of making better cities! Growing up in just outside of Atlanta, I was always taught that owning a home was the only financially viable way to live. Currently, I live in an apartment in Germany and a majority of people rent homes here, encouraging better land use, much better transit (because of higher densities), and more affordable housing. If Germany built residential properties like the US, housing would be absurdly high...but fortunately that's not the case. Although the housing market isn't perfect here, it allows most people the opportunity to live comfortably in urban areas. In the US, it seems that the ideal walkable neighborhoods that people desire are only accessible for the well-off or lucky folks. Access to a grocery store you can walk to or bike to shouldn't be a privilege for people with higher incomes.

@CityNerd Год назад

I've had a couple comments that strongly suggest I need to follow this up with something that compares and contrasts housing policy and legal framework between the US and an interesting international example. This was a great push in that direction, and a great comment to read. Thanks!

@badhombre4683 Год назад

@@CityNerd If I may suggest looking into Swiss rental laws as an example of sound rental regulations that keep rent prices relatively affordable in arguably the world's wealthiest country. The Swiss also have some innovative funding structures to enable more homeownership. Of course, none of these measures would be effective without sound zoning laws.

@machtmann2881 Год назад

Living in Germany too. Housing isn't perfect of course but it does feel nice that I'm not encouraged to block housing to protect my investment (because it isn't one) and that rental laws favor tenants. Considering how much the law favors landlords and homeowners, it's sensible (albeit toxic imo) that American policies encourage the behavior to look down on renters over there.

@jamesgardner6499 Год назад

@@CityNerdcheck out the Strong Towns RU-vid channel. A lot of great videos discussing things like how property taxes subsidize larger car based living.

@thebravesirrobin. Год назад

@@CityNerd I would absolutely love to see a video US vs International housing policy and the surrounding legal system. US housing policy seems to play out through obtuse mechanisms, and there never seems to be an easy way to oppose the status quo, even when public opinion is massively in favor of more housing.

@hgman3920 Год назад

Density isn't an all or nothing proposition,with either only one acre suburban lots or urban high rise condos and apartments. Many of the most walkable places I've lived were older neighborhoods with a 8 +/- lots per acre and a nice mix of single family, duplexes, and low-rise apartment buildings. In the Midwest, where I grew up, the streets were built on a grid , and there was an arterial no more than 1/2 mile from the center of the block which often had some sort of commercial/retail space. There were neighborhood schools within walking distance of most of the children who attended, neighborhood groceries, parks, and other amenities which made it possible to live a car-lite lifestyle.

@wclark3196 Год назад

Absolutely. Density is typically depicted as huge towers. The reality needn't be that way (especially if you don't have huge amounts of surface parking). A nice walkable neighbourhood with good density can, as mine does, consist of rowhouses/townhouses and apartment buildings of 6-10 storeys. We've got a nice park running down the street. But developers don't like to to build like that now. Go newer areas within walking distance and it's 40 storey towers.

@MrTaxiRob Год назад

that only works if you can get to work without a car. My neighborhood is a 9 out of 10 on walkability and amenities, but I have to drive all over the county and sometimes the state in order to pay my rent. There are also large fixed address employers that buses take hours to reach, even though they're only 10 miles or so away from here.

@grmpEqweer Год назад

@@MrTaxiRob ...We used to have neighborhoods built around streetcars. Stupidly, we let car manufacturers buy up and tear up the streetcars. Most major arteries could have light rail or trolleybuses running up the middle.

@jameslangstonevans Год назад

@@MrTaxiRob I think that for the high side of medium density, the strength of limiting parking area mostly lies in that reduction at the retail sections. Your house could have a 2 car garage, and a little yard for hanging outside, and the neighborhood could still be very dense with walkable amenities. Then you could drive if you need to go far, but also have plenty nearby to walk too without having to pass hundreds of acres of retail parking on the way.

@MrTaxiRob Год назад

@@jameslangstonevans I think there is no one size fits all solution. There are some destination neighborhoods that have paid lots that keep people from driving around looking for free spots, and also when they come there and spend a premium on parking they tend to stay longer and spend more while they are there. The residents might have neighborhood specific parking permits, which is something any city can do if they're not lazy. That's just one approach, but as you can see even that requires more than one step to function properly.

@jeremy.oliver Год назад

Definitely wish there were more newer towns and cities built in general to deal with the demand for such superior housing and transportation that density brings. It’s kind of sad how the only way to reasonably increase housing is to build around preexisting cities that already lack public transportation; all thanks to current zoning laws.

@CityNerd Год назад

Yeah it's hard to figure out how to dig out of the conundrum. LA is building the most new transit, yet it's wholly insufficient. Atlanta has heavy rail --- but it's insufficient. It's frustrating that we aren't able to put the right pieces in place.

@een_schildpad Год назад

I've had this reccuring thought that, what is a city besides a place where people choose to live in proximity? So what if a bunch of people that wanted a city with good urban form and maybe without cars just built that together? It's not like we don't have any open land here in the US. If everyone in paying to build their own houses/ shops then no one person needs to be "wealthy" to make it happen 🤔 My guess is that it just needs a catalyst (the visionary that gets the ball rolling) and lots of other people would join in. It would also end up serving at a catalyst for change in other cities once there is a solid living example in the US context; because I think a lot of the resistance to change is lack of being able to even imagine it.

@andrewphillips6083 Год назад

I went from living in rural or very rural locations my whole life to living in a townhouse in a crazy walkable small city where costs are somehow super low. I really think replicating pre-car development of rowhomes, low rises, and mixed uses is the most efficient design. How to make building codes encourage this, I don't know. This creates a lot of opportunity for home ownership or rental, and makes mass transit make more sense. Great video!

@ericpreston8877 Год назад

Of course.

@sebastianjoseph2828 Год назад

I'd love to see a continuation of this regarding buying underutilized property for new homes or mixed use developments. Two contexts come to mind: (1) I live near Baltimore and a lot of blocks of vacant rowhomes could be built up, I don't know if there's a lack of demand or people still "own" the houses they abandoned decades ago and refuse to sell. (2) There are shopping centers and huge parking lots that are practically abandoned in my hometown that can't be developed because one store in the mall refuses to leave. In either case, it should not be legally/financially easier to chop down pristine forest to build new housing than it is to redevelop old areas (which already have utility infrastructure and greater transit potential).

@laurie7689 Год назад

The general rule is that all land/property is owned by somebody. If taxes are being paid on it, then it is not abandoned, even if it is vacant. The deed will name the owner.

@ParallaxThe Год назад

Zoning is also a problem with turning parking lots into housing

@lukesalter9600 Год назад

I know, it’s so stupid that we even have homeless people and this much abandoned land

@barneyh5314 Год назад

A lot of those homes are still in the hands of private owners- but have huge liens for water, mechanics lien, sewage, unpaid mortgages than have to be cleared in order for someone to have clean title and be able to improve the property. Others have been repossessed by municipal governments, and require the actions of politicians and/or bureaucrats to get the property into the hands of a developer- that has to be someone that meets their standards. Some cities are better at moving these properties through than others.

@RobertBloomquist Год назад

I haven't checked the numbers for Baltimore specifically, but if home prices are going up, I can assure you it's not from lack of demand.

@knutthompson7879 Год назад

Here in Austin people complain about the same sort of things they complain about in most urban areas, but 2 things in particular are a> housing prices are too expensive, and b> how "they" are building all these ugly condos and apartments. Well, if housing costs are an issue, more housing is the sure way to help address it.

@scpatl4now Год назад

How about a video for people who want to downsize from a large city to a medium to small city. What are the best cities to downsize to.

@O_Mahan Год назад

Omaha

@bajadrinklover2471 Год назад

Omaha

@gumbyshrimp2606 Год назад

Omaha

@laurie7689 Год назад

That kind of segment would be best split into parts, particularly for those folks who still work and those folks who are already retired as they have differing needs.

@peabody1976 Год назад

Chartreuse is a difficult colour to cover if you have to sell a house. There is no one silver bullet. I think it's at least two or three: 1) rehab the vast amounts of housing stock that exist in many cities' urban and semi-urban areas that lie dormant; yes this includes detached single-fam houses as well as apartment buildings; 2) re-enforce how condos work, with emphasis on shared ownership of that land so people who buy them really feel like they have a stake; 3) allot housing in every neighbourhood for poorer and (currently) unhoused people; getting them into permanent shelter -- as what the VA is now doing with some vets and some countries such as Finland are doing -- has to be the very first step before addressing anything else. I'm just an armchair goaltender, but this has been on my mind a lot. Thank you for the timely topic.

@CityNerd Год назад

I wasn't kidding about having painted a room chartreuse, and I can't endorse your first comment enough. I like your thinking on point 3) -- will have to cogitate on it.

@OhTheUrbanity Год назад

On the topic of choosing whether to buy or rent, something I've been looking into recently that I think is under appreciated is how cities actually vary a lot in how the cost to rent compares to the cost to buy. People have the idea that renting must always cost more than buying because "you're paying the landlord's mortgage and then some" but it's more complicated than that. In Toronto, the same condo will typically cost less to rent than it would cost to buy (in other words, landlords who buy right now to rent out their property are typically losing money). Looking at price-to-rent ratios in the U.S., renting is probably better than buying in places like Seattle or San Francisco but buying is probably better than renting in places like Philadelphia or Cleveland.

@Alenasup Год назад

Why would they choose to be a landlord in that case?

@narglefargle Год назад

For me personally, even if I did have the ability to buy in my home region (Seattle metro area), I wouldn't. When the cost of housing outpaces median wages, it looks an awful lot like a housing bubble to my eye...and I don't wanna be the person who buys just before the bubble bursts.

@AlRoderick Год назад

The thing is not every landlord borrows money to buy rental property. If you already have assets and you turn those assets into rental property that you own free and clear then all you need to collect in rent is the cost of maintaining the structure plus the amount you have to pay in property taxes on it, everything above that is pure profit and effectively that's the return rate on your initial investment. So long as you maintain the property you also still hold the asset, and the expectation is the value of the property will go up over time so eventually you will be able to sell it for more, meaning that you can be a profitable landlord without charging much more than the cost of maintaining the property plus the taxes, it's not the rent that's driving your profit but the appreciation of the property.

@OhTheUrbanity Год назад

@@Alenasup A lot of landlords just bought earlier when prices were lower, so they can profit at current rents. They might have even paid off their mortgage. If someone does buy a property now at current prices in Toronto (or SF, etc.) to rent out, it's possible that they're betting that the value of the home will continue to appreciate enough that they still end up profiting. Like any other financial bet, it's possible that they're right and possible that they're wrong. On one hand, you can say that these are high-demand cities where property prices will only continue to rise. On the other hand, buying *after* prices have risen a bunch should make people at least a little cautious!

@bobbyboy00000 Год назад

@@Alenasup Money a landlord spends from rent towards paying off their mortgage is still profit to them in the long term. e.g. If you buy a house and rent it out at exactly mortgage + maintenance cost then you end up with a house for free when the mortgage is done. If the rent is slightly less than that then you still end up with a cheap house

@rvoloshchukify Год назад

Personally, I chose to buy a home because my monthly mortgage payments would be about half of my rent. I realize that it was a privileged option because not everyone has enough for a down payment, but, even if my home does not grow in value at all during my time here, I am already saving money when compared to the alternative. With the added bonus of doing whatever the hell I like without worrying about landlords. Sure, it is not for everyone, but it was definitely a great decision for me.

@mikeydude750 Год назад

i would absolutely love to purchase a place (not even a home necessarily, a condo would be fine!) for stability but the problem is where I live (bay area) my $2500/mo rent would turn into a $4000-4500/mo mortgage + hoa + tax payment for an equivalent sized and laid out unit.

@qbonecleverly8727 Год назад

If it's that big a difference you're definitely saving money, but be careful when comparing rent to home ownership based just on price. If my rent is $2200/month and I could get a mortgage for $1800/month people assume I'd save $400 a month buying vs renting, but between PMI, property tax, repairs, and interest I'd probably save more money renting and investing the difference in the short term.

@markproulx1472 Год назад

I really enjoyed this. I am pleased to see someone discuss difficult problems while (a) admitting that they’re difficult and (b) not proclaiming a solution.

@loretagurakuqi6950 Год назад

Making money is not the same as keeping it there is a reason why investments aren't well taught in schools, the examples you gave are well stationed, the market crisis gave me my first millions, people shy away from hard times, I embrace them.. well at least my advisor does lol

@loretagurakuqi6950 Год назад

@Amvrosy Sharonov Not at all, having monitored my portfolio performance which has made a jaw dropping $473k from just the past two quarters alone, I have learned why experienced traders make enormous returns from the seemingly unknown market. I must say it's the boldest decision I've taken since recently.

@loretagurakuqi6950 Год назад

@Amvrosy Sharonov The adviser I'm in touch with is 'PATRICIA V VESELY, She works with Merrill, Pierce, Smith incorporated and interviewed on CNBC Television. You can use something else. for me her strategy works hence my result. She provides entry and exit point for the securities I focus on.

@StanleyHudson1 Год назад

Thank you, I copied and pasted her name on web browser and sent a email waiting for reply.

@colormedubious4747 Год назад

Wendell Cox? How is ANYONE still taking anything he says seriously after his proposal to gut Atlanta and turn it into a checkerboard of MASSIVE elevated freeways? The man is basically the worst of Robert Moses -- without all of the parks.

@stevenedwards3754 Год назад

The link between your usual theme of transportation and that of housing is that federal tax laws have had a great deal to do with both. The federal tax subsidy that makes mortgage interest tax deductible goes hand in hand with federal subsidies that favor road building over other transportation. Both have led to unsustainable car-dependent suburbs. The effect of the difference between U.S. tax structure and that of European countries can be seen with Google Earth.

@CityNerd Год назад

Yeah, the mortgage interest deduction is a pretty big deal (depending on your situation). I glossed over a lot in the effort to make this a 15 minute video haha

@bearcubdaycare Год назад

An irritating thing is that my state also encourages homeownership among the elderly, as it pays half the local real estate tax above age 65, but only if you've owned and occupied the same house for ten years (at an age when people should be at least considering downsizing (for less to maintain) or senior living (for assistance)). Nothing for renters.

@kaitlyn__L Год назад

@@bearcubdaycare what a frustrating incentive

@justin10054 Год назад

Can we talk about corporate ownership of single family homes? That is a significant factor in the pricing increases over the last several years.

@Sp4mMe Год назад

What I find ... strange is that this housing crisis is seemingly so thoroughly global. You'd think that at least somewhere there should be some desirable, dense, modern cities that got "it" right and avoided the issue. But even if you look at generally positive cases like Vienna, or the concentrated efforts in Swiss cities these days, that's still not enough to say "it's not a problem here". At best it's mitigating. Maybe there are cities that got it right and I don't just don't about them. But I still think it's a bit odd.

@wvubjd Год назад

The school factor in the housing decision equation would be another thing to add to this... for those of us with kids, that's something that plays as much of a role as proximity to work, type of neighborhood, and other factors.

@Hubbatch099 Год назад

Doesn’t really make much sense given that school factors contribute close to nothing for life outcomes. Evidence: Prestigious NYC schools often have admissions based on test scores with a hard cutoff- people just under that cutoff fare no differently going to a “worse” school than those above the cutoff. Genetic factors and culture likely contribute overwhelmingly. Even common sense dictates this- you took algebra and calculus in high school, but if I gave you a problem from the book it would be impossible to solve. How could something everyone forgets contribute to life outcomes independently?

@ajlynch91 Год назад

Growing up in a suburb outside Chicago with a school system that was considered less than ideal (it wasn’t) our house was about $100k less than a similar home in the town next to us. What really was hilarious is that our scores on standardized tests were higher. Why was our school district rated lower? It was because we had different demographics and were more diverse. The school factor in housing decisions is suburban insanity/thinly veiled racism.

@curtismcallister9569 Год назад

the "school factor" is pretty fraught around the portland metro area. the pattern of "good schools" seems to mirror exactly the white flight that's happened all around town. new suburbs, with new homes, and new property taxes tend to contribute to "better schools." however you want to measure that. while older neighborhoods closer in tend to fade in funding, enrollment and overall quality. you eventually end up with so many white families moving to the suburbs for the "good" schools that you'll end up the only native student out of a thousand students, while the downtown highschool is majority-minority. it's pretty jarring. and it starts to make you hear "we're moving to a neighborhood with good schools" as "we want our kids to go to the white school."

@CityNerd Год назад

Yeah, there are a lot of things that play different when you have kids of a certain age. Tough to avoid owning a car, tough to avoid trying to buy a house in a "good" school district. I've been there!

@bearcubdaycare Год назад

This could be solved of course by school choice, like Sweden does, and by letting students take transit rather than a school bus to get to school. (Some might call that free range kids, or what my generation just called kids. I can't remember anyone freaking out because I walked or biked to school, stores or elsewhere, sometimes several miles away, in a town that attracted research specifically because it was so average. A friend said that in her youth, on non school days, she and her friend would leave their houses after breakfast, play in the mountains, then return home fifteen minutes before dinner, all good.)

@Leonthotskys Год назад

The question is one of morality, in a country that has around 1 million homeless people and 3.8 million empty unused homes. Gluttony and greed are sins in almost every religion as is lending money at interest. We live in a gluttonous, greed poisoned society that would rather see one billionaire man own 10 homes then a family living in their car have a place to stay. Car dependency also has a role to play, but forced redistribution of housing units needs to take place. Look at green belt cities built in the 1930’s, housing co-ops with low rise buildings in mixed use neighborhoods near public transit. These successes need to be repeated.

@paynefanbro Год назад

The only time I've seen demand drop enough for rents to drop was at the beginning of the pandemic when the top-earners in this city (the ones who can actually afford most of the market-rate developments) all fled the city and suddenly developers lost their target demographic. The number of new building permits and construction jobs also sharply declined in NYC as developers slowed or in some cases stopped building the second demand dropped enough for rents to go down. I personally I just wish we built more public housing to compete with market-rate instead of relying solely on private developers or subsidizing private developments to make a certain percent of the apartments "affordable".

@PlaystationMasterPS3 Год назад

we absolutely should use public housing to tighten the thumbscrews on the market. public housing should be given the mission (and funding) to expand the housing supply, house the unprofitable to house, and directly compete for customers in the market

@mikeydude750 Год назад

The Singapore model is absolutely something that I wish we could see happen here - massive public housing projects across all income levels, not just "poor people housing". Mixed-income developments, basically.

@TheRealE.B. Год назад

It all comes down to the simple fact that something can't consistently outpace inflation AND also remain affordable. You have to either side with the landowners who want their property to infinitely increase in value or with people who want a place to live. You CANNOT do both. Given that the latter group wields considerably more political power, prices go up.

@tumbleweed_1049 Год назад

One of my points over time has been that the value of a house going up in value is somewhat irrelevant (*). When you sell you still generally need someplace to live, and surrounding houses will have also gone up in value (all depends on the new location local real estate economy). This is also the reason you need to buy when you can, so you don't fall further behind. Couple decades ago (when I was home shopping), I was miffed that that houses price went up higher than the amount I could save for a down payment in a given year...but no idea what the right answer is here.

@Dullydude Год назад

Silver Bullet Idea: reduce minimum lot sizes for single family zoning! Instead of a minimum of like 2 acres, make it like 1/8 of an acre. This would allow for more housing immediately without reducing the value of existing homes.

@Lazuriteplays Год назад

I like that idea. You increase density and reduce the effect of land value.

@laurie7689 Год назад

Most single family homes are already less than 2 acres. The new average for most lots for single family homes is 1/3 - 1/2 acres.

@rosskgilmour Год назад

Right idea, the key is to ensure that lots can be densified to meet market conditions. In my neck of the woods1/8 of an acre lots go for $1.5-2m because they really should be apartment blocks however, the zoning does not permit apartments, condos etc (it does include duplexes about $1.3m) so the prices are still insane. Since its hard to densify, condo prices are also crazy because there isn't enough of them because of the cities zoning practices.

@PlaystationMasterPS3 Год назад

I really love small SFHes and would love to see more of them in low density areas (zoning shouldn't mandate it but in many places towers won't pencil out)

@chazdomingo475 Год назад

Where are you at that has minimum lot size of 2 whole acres? That's like actually quite a bit of yard. Where I live, they put houses within a yardstick of each other. It still is very inefficient instead of MFH or mixed use. Oh and the houses are still ridiculously expensive because they can't build enough of them. And the land use is still awful. And the property tax still doesn't cover the cost of services from the city.

@nimeshinlosangeles Год назад

I think I learn just as much vocabulary as I do urbanism from this channel - first it was luddite, now it's itinerant.

@CS-ep3ku Год назад

Itinerant was a new one for me too! 😂

@instantpotenjoyer Год назад

It would be really nice if the USA and Canada built more non-market housing to alleviate these issues

@alquinn8576 Год назад

or actually just rezoned to allow for construction of enough market-priced housing to alleviate these issues

@japanamericacar427 Год назад

working in property management, i would say the main issue is greed, everyone wants to put the minimum in and get the maximum out, so if they have an opportunity tp make it harder for new supply to be built, they do that, like the california association of realtors (the guys you have to be licensed with) spend loads lobbying to make housing harder to be made, where only big investors can get everything done to start building, making it harder for smaller companies or individuals to use their single family lot and make it into a small investment, because if everyone did that big companies would lose potential gains on their investment. btw your average landlord is just a nimby, no doubt, but even they see the need to build adus and stuff, because its an investment, they already own the land so why not

@bradleyfernandez9886 Год назад

Video suggestion: 10 most populated U.S. (or North American) cities ranked by livability P.S. you’ve changed the way I view city infrastructure. Love the content!

@jeffc1347 Год назад

I love your channel but I think this video was too surface level and didn't get into the main problem. When it comes to investments: all it takes to buy stock is a click on an app. When it comes to buying real estate, you have a situation where those that have actively try to keep those that don't down (whether that is their intention or not). You talked a lot about the cost of buying and owning a home but only brought up NIMBY for like two seconds.

@TheMrPits Год назад

the largest reason I ditched renting and aimed for a single family home. predatory land lords.... bad land lords, and land lords that create significant and illegal barriers to renting. even in Washington it's difficult to challenge those landlords who are going above and beyond to make it impossible for reliable tenants to sign a lease. and wanting to keep that lease once you realize just how crooked they are, and your state and/or city is unable to help due to manipulation at the legislation level.

@kaitlyn__L Год назад

Yep. Wanting to avoid bad landlords is my number one reason to want to buy a place here once various family die, since assuming the relative values stay steady, my share of their houses should cover a place just like I’m renting currently. Of course I’m incredibly privileged to even have that future prospect, and even then it’s not exactly nice that that’s my only “hope”.

@ErdTirdMans Год назад

I have an issue with 3:29 -- Libertarian thinktanks don't crank that shit out at all. Libertarians usually get there via economic literacy, and likewise they're fully aware that even IF we somehow made it so that all anyone built was tons and tons of luxury housing, that's perfectly fine too because an overabundance of luxury housing would quickly turn into... just housing. Like that would be the bog standard, marginally-above-price-per-sq-ft house that basically everyone is looking for What we need is housing. That's it. And if you want to ally with a group that is against all of the ridiculous government zoning and the legal morass that keeps housing prohibitively expensive in urban areas, your BEST ally would be libertarians, because conservatives look at it and go "LOL elites wanna cry about their fancy cities being too expensive" and liberals go "Well maybe we just need even more rent control and government-guaranteed loans. That's never once once caused the huge disincentives that are killing the urban housing market or raised the borrowing capacity of the average person to levels that are unsustainable, leading to a massive housing bubble and crisis!"

@jmlinden7 Год назад

Libertarians are typically against zoning. The stereotype being that they want to build a factory next to a school next to an apartment complex next to a strip club

@alquinn8576 Год назад

as smart as City Nerd is, he's a bit of a closet-commie from what I can gather

@tristancassel8986 Год назад

Economist here - the idea of thinking of a home as a liability THEN an asset is correct. You don't have to buy, but the financial freedom that comes with owning property - especially if you pay it off quickly, so that you only owe taxes + utilities each month, is really nice, and can really help you to retire on a fixed income. That being said, there are maintenance costs that come in the form of money and stress, and it's not always as easy to hop around, if that's what you like to do (it can still be done, just be smart with all the fees that come from buying and selling a home.) If you have some extra time you and a friend/spouse can split getting a realtor's license and an MLO license, can save a lot of money this way.

@josephenglish8980 Год назад

The 'silver bullet' that I like is to shift income taxes to land value taxes. People unable to afford real estate could be given little or no tax liability, in turn making it easier to save enough to eventually buy a place. People who want a single family detached dwelling in a high value area would have an enormous tax liability so that wealthy landowners will have to pay a proportional tax rate, and co-op/condo development becomes an attractive way to spread the tax liabilities of high land value amongst multiple households. People who own second and third homes effectively pay the equivalent second and third income taxes. Our current system actively rewards homeowners with favorable tax rates and it is arguably done at the expense of renters, at minimum I think that if your primary residence is a rental the dollar amount of your annual rent should be 100% tax deductible and subtracted from your annual income for the purposes of determining your tax bracket

@MelGibsonFan Год назад

Look, a Georgist spotted in the wild! (jk)

@CortezEspartaco2 Год назад

I agree with your assessment of what the problems are, but in your solution wouldn't landlords just shift that tax burden to renters? It could encourage fewer people to live in SFHs in the suburbs though, if they were taxed proportionally to how expensive it is getting infrastructure to those places.

@parkmannate4154 Год назад

Qqhy hello there Georgist

@mirrorimage7077 Год назад

@@CortezEspartaco2 I'm not a card carrying Georgist, but I think they have an economic justification for why the burden won't be shifted. I think it has something to do with landlords being unable to extract monopoly rents because of LVT damaging their ability to operate at scale, thus they're not able to charge any more, but I might be wrong. I remember reading the explanation and finding it convincing though. If someone else knows it I'd be happy to hear.

@dustinkelton695 Год назад

The property tax rate in parts of Texas are very high, the system hurts a lot of people especially when the house value theoretically double or triples in the matter of a few years. Even when you own your house you pay eternal rent to the state. I couldn't do it.

@gerberjoanne266 Год назад

An interesting topic may be the concept of "market failure" when it comes to residential real estate. It's mainly an economics theme, but you could make it work. A friend of mine who's an economics professor explained that when it is more profitable to build luxury housing than affordable housing, the massive demand for affordable housing will remain unmet. This is an example of how market economics doesn't always work. In cities like New York (where I live) there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of rich people from the US and overseas who snatch up luxury apartments, and then leave them empty, as these properties are often used as "pieds a terre," investments, or tax shelters.

@SpencerHeckwolf Год назад

What is a luxury home?

@michaelimbesi2314 Год назад

That’s not an example of market failure. The market is acting exactly as expected, because there is significant unmet demand for luxury housing in NYC. The reason that NY has such an affordability problem is *a* market failure, but it’s not that. The market failure is that the market is literally *unable* to match supply and demand, because the city doesn’t permit anywhere near enough new housing. (That’s not to say it isn’t permitting any, but that the amount that it does permit is not equal to the demand for new housing.) Since the city’s draconian zoning and historic preservation laws make vast areas of NYC effectively off-limits for construction of housing, the supply is unable to increase as fast as the demand is increasing, and so you end up with many tenants competing for the few available apartments. In a scenario like that, the one who offers the landlord the most money wins the apartment and everyone else loses. That’s why apartments in NY are so expensive. When you only build 10% of the apartments you need, the only people who get one are the richest 10%. When you permit more housing, prices do go down. I live in Arlington, VA. We’re across the river from DC. Even though I live in a high-rise in an area saturated with defense contractor money and *literally across the street* from Amazon’s headquarters, it’s still several hundred dollars a month cheaper to live here than in DC, because there’s so much construction. My landlord can’t raise my rent too much because of the competition from the newer, nicer buildings nearby. If they raise my rent to equal the rent in the new buildings, I’ll just move to the new building because it’s nicer and has better amenities. So even though the newer buildings are a bit more expensive than my apartment, they still force my landlord to keep my rent reasonable. It’s a legitimate phenomenon known as a vacancy chain. And a group of us YIMBYs have been helping to get the whole county upzoned, which will help even more. We’re actually on the verge of completely abolishing single-family zoning across all of Arlington County, which would open up 75% of the county’s land for missing middle housing types and vastly increasing the housing supply.

@SpencerHeckwolf Год назад

“Luxury housing” is a meaningless term. A luxury home in NYC would be a down market product in Houston.

@laurie7689 Год назад

@@michaelimbesi2314 It sounds like the main issue with NY is that there are too many rich people congregated in one place. That is the same problem that I see with a lot of the places with serious housing affordability issues. Too many of the higher-paying businesses congregate in one place causing the people to flock to those areas and increasing the demand to an unsustainable limit. If they were spread out more evenly across the country, then the supply/demand issue would also likely work itself out more evenly, too.

@samuelmorales2344 Год назад

So making the most profit is a market failure? LOL. What economics does this guy believe in?

@truthislife9 Год назад

One thing I was surprised you didn't mention while discussing the maybe-illusion of home price appreciation is how local the housing market is. You're not buying or selling an average house in the U.S., you're buying and selling a house in your specific location. This has a huge effect, because places that are in demand are going to see a lot more land appreciation than places that aren't (which may even seen negative real appreciation). Or, to put it simply, housing looks like an awesome investment if you're offered the opportunity to buy in San Francisco in 1960 and sell in 2021. It looks like utter garbage if you're offered the opportunity to buy in Detroit in 1960 and sell in 2008. This is totally obscured by nation-wide averages.

@famitory Год назад

i think we toss a lot of facts at issues that are ultimatley values conflicts. there's a lot of people out there that just don't believe human life and well-being is actually all that valuable, aside from theirs, of course. in some cases they're even willing to accept a lower quality of life for themselves if it means the people they don't like will suffer even more.

@Madaboutmada Год назад

What are your thoughts on land trusts, similar to the one Bernie established in Burlington, VT? Taking the burden of buying land out of the cost for owning a home is not a bad idea.

@chazdomingo475 Год назад

I think that just encourages SFH even more doesn't it? I don't know anything about the land trust. I do love Bernie though.

@dcwcu Год назад

So yes of course this is a supply/demand issue, but it's not just larger cities. The lack of supply in smaller metros very likely contributes towards the flight of people out of those areas into places that have more a more walkable and urban experience. Maybe if we were to increase supply of walkable/urban neighborhoods in medium-to-small metros, then the unreal demand we see in larger metros won't be as bad. Obviously, there will always be demand in large cities, but maybe it can be tempered if we can turn places like Huntington WV into something similar to Madison WI. Do this for 100 small metros and maybe the supply issue isn't as bad. (Note: This is probably an oversimplification, but I hope I got my point across.)

@Zalis116 Год назад

Unfortunately, part of the Republican Party's national agenda is to chase (via abortion restrictions, anti-LGBT laws, etc.) young, progressive-minded people away from smaller areas and into the big urban metros. Since those who stay behind are older and more conservative, that flight makes red/purple states redder and blue states bluer, which helps the Republican advantage in the Senate and the Electoral College. So conservative-controlled areas have every incentive to maintain the suburban/car-centric status quo.

@aarronlee Год назад

This might be a topic beyond the scope of your channel, but have you ever considered discussing housing + zoning in different countries? Specifically, Japan has a very interesting housing market where houses actually depreciate in price, similar to how cars depreciate in price over time. Japanese zoning seems to contribute a lot to this, and also seems to encourage highly dense, walkable neighborhoods. You can find some great info on Japanese zoning online, I find that it's a pretty interesting topic.

@Luboman411 Год назад

Japanese home prices have been depreciating for a while not because of the zoning laws in Japan but because the Japanese population has been growing at close to 0% since the 1990s and it has been shrinking since about 2015. And the number of young couples in Japan--the prime buyers of new homes--has been shrinking since at least the late 1980s. So, that won't be happening here. Japan is a bad example of this. I would try to compare zoning laws to Canada, the UK, France or other comparable developed nations where the population is slowly growing, like here in the U.S.

@MelGibsonFan Год назад

True. Housing costs are a BIG miss for a lot of the "urbanist" community online. A lot of platitudes about cycling and walkability, very little content on how affordability would effect who gets access to that walkability.

@tonysoviet3692 Год назад

I think Austria would be a much better model. Just consider housing as a public good and make it super easy to change/convert current properties. Japan's zoning is interesting, as they utilize a pyramid system which also encourages conversion, but their houses depreciate more due to economic bursts rather than innate policies.

@aarronlee Год назад

@@Luboman411 While you are correct on the shrinking population of the overall country, when you look at more specific local areas, you'll find that population is actually increasing (specifically, the Tokyo metro area). In spite of that, housing in Tokyo also still generally follows the "depreciate in price" trend, or at least, prices aren't rapidly rising.

@notnullnotvoid Год назад

@@Luboman411 That argument doesn't really hold water. While the population of the country as a whole is not increasing, it is still urbanizing, so many cities are still experiencing growth. Yet, even in growing cities the housing depreciates. So there's clearly something going on there that you can't just brush off.

@theonlyalecazam2947 Год назад

maybe public housing is the answer, instead of giving money to a landlord every month, give it to a charity/government that subsidizes your apartment and contributes positively to society

@robertfrancis9743 Год назад

One aspect to consider about home ownership, is that it is about the only place an ordinary Joe can get leverage on any of their "investments". Banks will not lend you money to play the stock market. In a rising housing market, buying a house is a shot a building wealth. In a falling market, ...

@neolithictransitrevolution427 Год назад

I agree this is an extremely underrated point. Investing in land is the least productive investment and also the only one we incentivize strongly. WhY DId ThE MaNUfActUrInG LEaVe

@vmoses1979 Год назад

Yeah the effect of leverage is not factored into the returns as calculated. Borrowing 80% of value really juices your returns over time.

@jackh3242 Год назад

Cities should be allowed to build social housing like in Vienna. In my state, this practice is illegal.

@tiborsipos1174 Год назад

Who came up with that article that towerhouses actually increase house prices, not fixing it? That must be some low level trolling, butseems people take the bait. But its not the houses, its the package that comes with the area: - jobs - leisure - transportation - other infrasturcture Would you live in a family home, but travel 20 miles in rush hour traffic and the nearest grocery store is another 8 mile detour or pay more for a flat that has PT to your job, and some retail park in walkable distance? Let the bidwar begin!

@bryanCJC2105 Год назад

I believe that there has been a fundamental change in our economy, one meant to keep the working and middle classes barely hanging on, coupled with housing supply that have created this compound problem. I see it as a much more predatory economy that we had in the latter half of the 20th century which pretty much killed the "American Dream" for most people. That's why younger generations are not getting married, buying homes, and having kids until much much later in life. However, there is still a lot of land in our cities. Most malls are dead or dying yet take up a lot of space in choice areas. Most downtowns will not return to the same office occupancy as before the pandemic. Most cities have lots of surface parking lots that will go unused in their downtowns as well. I read recently how distribution centers have exploded in CA's Inland Empire w about 10,000 warehouses larger than 1 acre in size. The amount of industrial zoned land in the Inland Empire is almost as high as residential zoned land. Cities in the Inland Empire are choosing warehouse development over housing development despite the lack in affordable housing.

@reubendensmore4648 Год назад

Suggestion comment: Usually on Christmas day, we go out to see relatives for the night. They live in the suburbs of Chicago, so my parents would say to us back in the day "come on, we're going to Chicago." Unfortunately, these suburbs are nothing at all representative of what to expect from the windy city itself. That said, I would suggest looking into the top 10 most car-dependent suburbs to otherwise walkable cities. To get an idea of I mean, try looking into the stretch of Route 45 from 131st street to I-80. It even has a Cheesecake Factory.

@mbthe8731 Год назад

Orland used to have a walkable downtown, on 143rd St a couple blocks west of Rt 45. The mall area became a behemoth though.

@whyeven.1302 Год назад

Housing is a basic component of human survival and shouldn’t be commodified or an investment in a fictional market.

@l.matthewblancett8031 Год назад

i hear so many people who are homeowners talk this way. as someone who chose not to buy a place and instead rents and has most of my savings in the stock market.... boy is this bad timing. my investments are down something like 27% the past 18 months. a home wouldnt have done that. what people forget is the unspoken negative impact of renting: noisier neighbors, younger neighbors, smaller units, older facilities like hvac. im glad to hear you talk about ones investment as one's personal values .

@yossarian6743 Год назад

Great video. I think home ownership creates a delta between what is good for the individual home owner (in terms of home value, or at least how the homeowner perceives their value to be affected) and what is often better for the city as a whole (more housing, more social services and affordable housing, etc.). If we could snap our fingers and have less home ownership with very high levels of rent-control, we'd probably be in a lot better place. But I think that ship sailed a long time ago.

@evanflynn4680 Год назад

Getting rid of R1 zoning. If the only way to build more housing due to zoning is to increase sprawl, it also increases traffic, uses huge amounts of land due to the low density and loads of other run on effects. Making an area mixed use allows for the creation of new walkable neighbourhoods with corner stores, cafes, restaurants and other small businesses. There's a reason areas that have grandfathered in corner stores and cafes in residential areas are some of the most sought after areas to live in. It's an improvement to the quality of life to not have to get in a car and drive for half an hour in traffic just to get some milk. I much rather being able to get off the train I take to and from work, walking back home and pick up some milk on the way. Instead you've got freeways that they keep adding lanes to, thinking that it will fix the traffic problem, when it just makes it worse. And you sit in traffic in your car by yourself every single day to and from work spewing out car exhaust. There is a place for single family homes, because people like to live in them, but the lack of other options for so much of the area around cities is costing them financial solvency, because taxes on single family homes don't cover the cost of replacement infrastructure in many areas. Most cities are dependent on their downtowns and inner city high density housing making up for it. But when they just add more and more sprawl, eventually it just doesn't work anymore.

@awillis84 Год назад

One thing you didn’t mention on the financial ROI of homeownership is that it is a highly leveraged investment. That 5% compound growth has a much much larger impact when you invest in housing with 5x leverage vs index funds. 50k down payment on a 250k house, 2% growth is 5k gains. 50k in stocks with a 7% growth is 3.5k gain

@georgeh6856 Год назад

Two things increasing housing costs: 1. corporate ownership of rental properties, and 2. laws (or lack of laws) which regulate rental increases. Years ago, I rented an apartment in Austin, Texas. After the one year lease was up, they raised my rent ~30%, making it as high as NYC rents! This was long before the Austin real estate market became hot. A few years ago, I lived in Europe. Buying apartments there was crazy as the prices kept going up and up. But I rented a place the first year, which was reasonable because of laws regulating rent increases. Same thing in the blue state where I live now.

@neolithictransitrevolution427 Год назад

So long as we rely on private investment to build housing, rent control will not work an is a bad policy.

@georgeh6856 Год назад

@@neolithictransitrevolution427 It worked for me. I was much happier paying less rent in areas that had rent control than paying much more rent in areas which did not. But that is just me. Perfect is the enemy of good.

@neolithictransitrevolution427 Год назад

@@georgeh6856 Ya, rent control works for the people who can find a place. Its all the people who can't find somewhere that get hurt. Which is why it usually correlates with higher housing prices

@PlaystationMasterPS3 Год назад

@@neolithictransitrevolution427 we should have rent control but if you increase the number of housing units by 100% or more the rent control doesn't apply anymore. use it to incentivize the redevelopment of low density into high density and limit the profitability of passivity sitting on an old property collecting rent off of it. off course you need zoning reform first but this could work.

@Geotpf Год назад

@@PlaystationMasterPS3 Rent control strongly DISCOURAGES new construction. It also discourages landlords to spend money to maintain the property properly. In the end, you get a few people who get to live in cheap, falling apart apartments, and a lot more who have to pay even more than they would for a non rent controlled unit, if there even are any.

@ethakis Год назад

Housing affordability touches literally every other issue that there is to talk about with urbanism. Personally, I've always seen the idea of treating housing as an investment to be completely brain dead. Also the idea of "market rate housing" seems completely stupid to ever even bring up for any discussion, market prices by their nature are flexible based on supply and demand. But at the same time, we know for a fact that the regulatory environment of zoning codes throttles the supply side which inflates the hell out of the "market rate". The truth is, we have no idea what the market rate for housing would be if we didn't have a shortage or if we'd get rid of the offending regulations except that the prices would almost certainly be lower. Personally, I think that the work of Strong Towns and Urban 3 which pretty definitively show that detached single family homes, at least the way that we build them in the USA, require more infrastructure than the taxes their owners pay can actually pay for which I think means that they should be taxed at a higher rate, or municipal governments should just stop letting those types of developments being built.

@Luboman411 Год назад

We do have a good idea of what the market rates are without so many damn NIMBY zoning rules and regulations throttling the supply side in so many locales in this nation--the housing market in the U.S. before the 1920s. Outside the extremely crowded urban centers of the major East Coast cities like NYC, Boston and Philadelphia, housing was hella-affordable to even the poorest of the poor from about 1790 to 1920. Homelessness as a result was almost unknown during that period of time. Multi-unit buildings could be built almost anywhere with ease, labor was cheap, and construction materials were even cheaper. And all sorts of housing modalities were permitted and tolerated by everyone--single-room occupancy homes, boarding houses, etc. Nowadays, well, the NIMBYs have taken over the asylum. And the rest of us suffer for it.

@linuxman7777 Год назад

Then don't provide the infrastructure to the houses, like my Uncle only has electric lines to his house, his water is well water, street is unpaved and private, He has a septic tank, and heats his home with a heat pump, and wood.

@SirBrian_ Год назад

I am very much not looking forward to completing my PhD and having to move to a HCOL area to search for a job (ECE). Living in Oklahoma means I'm very used to somewhat reasonable prices. It always seemed to me that making six figures would mean I would be set for everything I could want. The way things are going, that future is looking less and less feasible.

@Alenasup Год назад

@@davestephens3246 you dont know what they earn

@narglefargle Год назад

That's very unfortunate. It's also not uncommon at all. Like...if you got a $100k/year job in Seattle, you might be able to afford to rent a small studio apartment. The goalposts are constantly moving, especially in high-demand urban areas.

@SirBrian_ Год назад

@@davestephens3246 You're right that in general, people with PhD's tend to earn more. Even with a PhD salary, though, places like the Bay Area with housing prices in the millions means that even the most basic house will have a monthly payment that's 50 to 75 percent of your income. Don't get me wrong, there are a hundred other places I would rather live than in the Bay Area, but the opportunity for jobs, especially in my field, are very much limited to the kinds of places where 100k a year is paycheck to paycheck money.

@chazdomingo475 Год назад

I think the people pushing housing as an investment are generally people in the real estate industry. Your average American owns a home for one reason and one reason only. Stability. If you own a home, you know what you will pay every month to stay in that home, for 30 years, then it's free except for upkeep for the rest of your life. If you want to raise a family, that's a really good assurance. I know you mentioned life happens and people have to move. But the truth is most people don't want to. They want to settle down into a stable life. And most do, if they can. If you rent, you know that your rent is likely to go up every year. Some years, like those of COVID, 20% or more. You will constantly be paying above market rate if you are not willing to move. Moving is financially and physically draining and it's not conducive to having a stable life. Having everything you've built in your home threatened every single year is emotionally damaging as well. The living conditions are also worth talking about. You will often hear people say they have never had a problem with landlords. I don't know what planet they are living on as I have never had a good landlord. You depend on a landlord for maintenance. And I've never had one that didn't try to pinch pennies or defer much needed maintenance. I've never been well off mind you. If I had, I would be in a house. So sure, my landlords were all slumlords, but that's all that exists for most Americans. And if I had a choice I'd buy a house in a heartbeat. Just so I would never have to deal with a landlord again. It should be noted I am in the Deep South. Maybe in other parts of the country tenants have rights. But you never have a right to anything here except to eff off. So I'm sure that's part of the problem. But then libertarians get up in arms over rent control. I think that's the only solution to the problem. It is essentially equity for renters. Perhaps some tenant union is better but I don't know much about that and good luck when renters are so transient and stressed by design.

@jessamineprice5803 Год назад

A huge factor in the perceived value of a single-family home is also the mortgage interest tax deduction. I'm furious with how this twentieth-century policy--like the federal subsidies for highway construction--has shaped a depressing American landscape of suburban isolation. The mortgage interest deduction redistributes money from the lower middle-class to the upper middle-class. (We're all "middle-class" in America, right?) If you rent, or own a small home, or own in an area with low property values, you can't benefit from this deduction. If you buy a huge, expensive home, or buy in an area with high property values, you receive the largesse of the nation. A McMansion in the northern Virginia suburbs, for instance, gets you a big federal subsidy. A modest hundred-year old house in Cleveland, however, gets you NO subsidy. This is a big reason that new construction produces such gigantic houses. (Architect Susan Susanka writes about this factor among many in The Not-so-Big House.) I'd love to see the mortgage interest deduction disappear. I've been renting for 30 years and I'm bitter. Alternatively, we need a corresponding deduction for renters. Unfortunately, there's a long history of American towns and cities trying to discourage renters, and it continues today.

@Cotswolds1913 Год назад

U.S. zoning & land-use laws are an example of market interventions destroying more satisfactory urban landscapes in this country. Similarly monetary interventions by the fed aimed at raising asset prices, are a big component in the post-war inflation of housing prices. So keep that in mind when talking about market interventions, & there are different, much better ways to think about liberating households, developers & businesses , to come together to build what they want to build, where they want to build it, & what kind of community & commercial spaces they would prefer to inhabit. The fact Americans love to vacation in walkable places, gives a pretty good indication of what more natural, less restricted development would tend toward.

@neolithictransitrevolution427 Год назад

Housing, as in the building, is an investment. It literally costs resources upfront for long term return. You can want it to be a social investment, but that doesn't change what it is. In any case, a house is a depreciating asset as it ages. Land is where the increased value of "housing" comes from. Its a limited good people speculate on. It should have a higher price in city centers, we want to to be used for high value uses. But the gains in value should be taxed. That reduces speculation and acquisition costs to ensure development.

@mariaansley1519 Год назад

This is only my opinion, but housing is a place you live and that's that. Buying a house is an option like any other and in this environment can be cheaper than renting but it is a terrible investment compared to so many, and when you sell this "investment" you still have to live somewhere else. That somewhere will be all expensive too because everyone else has the same idea about keeping supply low to keep their investment high. Another huge problem is that high rent/ownership costs increases fixed costs for both residents and small business owners, making it much harder to negotiate economic downturns.

@jamesgardner6499 Год назад

Being a newer home owner I can attest to the time needed to maintain a home. There is a lot that goes into the decision. For us it still made sense to buy, but not for everyone. There is a great NY Times calculator that helps determine buy vs rent. It includes a bunch factors to help.

@CityNerd Год назад

Ooohhh I'm gonna have to look for that.

@AssBlasster Год назад

Wish that I could make use of that calculator...

@jamalgibson8139 Год назад

Yeah, I'm in a similar boat and I tell everyone I can that home ownership is a scam, lol. From mowing the yard to various projects all the time, I barely have time to think, let alone live my life. The only problem is that where I live there really isn't any type of walkable, livable community, at least not that's within my budget, so single family homeownership is the way forward for me.

@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 Год назад

@@jamalgibson8139 I am a new house owner for the first time, new for me but the house is not new. I’m sort of regretting the situation because so far this year I’ve had plumbing problems, roof problems and someone drive across the little bit of yard I have in the front with their big truck and since we have restrictions for us Hoa to keep the yard looking good and that’s a lot of work to do

@geisaune793 Год назад

I think it's seriously wrong that the only way for the vast majority of people these days to "buy" a house is by taking out a 10, 20, or even 30 year mortgage. If it's possible to reduce housing costs to the point where it's possible for most people to buy a house without taking out a loan while also still using that house as an investment whereby you build your personal wealth in preparation for retirement, then by all means. But if that's not possible, then I would *much* rather have affordable houses, which you don't need a loan to buy, but which aren't practical for building wealth over time. While I'm here, research "Georgism" and "Land Value Tax" and read "Progress and Poverty"

@brownkelly2033 Год назад

I appreciate your approach to teaching.. To my understanding this just proves how much we need an edge as investors because playing the market like everyone else just isn’t good enough, we just need to hold onto our hopes and wait to see how things turn out because market movements are almost always unpredictable. In my portfolio, I'm noticing more red than green.

@berwickperu7683 Год назад

So what I do is buy companies that are doing good things, executing on business plans and then short companies that are missing earnings, it’s as simple as that.

@kellyhoang1483 Год назад

@@berwickperu7683 Lol Berwick, we’ve been in a rally for the last decade, you just gotta accept not everyone is as knowledgeable in the market to handle the opportunities a crash market presents and unfortunately for me too, I got in 2019 right before the market’s melting point, I just hope I recover soon enough before retirement. Stay strong.

@hollandhoff975 Год назад

@@kellyhoang1483 I think the market will suffer more downtrends before full recovery, esp. with the inflation, hiked interest rate and looming recession bound to happen 2023, you should understand the market is not just finance and valuation, it’s history, it’s market psychology, it’s understanding how the world moves, which is why at this point in time, it’s ideal to work with an Investment-adviser with an unparalleled track record, from first hand experience, I could say they stand a better chance than most of us ever would and it has been reflecting on my portfolio. I made over $850k in net gains and I’m unbothered about the market outcomes cause I’m certain I’ll make a killing, it’s all perspective guys.

@cliftonkelly3812 Год назад

@@hollandhoff975 Sure, investment coaches are outperforming the market and raising good returns but some are charging much, seeing that their services are currently in high demand more than ever....seems more like taxing to me.

@hollandhoff975 Год назад

@@cliftonkelly3812 You maybe right, but I've shuffled through portfolio coaches and personall, Karen Marie Emma, turned out to be best, you may have come across her on financial blog, she's quite pronounced. I haven't met anyone with as much conviction and her fees in comparison to my portfolio return is cheap.

@techmouse. Год назад

Considering people _need_ a place to live, yeah I'd say housing is absolutely a basic human need, and basic human needs shouldn't be considered a business investment. As long as private citizens have the power to be completely inhumane monsters, housing shouldn't be controlled by them. I've been homeless many times in my life, the first being when I was just a toddler. I lived in the back of a 1980's 2-door nissan pulsar. So I can say this with complete certainty (as I *KNOW* the average person is very unaware of it): Just having an indoor place to live means the difference between life and death. Being exposed to the elements 24/7 takes a toll on your health that can kill you. You can literally die from not having a home. So homelessness is a death sentence, which makes landlords inhumane murderers. So you'll have to forgive me if I don't give even the slightest of fucks for your "investments". Society is a package deal. You don't get to pick and choose. If you want to be apart of this, then you need to care about it. *ALL* of it. If you aren't willing to take a loss for the betterment of your community or the society you live in, then you need to get out. Putting yourself first means independence and if you want independence then move to the woods. But if you want to benefit from society then you need to contribute and give back to it. That means sometimes some parts of society will have to a loss so the the rest of society can grow and benefit, and since you will absolutely recover from a loss of your "investments", that means you have to take the hit. Sorry champ, that's the way it is. But look on the bright side, at least this way nobody has to die and you still get to be a part of this society. Money will come and go. Property will come and go. But life is invaluable.

@roelsch Год назад

A big advantage of buying vs. selling is that a bank won't typically evict you at random. In Auckland renters get evicted on average every 1.5 years or so, and on a fairly short notice too. Until recently a landlord could evict tenants for reason of selling the home, with a notice period of 6 weeks. It is now 3 months, but still. And properties get sold quite often.

@chazdomingo475 Год назад

That's crazy and it's happening in NZ too. I thought you guys were supposed to be a sane country.

@alquinn8576 Год назад

@@chazdomingo475 NZ sane? haha, no New Zealand is Australia's _Australia_

@kaitlyn__L Год назад

Here landlords could do that with a month’s notice. Thankfully they reformed it so you need 3 months, and in some situations 6 months. Then there was another amendment banning evictions in the winter months, and instituting rent-increase control for the first time. It’s been really surprising since I had a lot of trauma from being forced to move even when my disability was doing really badly. I still haven’t quite adjusted to the feeling of much more security in renting.

@josephfisher426 Год назад

@@Claudia-hr5ei It could, but that is a double-edged sword because it increases their motive to up the rent to pad against the loss when a tenant can't be moved for months.

@roelsch Год назад

@@Claudia-hr5ei Yes fingers crossed. This is already a thing in Europe. It is perfectly normal there for people to rent a home and just, live in it, like normally. But in other places this is a very real, and huge difference between renting and buying. Think of how many things in life don't work if you can't count on still being in the same home, or even neighbourhood, 3 months from now.

@machtmann2881 Год назад

Awesome job on living your values! Very few people get to do that versus people who look down on you for having different values (hey, we're not all built the same or have the same experiences. That's life). I think we have a tendency to forget that we're all in such different situations at different points in our lives while what we encourage is relatively monotone. Rising home prices seems great for people who already have homes but causes affordability to worsen for people not already in that group. Ex: an immigrant who just came to the country with no assets, a divorcee who didn't get the house in the end, a student fresh out of school with more debt than assets. These are all people I'd like to see succeed but it's much harder if they can't afford a roof over their heads. It's what drives me to be very dubious on treating housing as a primary investment. I don't want to screw those people over on the quest for my own stability but much of the current system seems to encourage me to do that.

@ow4744 Год назад

I do get that new housing appears to reduce the net worth of existing owners - but in reality an existing owner doesn't really benefit from higher prices unless they are older and looking to downsize. Because if your home is more expensive, so are all other homes you might want to move to, and you're always going to need somewhere to live. So it's not exactly money you can actually lay your hands on.

@elizabethhenning778 Год назад

Unfortunately, this is not how homeowners think about this as a rule

@QuantumDark Год назад

HELOCs

@elizabethhenning778 Год назад

I just took a look at the "New Geography" garbage. It cracks me up how RWNJs with intellectual pretensions always posture as "nonpartisan." I guess they must be fooling someone.

@matthays9497 Год назад

The main benefit of a house from an investment standpoint is leveraging...you're paying $50k initially but getting returns (potentially) for the entire $500k value. The largest financial benefit from a "home" standpoint might be certainty...your mortgage will stay the same forever, until it goes away entirely, vs. rents that keep rising. That's aside from ownership costs of course.

@adambeck8180 Год назад

Yes leverage has to be taken into account when doing rent vs buy analysis. (Of course so does property tax. )

@57125 Год назад

You can get leverage in the stock market too.

@callumoa Год назад

@@57125 Yes but can you get 10x leverage at 30 years fixed 3% xD. Just gross....

@bobbycrosby9765 Год назад

I own my home, but I'm definitely a YIMBY. I don't view it as a long term investment, and I think advancing policies with the explicit purpose of raising home values is actually evil.

@narglefargle Год назад

Whichever action results in more walkable neighborhoods, less general waste, and more affordable housing. I'm for that.

@iamsemjaza Год назад

The ethically correct choice and the tactically correct choice are often not the same. The question is, "Do you want to be an ethical person or a tactical one?"

@laurie7689 Год назад

Owners tend to prefer tactical.

@dereklenzen2330 Год назад

Considering what a "silver bullet" would look like, there are only two things which come to mind for me. The first is replacing state and municipal taxes (especially regressive ones) with a land value tax, which would discourage land speculation or other forms of underutilization of valuable urban land, as well as promote densification where it is allowed. The second is to deregulate housing densification itself by abolishing single-family zoning and other unneeded land-use restrictions, as well as to allow mixed-use development. Of course, increasing density would require further investments in infrastructure to support that additional development. However, one of the beauties of a land value tax is that municipal revenues increase in proportion to the value that society places upon a particular lot, which naturally provides the revenue needed to pay for the infrastructure renovations. This is known as the "Henry George Theorem." As a side note, this reminds me of video that I once saw on Japanese zoning, which differs considerably to the Euclidean zoning that is common in the West. In short, it is possible to build housing units in every type of zone with the exception of heavy industrial zones that are environmentally hazardous. It is worth checking out: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wfm2xCKOCNk.html&si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE

@thewittyusername Год назад

Congratulations, you've developed a plant to create more unaffordable housing.

@jasonreed7522 Год назад

I have never heard of "land value tax" is it significantly different from what is called property tax in NY/the northeast which is based on the value of your home/buildings and the dirt under them. Along the St. Lawrence river the difference of being on the waterfront of inland side of the road can make a huge difference in your property taxes because water access is that valuable. Do most places not have some form of property tax that incorporates the assessed value of your lot plus all the structures on it? (Admittedly properties aren't assessed frequently if they aren't being sold or quoted for insurance or something.)

@redlabel7833 Год назад

Would love to see a video on accessory dwelling units!

@linuxman7777 Год назад

Alot of focus on Supply, but we Americans have been brainwashed by Supply Side Economics for so long, at least since the 70s that demand is not really thought about much. For example, the high cost of housing in many of the coastal cities can be solved by helping out and improving other cities that people are leaving that are less cool or glamorous. The good news is that the high cost of moving, is making it so many people don't leave anymore and work to improve where they are, like here in Pittsburgh, in my parents generation, many people left, for Washington D.C or the Sunbelt, Now, with how expensive it is to move, people here are focusing on making Pittsburgh better, which in turn, means fewer people want to leave because of fomo elsewhere. Multiply this by many other cities across the US, and demand will sort itself out

@neolithictransitrevolution427 Год назад

You're still describing improving supply though.

@PlaystationMasterPS3 Год назад

it's not "glamor" it's jobs

@stevengordon3271 Год назад

@@neolithictransitrevolution427 It is still ultimately driven by demand, not supply.

@neolithictransitrevolution427 Год назад

@@stevengordon3271 I mean the two are literally an equilibrium. Unless you want to elaborate but it seems demand only increases prices in the absence of supply. Look at Detroit, are prices so cheap due to no demand or excessive supply. I would say it can't be untangled.

@neolithictransitrevolution427 Год назад

@@PlaystationMasterPS3 Part of it is glamour in the sense of having an actual life outside watching TV and ackwardly passing people at the grocery store.

@daveduffy2823 Год назад

Housing is expensive because investors are using mortgages and rents as investment products. Once again, we are being cheated.

@polo_d_g Год назад

Check out the January 2020 articles by the Economist: "Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake" & "Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems"

@ropeysubstance1719 Год назад

There's absolutely nothing wrong with gentrification. It lowers crime and makes communities safer.

@willjensen5595 Год назад

3:28 I'm not sure which Libertarian think tanks would be so anti-market in their beliefs. Seems counterintuitive to the basic tenets of that political/economic philosophy.

@kilpatds Год назад

Re: "what sort of financial returns should you expect from a house": isn't the theoretical answer "negative"? It "should" be a depreciating asset: needs maintenance, standards change and improve, etc. If it appreciates, that's likely due to land appreciation primarily, which implies that "maybe we should be building denser, so we need less land per house"

@kain0m Год назад

Absolutely.

@AdamM Год назад

Not sure why the “libertarian” jab… I’m a libertarian and am subscribed and love the content. 🤷‍♂️

@danielkelly2210 Год назад

There are libertarian sprawl defenders, generally, their argument is that it's largely or entirely a result of market forces (I think they're wrong...but they don't). Randal O'Toole at Cato is probably the most famous of these. The other two "sprawl Kings" Wendell Cox and Joel Kotkin, I would describe them as being more "typically conservative" and politically moderate respectively than libertarian. Some libertarians may argue that even if sprawl isn't libertarian in its origins it's worth promoting because it engenders smaller government than dense development does.

@kms1.62 Год назад

@@danielkelly2210 Randal O'Toole actually got fired from Cato a couple of years ago. Interestingly, it was because he disagreed over housing policy with his new supervisor. He is now free to play with his model trains while Cato just -plagiarizes- remixes his workosupport the talking points of the week . O'Toole may've been a pain but he was a lot more honest than the new breed of propagandists.

@kms1.62 Год назад

I wouldn't take it personally, it was mostly directed at the big L think tanks which are libertarian in name but mostly just a workshop for manufacturing justifications for whoever pays the bills.

@ampersand2001 Год назад

Housing should be a human right. Anything else is just greed and you should be ashamed of yourself. Don't @ me.

@gianlucafantini1332 Год назад

One of the biggest problem in north American cities concerning housing is that they pretty much stopped building plexes like duplex, triplex and quadruplex and residential semi-commercial. Older neighborhood that have alot of plexes and semi-commercials are usually denser in population without being disfigured by condo towers and they allow a better social blend of people. In my city the last very last plexes where built in the early 90ies, after that the city only allowed single family home or big condos towers despite the fact that no one wants to live in the big condo towers, hence these towers are empty even in home shortage. The other problem is that condos are a scam, they are all the inconvenient of apartment living with all the inconvenient of owning a home. So in the end if you want to own something you're better off buying a home. Not Just bike did a very nice vids about the problem of housing and density in north america. cheers to all!

@ChoKwo Год назад

Basically, the concept of house's appreciating in value is antithetical to affordable housing. Until a society (some cultures do not consider homes a core investment!) moves past thinking of homes as an investment, affordable housing will never be adequately solved. In the mean time, the band aid solution is build more dense, multi-unit, housing, regardless of its cost, as it provides future stock, and supply decreses the rate at which prices soar

@TheStrangeBloke Год назад

Its really funny to me how you "have not talked about housing." I was surprised to hear you say that, because you spend so much time talking about land us, that I had assumed... but you're right! You haven't spoken to that specific thing! Great video, lots of insights

@TheStrangeBloke Год назад

oh and I forgot to mention this, but something I find really insidious how in many cities like Baltimore where I live, there are cases of people selling land out from under the houses they buy. This means that whoever buys the home gets a cheaper house and doesn't have to pay as much property tax, but most of the appreciation goes to the land-owner, who can do various things to whoever owns the land the house is on.

@DougVandegrift Год назад

So many folks on youtube saying 401k is trash and invest in rental property as passive income. Well I tried that. My renters were horrible! They damaged the property. Never paid on time even though my mortgage was due. I had to evict one and take them to court. Oh and they were credit checked and had jobs so you never know when jobs are lost and covid moratoriums end up screwing you. These people stayed in my house for a year without ever paying while damaging the property.

@bigjim9640 Год назад

housing is a right not for making people richer!!!

@Capitanvolume Год назад

Nobody should be entitled to someone else's labour. I'm in favor of public housing, but human right?

@xandercruz900 Год назад

No it is not a right. That is the cry of the person that really means they want a cool place, totally new or fixed up, in a highly desirable area that is low crime, and full of other DINKs, at ZERO cost to them, and someone else better put forward the labor to make it happen! You think you are going to take a cheap 1 bedroom plywood box in Detroit with a communal detatched toilet? Doubt it. You think you would live in the old housing projects of the 60s? Nope!

@bigjim9640 Год назад

@@xandercruz900 your strawmen don't scare me! more US taxes for housing and less for the military industrial complex!!

@stavas05 Год назад

@@bigjim9640 the us needs its military

@gwynethrose2346 Год назад

Vienna’s got a pretty robust public housing program that’s able to provide comfortable, affordable housing to like 60% of its population. It’s absolutely possible to get housing out of the market and you remove the homeowner incentive to drive up prices. There isn’t really much of an incentive for US homeowners to support measures that would make housing more affordable.