Honestly, I care far more about untangling our rat’s nest of NIMBY land use laws. As it stands, it’s literally illegal to build anything denser than sprawling, low-density suburbs on the majority of urban land thanks to NIMBY policies such as restrictive zoning and arbitrary mandatory parking minimums.
Tbh, the whole “corporate ownership of homes” is a red herring. Shuffling around ownership does nothing if you’re not massively expanding supply. And what we need most right now is massively expanded supply.
I read an article recently that was kind of attacking YIMBYism with “when has deregulation ever helped anyone” which I would normally agree with, and if housing was completely deregulated (such as for safety and energy concerns) that would definitely be a problem, but they absolutely didn’t explore the idea they were presenting in any meaningful way other than saying that deregulation by itself hasn’t led to a significant uptick in development, or a significant drop in housing/rent prices in some areas that did it. Because it’s definitely not possible that interest rates or other factors are contributing, certainly not.
Yeah, political opinions based on “regulations always good” or “regulations always bad” are lazy and unhelpful. For one, it ignores that many regulations are written for the express purpose of manufacturing or solidifying a monopoly.
And NIMBY land use policies really are just a textbook example of regulatory capture. Homeowners, who expect their homes to perpetually increase in value, lobby their local governments to manufacture an artificial scarcity of housing so as to drive their property values to the moon. All of this at the expense of renters and new home buyers.
Imo, we should all be trying to form nuanced political opinions where we judge policy on whether it’s good policy or not.
To add to this Science Vs did a podcast on the lack of affordable housing. It goes into the NIMBYs, the corporate ownership, local laws that make it hard to build multi-family units, and AirBnB. There are a lot of different factors and it might take time to see the results of fixing it because of this.
A red herring? Is there or is there not at least 1 housing unit per family that currently exists? My most recent understanding is we have enough quantity, just poor distribution.
The gist of it is that statistics on how many vacant homes exist are highly misleading, for two main reasons:
Many of the homes are not where the demand is. A vacant home in St Louis does nothing to help with a housing shortage in NYC. People want to live in NYC because that’s where the jobs are. A house in St Louis isn’t worth much if you can’t find work there. And statistics consistently show that the most expensive cities have the lowest vacancy rates.
A lot of the homes that are counted as “vacant” aren’t actually just free for the taking like “vacant” would have you believe. In these statistics, “vacant” can mean: 1) a unit that is between tenants, 2) a unit that just finished being built and is awaiting its tenant’s move-in, 3) a unit occupied by someone who doesn’t legally state it as their primary residence (e.g., student housing where the student still lists their parents’ home as their primary address), 4) a unit in horrible disrepair that is unfit for occupation, etc.
Add to this the fact that high vacancy rates are GOOD for you, as it means landlords and sellers have a credible threat of vacancy, meaning they can’t demand ludicrous prices. Reducing vacancy rates is an incredibly anti-consumer, pro-landlord move.
Thank you for taking the time to respond! As per usual, language fails us because “vacant home” sure doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone saying it.
Is NYC (taking your example) prone to low-density zoning? Just looking at induced scarcity vs geographic scarcity, there’s a possibility that everyone that desires to live in NYC just can’t. I’m no expert, obviously.
Say we did remove zoning restrictions and builders could go bananas, what is their incentive to build if they expect vacancy? No one wants to finance new builds if they won’t fill. Developers want low vacancy as much as landlords do. It sounds like zoning changes would be best paired with subsidy programs for individual home buyers or something to allow individuals priority over corporations.
NYC itself doesn’t have much (although it still has some! see image below) low-density zoning, but their suburbs sure do. The city itself also has a lot of other bureaucratic barriers to development that result in it having abysmal housing construction rates.
As for vacancy, yes, the threat of not being able to sell is what stops builders from building too much. For example, it’s the reason no one’s even trying to build the Burj Khalifa in Bakersfield. But if you make it legal and reasonably easy to build, yes, people will build.
In the past half century, by investing in transit and allowing development, the city has added more housing units than the total number of units in New York City. It has remained affordable by becoming the world’s largest city. It has become the world’s largest city by remaining affordable.
Two full-time workers earning Tokyo’s minimum wage can comfortably afford the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in six of the city’s 23 wards. By contrast, two people working minimum-wage jobs cannot afford the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in any of the 23 counties in the New York metropolitan area.
…
In Tokyo, by contrast, there is little public or subsidized housing. Instead, the government has focused on making it easy for developers to build. A national zoning law, for example, sharply limits the ability of local governments to impede development. Instead of allowing the people who live in a neighborhood to prevent others from living there, Japan has shifted decision-making to the representatives of the entire population, allowing a better balance between the interests of current residents and of everyone who might live in that place. Small apartment buildings can be built almost anywhere, and larger structures are allowed on a vast majority of urban land. Even in areas designated for offices, homes are permitted. After Tokyo’s office market crashed in the 1990s, developers started building apartments on land they had purchased for office buildings.
I think the key idea is to not have government bureaucrats or existing homeowners or landlords decide whether there’s “enough” housing, but rather let builders determine if there’s unmet demand. If there is unmet demand, they will build if you let them. If there truly is enough housing in a certain city, then you don’t need to tell builders not to build – they’ll simply stop building if they sense there’s not enough demand for it.
Honestly, I care far more about untangling our rat’s nest of NIMBY land use laws. As it stands, it’s literally illegal to build anything denser than sprawling, low-density suburbs on the majority of urban land thanks to NIMBY policies such as restrictive zoning and arbitrary mandatory parking minimums.
Tbh, the whole “corporate ownership of homes” is a red herring. Shuffling around ownership does nothing if you’re not massively expanding supply. And what we need most right now is massively expanded supply.
I read an article recently that was kind of attacking YIMBYism with “when has deregulation ever helped anyone” which I would normally agree with, and if housing was completely deregulated (such as for safety and energy concerns) that would definitely be a problem, but they absolutely didn’t explore the idea they were presenting in any meaningful way other than saying that deregulation by itself hasn’t led to a significant uptick in development, or a significant drop in housing/rent prices in some areas that did it. Because it’s definitely not possible that interest rates or other factors are contributing, certainly not.
Yeah, political opinions based on “regulations always good” or “regulations always bad” are lazy and unhelpful. For one, it ignores that many regulations are written for the express purpose of manufacturing or solidifying a monopoly.
Regulatory capture
And NIMBY land use policies really are just a textbook example of regulatory capture. Homeowners, who expect their homes to perpetually increase in value, lobby their local governments to manufacture an artificial scarcity of housing so as to drive their property values to the moon. All of this at the expense of renters and new home buyers.
Imo, we should all be trying to form nuanced political opinions where we judge policy on whether it’s good policy or not.
To add to this Science Vs did a podcast on the lack of affordable housing. It goes into the NIMBYs, the corporate ownership, local laws that make it hard to build multi-family units, and AirBnB. There are a lot of different factors and it might take time to see the results of fixing it because of this.
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/emhwebz4?utm_source=gimletWebsite&utm_medium=copyShare&utm_campaign=gimletWebsite
A red herring? Is there or is there not at least 1 housing unit per family that currently exists? My most recent understanding is we have enough quantity, just poor distribution.
The “we have enough homes already” is a common (and unfortunately very harmful) myth.
A couple good in-depth videos on the topic:
The gist of it is that statistics on how many vacant homes exist are highly misleading, for two main reasons:
Add to this the fact that high vacancy rates are GOOD for you, as it means landlords and sellers have a credible threat of vacancy, meaning they can’t demand ludicrous prices. Reducing vacancy rates is an incredibly anti-consumer, pro-landlord move.
Thank you for taking the time to respond! As per usual, language fails us because “vacant home” sure doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone saying it.
Is NYC (taking your example) prone to low-density zoning? Just looking at induced scarcity vs geographic scarcity, there’s a possibility that everyone that desires to live in NYC just can’t. I’m no expert, obviously.
Say we did remove zoning restrictions and builders could go bananas, what is their incentive to build if they expect vacancy? No one wants to finance new builds if they won’t fill. Developers want low vacancy as much as landlords do. It sounds like zoning changes would be best paired with subsidy programs for individual home buyers or something to allow individuals priority over corporations.
NYC itself doesn’t have much (although it still has some! see image below) low-density zoning, but their suburbs sure do. The city itself also has a lot of other bureaucratic barriers to development that result in it having abysmal housing construction rates.
As for vacancy, yes, the threat of not being able to sell is what stops builders from building too much. For example, it’s the reason no one’s even trying to build the Burj Khalifa in Bakersfield. But if you make it legal and reasonably easy to build, yes, people will build.
Perhaps Tokyo is the best example. Biggest city in the world, and yet it’s actually relatively affordable, thanks largely to good land use policy:
I think the key idea is to not have government bureaucrats or existing homeowners or landlords decide whether there’s “enough” housing, but rather let builders determine if there’s unmet demand. If there is unmet demand, they will build if you let them. If there truly is enough housing in a certain city, then you don’t need to tell builders not to build – they’ll simply stop building if they sense there’s not enough demand for it.
You’re a treasure and you’ve given me a lot to digest. Have a great day!