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How does this jive with all the talk of a housing crisis. Where's that invisible hand of the market making things affordable. I hate capitalism
https://www.commondreams.org/news/wall-street-buying-houses
Emphasis is mine."The real estate industry would like you to believe the problem is entirely one based on supply and demand," and that regulations need to be changed to allow for the construction of more affordable housing, reads the report. But with 16 million vacant homes across the U.S.—28 for every unhoused person—"the reality is that the owners of concentrated wealth... are playing a more pronounced role in residential housing, thereby creating price inflation, distortions, and inefficiencies in the market."
Take it easy! Balance will trickle down any day now. We just have to trust them to regulate themselves a little longer. They wouldn't deliberately sabotage the market for profit, now would they?
I'd like to see a breakdown by zip code, or at the very least by county, of home values and vacancy rates. I have a suspicion that the problem is a local supply and demand problem rather than a national one. It makes no difference to the insane silicon valley housing market that there are thousands vacant homes in Michigan. This is why the build housing first plan is critical. We need housing where people need to live.
This is anecdotal, but I live in an Indiana town that isn't especially desirable, but the cost of living is quite low. I live in one of the best neighborhoods in town in terms of things like very low crime and neighbors who get along, but there are plenty of houses for sale here that never get sold. I've looked them up. They're all way, way out of our price range regardless of their size (it's a weird subdivision with homes of all sizes). Our own home has more than doubled in value according to Zillow and we only bought it in 2017 or 2018.
The only house I have seen get bought even relatively quickly was the one next to ours, which we think was foreclosed on, was sitting vacant for years, and probably had someone squatting in it. The photos on Zillow were a nightmare. I don't even think the second story floor would have been safe to walk on. It was valued at about what we initially paid for our house despite being twice its size including a finished basement (we don't even have a basement). Someone bought that one within a month and is now fixing it up, presumably in the hopes of reselling it. I wish them luck.
Fair, but a national mandate that WFH be offered for any jobs that it’s possible to do from home would mitigate the “having to live” in a given locale.
Eh I don't think that would have as big an effect as you think it would. It might move the problem around. Remember around 2021 when the housing markets in nice towns near nature like in Montana went crazy cause suddenly all these tech workers were working from home? The local supply demand got a huge shock since the inflow of money was not representative of the local economy.
Do you really think a bunch of techies are going to redistribute that much? While in theory we could, there’s reasons we tend to congregate where we do, and it’s not only because that’s where the jobs are. Do you really think you could get me to relocate from Boston to say, Flint MI, for any price?
How will work from home affect homelessness in any way? If they don’t have a job, they can’t have work from home. If their job is not based on a computer, they can’t work remotely