English-speaking countries can't build housing : dataisbeautiful

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 23 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I'm surprised no one has identified the core issue here: local restrictions - NIMBYs. A National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) / NMHC study found that government regulations across all levels (fees, permitting, compliance) account for 40.6% of multifamily development costs on average nationally.

Once a person owns a home in a location, restricting supply means their home goes up in value, and their neighbourhood stays as cozy as it is today. This is why Georgism (championed by every notable economist for more than a century) is the only way we solve this. A land value tax aligns individual incentives with best social outcomes. People are much more reluctant to sit on unused land if they're being charged 5% per year in tax. They build up. They aggressively lobby their local politicians to make it as easy as possible to build. Supply booms.

This is a solved problem. It's not complicated. Austin did it. They cut regulation, developers went crazy building apartments, and rents keep dropping. Landlords have to compete to get tenants now, offering everything from 3 months free rent to gym membership and gift certificates.

[–] CanadaPlus 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yup, it sounds like that was the article's conclusion too, although it's paywalled.

This is why Georgism (championed by every notable economist for more than a century)

You're talking about a period starting in the 1700's, right? The way you've worded that implies it's modern. A land value tax is also a different thing, and will not change the amount of land.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 3 days ago (4 children)

whats nuts is people want their homes to go up in value. You pay taxes based on home value. I want my home to be lagging behind everything in the area im not cheering everything getting more expensive. Its like are all these people flipping every two years???

[–] CanadaPlus 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Or they plan to eventually sell when they retire and downsize.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Don't see how that plan makes them want the place they live in now and their expenses now go up. fact is the place they downsize to will have gone up. its a zero sum game overall.

[–] CanadaPlus 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If housing prices, I don't know, triple, and then they move into a place that's half as expensive, they still have three times more cash in hand than they would with no price increase. If general inflation is lower than that, it's to their benefit. (There's also those reverse mortgage ads all over old people TV, if they want to stay put)

Whether this is the great investing strategy it's been sold as is another question. General inflation does exist, housing prices don't always go up even over the long term, and even the greatest markets still tend to have a lower return than equities and probably even some bonds. The big positive a financial advisor will mention is that paying off a house forces you to actually sock money away instead of spending it all.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It just does not work that way. All houses do not triple. The change in price at different levels change at different paces and lately its the cheaper stuff that has risen a lot. If you have those segments on ultra rich properties in your area you will often see how they sold at some huge price and sold for way less or vice vera. They are aweful swingy. The lower the cost the more definitive the cost is as. Real cost reduction comes from getting something dilapidated but most people in downsizing are going from something older in need of repair to smaller but well renovated. People really have been sold on this idea of rising line good no matter what when what really matters is their current monthly nut and their ability to have cash over and above that for quality of life and savings.

[–] CanadaPlus 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Cheap houses in my area have actually been a lot less stable in price. But sure, if whatever they move into has risen faster that's another way it could fail.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

yeah its kinda funny because if you are selling and buying afterwards it would be better for you if it was a falling market than rising. Honestly as a normal individual I can't for the life of me figure out a rising cost scenario that actually is good for me financially except to refinance but I lean toward not wanting to be in debt more than to be in more debt.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Property taxes are typically very low compared to the capital gains they will accrue. On balance, it's still a great deal for the individual if home values skyrocket. Of course, it's terrible for society. On the other hand, if land taxes were 5%, then you would be correct: people would hate for their properties to jump in value. If they went up too much, they would sell and move elsewhere, pushing up supply and reducing prices.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

capital gains only comes into play if you did not live in the house for two of the last five years you own it. Anyone who actually lives in their house does not have to worry about that. Property taxes are a major expense. One thing I see with people who have not owned real estate is they think a paid off house has no expenses but the taxes, insurance, and if you have something with an association (often times the only affordable option in metro area) and you still have a monthly nut. Its a bit lower but not static because all three of those things are as effected by inflation as anything else.

[–] CanadaPlus 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That depends on jurisdiction.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago

yeah im talking in the us.

[–] CanadaPlus 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

If they went up too much, they would sell and move elsewhere, pushing up supply and reducing prices.

And then you'd actually have the same problems, just with land that's easy to buy but has less earnings potential. It'd still be comically expensive to get utilities put in, in some jurisdictions, and you'd still have to wrangle a giant crowd of NIMBYs every time you want to build anything meaningful.

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[–] CanadaPlus 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Interesting. It's weird how all over the place civil law jurisdictions are in the right graph - some have seen the same price increase anyway, while Italy has seen them actually go down.

Does it have to do with how those dwellings are being used in different cultures, maybe?

Edit: They're on totally different scales, d'oh. So it actually means nothing.

[–] jaykrown@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So the supply has gone up, and the price has gone up. 🤔 Sounds like a gatekept bubble.

[–] CanadaPlus 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

The left graph literally shows supply not going up anymore.

[–] jaykrown@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

On further review, I realize the year timelines at the bottoms of the left and right graphs aren't the same. Terrible visualization.

[–] CanadaPlus 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Oh shit, I didn't notice that either. Nasty.

So the right graph actually gives no useful information whatsoever.

[–] IanTwenty@piefed.social 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The source article:

https://www.ft.com/content/dca3f034-bfe8-4f21-bcdc-2b274053f0b5

Archived:

https://web.archive.org/web/20241002175430/https://www.ft.com/content/dca3f034-bfe8-4f21-bcdc-2b274053f0b5

Three distinct factors are at work here...

...a shared culture that values the privacy of one’s own home

...the planning regimes in all six anglophone countries are united in facilitating objections to individual applications

...Anglophone planning frameworks give huge weight to environmental conservation, yet the preference for low-density developments fuels car-dependent sprawl and eats up more of that cherished green and pleasant land.

The author's conclusion:

Ultimately, whether the goal is tackling the housing crisis, protecting the environme or boosting productivity, the answer to so many woes in the English-speaking world is to unburden ourselves of our anti-apartment exceptionalism.

[–] CanadaPlus 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thank you! Does anyone have a way around the paywall?

[–] IanTwenty@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20241002175430/https://www.ft.com/content/dca3f034-bfe8-4f21-bcdc-2b274053f0b5

Managed to find a capture on IA that has s_me content_

[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

A median house price and median salary should also be calculated, those datas aren't very useful without understanding the economic condition of the people

[–] Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 4 days ago (4 children)

The graph is change in real prices that means inflation / cost of living adjusted. The anglophone countries would need to see equivalent real wage growth to make it just about salaries, which as far as I know they haven't.

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[–] Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 4 days ago

Same reason we can't build high speed rail, have to get approval by every property owner rich enough to hire a lawyer to build anything here.

[–] LemmyBruceLeeMarvin@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 days ago (3 children)

It's not that they can't build housing. It's that housing is bought up by private equity and Monopoly prices are set by the algorithm. There are no many vacant homes and apartments being kept vacant to drive up the cost.

Saying 'we need to build more houses and deregulation is the key' only serves the oligarchy

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[–] Mika@piefed.ca 6 points 3 days ago (7 children)

One reason is that people want houses and it's not sustainable. Large cities need to go up and living in apartment in a high rise should be a norm.

The problem in the word itself even - housing.

[–] scholar@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Another factor is that people are living separately from their extended families and change what type of building they live in at different points in their lives, for example:

Single adult - rented flat or small house.
Couple - rented larger flat, bought small house.
Couple with kids - trying not to rent, buying larger house
Couple with adult children - no longer need the space, buy smaller house

People also like to have gardens and pets, which is easier in a house than a flat. Ownership is also a factor, owning a flat doesn't make much sense when you have to pay ground rent and a mortgage.

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[–] spacesatan@leminal.space 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm choosing to believe this is just a weird expression of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Pros of English: cool words like petrichor

Cons: cognitive bias against construction

[–] LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 8 points 4 days ago (5 children)

This completely and utterly ignores the capitalist pressures that also hit building materials. Just look at wood prices in the US. Prices have skyrocketed outside of the housing supply as well.

TL;DR: Capitalism is cancer on anything required to live, including the vast supply chain for such goods.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That doesn't explain why some nations are functioning better under capitalism than others though.

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Because they put limits on capitalism.

It is not all or nothing.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Here in Denmark we rank higher than the U.S. in ease of doing business. We don't have a minimum wage and it's super easy to fire people. We capitalism harder than America. On the other hand, we offer great safety nets and social services (paid for with high taxes), because we acknowledge that businesses do different things to the state.

I don't think the issue is limiting capitalism. If anything, unleashing capitalism results in competition and amazing products and services. Our tiny nation is a world leader in pharmaceuticals and shipping. Where I think we get it right is ensuring people don't fall through the cracks. Being temporarily unemployed can be hard to navigate and we help people when that happens. We provide free healthcare so no one needs to try to work while sick. We provide free education so that we can specialise in a competitive world. Because people aren't desperate for work, they're able to better negotiate with employers. They can turn down shitty offers and shitty employers. This leads to great workplace conditions for most people and high wages.

[–] LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

High taxes is limiting capitalism.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago

I disagree. Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit. Taxes are not antithetical to capitalism. Neither are unions, public healthcare, unemployment benefits, etc. Capitalism is really good at allocating resources efficiently, but it's not good at helping the vulnerable. That's where government needs to step in.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Sure but what are the specific policies that explain this specific pattern? That's what I'd like to know. Just writing it off as capitalism bad doesn't help, even if it's true.

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Data is Beautiful