[Cau5tik]

That's one of the main issues here. Houses should be about having a place to live, not your largest financial asset. The selfish protectionism that comes from treating housing as an investment is why so many cities are so broken.

[nostromo95]

You are mixing up cause and effect wildly here.

(Most) people don't pour money into houses because they consider it an investment, they consider it an investment because they've poured money into it. The fact that real estate is scarce combined with the fact that people need a place to live causes homes to be people's largest financial asset.

[protonfish]

Not to mention encouraging price bubbles and predatory real estate and mortgage practices.

[klipt]

Yeah, by definition housing cannot be both:

"a good investment" - grows faster than inflation.

"affordable" - doesn't grow faster than inflation.

[gaius]

How is it selfish?

People have got to save for retirement somehow. Company final salary pensions are a thing of the past. Investments in shares can go down as well as up. The government can’t or won’t help. What do you expect people to do? Sacrifice their own wellbeing for your unearned benefit?

[azernik]

> Investments in shares can go down as well as up.

So instead, homeowners vote for policies that make sure that they somehow get an asset that is guaranteed to go up. That's an unearned benefit, it's one that comes at our expense, and it's an expense that they sure as hell didn't have to deal with when they were getting established in the world.

[gaius]

they sure as hell didn't have to deal with when they were getting established in the world

No. Those people built the communities you find so desirable to live in, sometimes from scratch, sometimes by regenerating a dilapidated area. The value you crave would not even exist if not for them. And now that the hard work is done, you expect to waltz in and have it for the taking?

Millennials think they are the first generation ever to live through hard times. While raking in fortunes their parents and grandparents could only dream of, working for tech unicorns.

[chao-]

Most Millennials do not work for tech unicorns. Most Millennials do not even live in urban centers, most are living a very conventional suburban lifestyle.

Everyone else wants to think of Millennials as the first generation that is uniquely self-absorbed or whiney.

[michaelt]

If Google opens a campus across the road from my house, my house's value would skyrocket with no work at all from me.

[cthalupa]

>The value you crave would not even exist if not for them. And now that the hard work is done, you expect to waltz in and have it for the taking?

I thought the value was due to all of the high paid tech workers coming in with high salaries and driving up housing prices?

[azernik]

Really? How many cities were founded from scratch by Boomers? I'm in California, so let's think of the places that are having serious housing crises.

Oakland? San Francisco? Santa Monica? Los Angeles? Well before Boomers.

The small cities that are trying to bring in businesses without building any housing? Palo Alto? Menlo Park? Berkeley?

All of these places were within 25% of their current size by 1960. Boomers didn't build any of these communities from scratch; they may have grown up in them, but they're not special unique forebears that made everything around us.

[pm90]

> No. Those people built the communities you find so desirable to live in, sometimes from scratch, sometimes by regenerating a dilapidated area. The value you crave would not even exist if not for them. And now that the hard work is done, you expect to waltz in and have it for the taking?

Good luck with your desirable community as it closes itself to everyone, grows old and turns into an old-age home /s.

Just stop this characterization of all Millenials, will you? Young people are the future and they are contributing into the welfare programs that go into supporting old farts. Old farts who neglected the infrastructure, squandered billions in foreign wars and much more in toxic financial instruments and just elected the most unqualified idiot as the most powerful person in the world.

See how that kind of generalization works?

[crdoconnor]

>So instead, homeowners vote for policies that make sure that they somehow get an asset that is guaranteed to go up. That's an unearned benefit, it's one that comes at our expense, and it's an expense that they sure as hell didn't have to deal with when they were getting established in the world.

The 0.1% sure know how to get the 99% to viciously attack one other over the scraps that fall from their table.

Most assets have been going up in value. It's because of wealth inequality reaching staggering levels. It isn't because of homeowner voting patterns and it isn't the fault of homeowners. They just didn't do as badly out of this problem as non-homeowners.

[maxsilver]

> People have got to save for retirement somehow.

This is true. But using housing for this is the worst possible way to achieve this.

If Americans want guaranteed retirement security, the government should build them a guaranteed retirement security.

Breaking all housing everywhere, all the time always, is not a sustainable or feasible way to fund retirements.

[gaius]

If Americans want guaranteed retirement security, the government should build them a guaranteed retirement security.

In the UK its the exact opposite - the government actively plundered the private pension funds. People want something tangible.

[CalRobert]

Because it imposes costs on others for your own benefit. It's rational, but it's still selfish.

If you don't want me to live next door, buy the land. As it stands now you can forbid me from living on land you don't own.

[gaius]

I can forbid you from polluting upstream of a section of river I own (hypothetically, I don’t own any). That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

[ambicapter]

And this is similar how?

[gaius]

We’ve established there are ways and reasons for people to influence what happens on nearby land they don’t own themselves. Now we are merely quibbling over the details.

[CalRobert]

People need homes. They don't need to pollute

[Ensorceled]

How is working to pass laws and polices screwing other people out of affordable home ownership not selfish?

[pnathan]

how about taxing the increase in property values commensurate with income tax - year over year.

that would properly align incentives. now it's just sitting on land and watching the dollars flow in - the definition of unearned wealth.

[s73v3r_]

Problem with that is now you have people who can't afford to pay that tax, because they're the people who bought when housing was inexpensive, not because they're rich. Taxing those people out of their homes is not the answer either.

[slavik81]

That can be prevented by allowing those experiencing financial hardship to defer their property taxes until they sell their house.

[amacbride]

Exactly. This is why Proposition 13, limiting annual property tax increases, passed in California in the 70s. (It's now widely maligned by outsiders, but they're usually not interested in the history.)

[api]

Housing can go down too. It's gone up for a long time because of incredibly low interest rates, foreign buyers, etc., but there have been very long stretches of time in the past where it went down and it may easily happen again. All kinds of things could pop the bubble: rising interest rates, somewhere else for Chinese money to go, geographic diversification of hot industries, etc. These things are actually more likely to result in severe drops in price than anti-NIMBY/YIMBY efforts. Supply additions will gradually stabilize or drop prices while macroeconomic shifts can collapse them suddenly.

Look at the Japanese housing market for an extreme example of what can happen. After an insane housing run-up it's been a flat or depreciating asset for decades.

There are no safe single classes of asset. If you put all your money in a house you're not diversifying.

[gaius]

but there have been very long stretches of time in the past where it went down and it may easily happen again

But that is contrary to the Millenial narrative that every previous generation had it easy! And that they are uniquely in the entire history of the world hard-done-by.

[s73v3r_]

Ranting about Millennials isn't doing anything to further your point.

[gaius]

But that is the entire point of the article we are all commenting on, isn’t it?

People are upset that they can’t move into an already-gentrified neighbourhood at pre-gentrification prices

[pm90]

No. They're upset because the cost of housing isn't high simply due to gentrification, but due to an artificially created shortage, which can be easily remedied if not for the stubbornness of the people who got there first.

[s73v3r_]

And ranting about Millennials like a hack elderly comedian doesn't do anything for your point except make people disregard it.

[minikites]

I expect employees to unionize and bring these benefits back.