[Spivak]

I don’t think that people are denying the economics, only that for high-demand housing the game is different.

The price of housing isn’t completely elastic since for a given area it’s a function of the available salaries in the area. You hit a ceiling where above which there are no buyers and below which you get 20 cash offers the day you list.

So oddly the thesis is that housing prices are actually too low and we’re playing by concert ticket rules. Part of this has to do with the availability of mortgages as a function of income. And that there is so much demand for housing at a given price that any increase in supply we could actually realistically build would just get bought up instantly at the current price and we can’t increase the supply enough to actually drive prices down.

[civilized]

> we can’t increase the supply enough to actually drive prices down.

Well you'll never do it with that attitude!

Seriously, though. Every action taken in the US, other than the government spending trillions of dollars, is so piddly that no one gets to see a meaningful impact of any policy. And so people make up theories unconnected from reality, with no skin in the game, because nothing will ever actually change.

[civilized]

On reflection, I don't think I buy your premises here:

1. Salaries (and spending proclivities) are hardly so tightly banded that X is affordable for everyone who might want to move to an area and X+1 isn't. Tech company salaries alone vary a ton.

2. Housing prices are not set in a centralized way like concert ticket prices.

Those points notwithstanding, I do agree that if there's tons of pent-up demand for a product, tiny increases in supply are not going to change a seller's market into a buyer's market. It may take a lot of supply to overcome induced demand, market psychology and price stickiness, but there is an amount of added supply that would do it. It's just not the case that every rich person in the world wants to move to, say, San Francisco. Once you've built enough, you're going to have inventory that is moving slower than the sellers would prefer, and sellers will then lower price to make that inventory accessible to a wider pool of buyers.

[mixmastamyk]

Oh no, there are an incredible number of econ deniers everywhere these days. Every time an apartment building is proposed for a parking lot in California for example, they come out of the woodwork.