[ehnto]

We're all very aware of how the economics should play out, but look around you, it's not working that way in a bunch of places. That's because houses are being used as investment vehicles, with rentals being thoroughly flogged because they know people have no choice but to pay. No amount of building will help if the value of the property is not intrinsically linked to the supply and demand of places to live for people who want to live there, but is instead linked or at least heavily influenced by what investors with increased buying capacity are willing to pay.

[nickles]

> No amount of building will help if the value of the property is not intrinsically linked to the supply and demand

Building new houses is intrinsically linked to supply. When you build a house, that increases the supply of housing. NIMBYs oppose new construction precisely to prevent the value of their properties from decreasing.

[ehnto]

Sorry, of course that's correct. I was trying to articulate that the supply and demand, as a whole, is not currently a marketplace for people with housing to sell to those who want to be housed (in many places). It's a marketplace dominated by investors and landlords, and people who want to be housed are having to stretch their funds as far as they possibly can to keep up with the market currently being made by investors and landlords.

[nickles]

> people who want to be housed are having to stretch their funds as far as they possibly can to keep up with the market currently being made by investors and landlords.

I'm sympathetic to the difficulties people are facing right now, and I've seen the stories about housing being purchased by investors. The issue is that the data doesn't seem to indicate a structural change in ownership [0]. Home ownership appears to have peaked at 69.4% in 2004 and now sits at 65.4%, the same level as in 1980.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSAHORUSQ156S