Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mydogcanpurr 796 days ago
Look up fungible in a dictionary. Housing is not fungible because not all units of housing are interchangeable. Being able to sell something does not make it fungible.
1 comments

There are enough dwellings in any city to make them interchangeable.
Your definition of "fungible" applies to literally everything on the planet. Everything can be exchanged for money and back again. That's not what fungible means. Here's another example to help you differentiate:

* Gold is fungible. Any bar of pure gold (of identical mass) is exactly interchangeable and has an identical value with any other bar of gold.

* Diamonds are not fungible. Every individual stone is unique and must be properly graded by a licensed jeweller. Two stones of the same mass are highly unlikely to have the same value.

The entire reason markets exist is so people can exchange what they don't want for things that they do want. For the purpose of this discussion, they are fungible.
Really? All real estate is worth the exact same? That's news to me.
When people trade things that have different values, money is also exchanged to make up for the difference.

For example, when you trade your old car for a new car, you pay the difference in value.