[asta123]

In Australia most of the narrative on the housing affordability crisis is around lack of supply and nimbyism. In the meantime Melbourne has dropped to 4th most expensive city in the country and becoming more affordable. Most likely reason - land tax change in that state which is turning off accumulating multiple properties through investment and investors turning to other states where prices are still going up. So, while supply is relevant, I would say it is investor demand that is driving prices up.

[jondwillis]

It’s not a coincidence that many abundists see nothing wrong with rent-seeking. They’re incentivized by it. Rent-seeking has corrupted market forces. Mao 2.0 will arrive eventually.

[pitaj]

This reverses causation. Investors are involved because prices are going up, not the other way around.

"Investors buying up housing" is a common explanation alongside "short term rentals taking over" but neither make up a large enough portion of the demand to explain prices.

[dv_dt]

In a feedback loop, every element in the loop is both a cause and an effect. The way to stop the feedback is to shift one or more relationships in the loop.

If you are lucky there can sometimes be arranged some convenient control elements- but in many difficult problems a lever that you can pull that only affects that one thing doesn't exist. You have choices of levers that affect a multitude of things, maybe many of which go counter to the desired independent effect

[h2zizzle]

I don't know what's so hard to understand about the idea that prices are high because the people who have the most influence over the prices want the prices high.