[mancerayder]

California problem. There's no constrained supply in Houston or Austin or a few other cities in the US that are now crashing from over supply.

Another one is Manhattan. There's no space to build so things get retrofitted (office conversions) and new zoning (Hudson Yards) but it's expensive - high hourly rates to pay people on buildings with more 99 units, many many permits required, land is expensive, etc

So it's luxury only in NYC

None of this is NIMBYism.

Part of it is return to office. Why move there if it's too expensive - the answer is you're unemployed otherwise

Part of it is demand. NYC is the closest thing to Europe, where you don't drive around in an SUV to do simple things. The GDP is enormous, so you find jobs. Young people. Etc

Housing costs are a lot more complicated than NIMBYism. There's a strong California bias for obvious reasons, here on HN.

[slibhb]

While it's definitely true that NIMBYism isn't the problem everywhere, I live in Virginia.

[mancerayder]

The only point I was trying to make is, "it's more complicated than <the parent comment I was replying to>." The household affordability problem is extremely complicated. In some cases it's indeed NIMBYism - some law that limits to single-family housing, or complicated HOA rules, etc. Local board approvals required.

Sometimes it's just plain-old high-demand. Who doesn't want to live in a big fancy metropolis as a 25 yr-old with money? More people move in than it's physically possible to build (we're not China).

Sometimes it's regulations - you need to pay construction workers a min wage of $50/hr if you build a unit more than 99, or no tax breaks for you. Sometimes land is expensive. But so is the architect, the materials, the permits. Then you have environmental regulations, sometimes that make sense, some that are too difficult. Then you have regulations to protect the consumer so the place doesn't burn up or fall on our heads, sometimes that make sense, some that are too difficult.

You have interest rates that are high.

We have the private equity investors buying up bulk new construction.

We have wage growth that didn't match the growth of housing costs.

Hopefully I've made my case that housing affordability has many factors.

I'll need to save this message so I can cut and paste it elsewhere because about once a month on HN someone posts that the problem with housing affordability is not enough building and NIMBYism, which is only one of the factors here.