I never see the NIMBY movement really engage with what falling prices would mean in practice. It just seems impossible to be allowed for any really duration over a large area.
I think a more realistic (but depressing) goal is modest loss to inflation (so prices go up by 1-2% less then inflation).
> I think a more realistic (but depressing) goal is modest loss to inflation (so prices go up by 1-2% less then inflation).
If you read between the lines that seems to be what Canada's approach to house affordability is going to be. Their leaders are promising housing will be more "affordable" but that the goal isn't to decrease home prices.
10 years of 2% is a real value decrease of 20%. that would be amazing!
But it’s pretty rare to see a contentious policy last that long without really clear results.
And people don’t seem to understand inflation. They expected to see real prices go down (deflation) and were upset when that did not happen.
They are going down the same path of making a lower quality product available, then using deceptive averages.
I have not seen anything that would create a supply of equally desirable properties (compared with detached dwellings).
Most families being able to afford a detached SFH was a historical anomaly that came with massive costs, and won’t be sustainable long term.
The "anomaly" happened when we were less productive overall. What change made it possible, and why can't we go back?
Western societies are naturally below replacement rate, getting back to sfh as the norm seems like the inevitable outcome without the significant efforts at the national policy level.
>What change made it possible?
Massive federal investment (paid for by the entire nation but often only able to be capitalized on by white Christian nuclear families) and municipal bonds that pushed the costs of building infrastructure out decades.
>why can't we go back?
The original loans are still due and/or replacement costs for the infrastructure require new funding, at 2025 inflated prices, and civil rights and demographic changes mean that the old resistributive model can't work (not the least of which because of the outsize costs that will be incurred to maintain quality of life for the oldest Americans in the next two decades). There's probably more.
Not to say that reimagining the sfh couldn't lead to it still being viable. But 2500 sqft on an acre probably isn't tenable.
> I never see the NIMBY movement really engage with what falling prices would mean in practice
It means the landed gentry lose, and the working class win. Unlike the status quo of the past few decades where the landed gentry make fistfuls of cash by doing 0 actual work.
Obviously housing prices going down will make some people's assets mixes worth less. That's why they fight to stop building housing. But that's true for lots of commodities and businesses too. Just because many people are invested in diamonds doesn't mean we have to ban lab grown to save diamond prices