Comment on Listening to NPR news about mortgages
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I’m pretty sure this is what you were listening to, and yeah it’s a pretty bleak situation:
2024 saw one of the slowest housing markets in 30 years. What will 2025 bring? npr.org/…/2024-saw-one-of-the-slowest-housing-mar…
The only glimmer of hope seems to be in cities that have put effort into building more homes. Capitalism isn’t going to solve this, because it only gets “luxury” housing built for the Haves.
One thing that is helping in California is the Builder’s Remedy Law projects, where, in cities that haven’t come up with a legit plan to create more affordable housing by the deadline, (usually because they don’t want Poors living there) developers can create huge new projects that don’t have to conform with the existing (overly restrictive and often based on redlining) zoning laws as long as they include 10% low-income units.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Even the builder’s remedy isn’t going to solve homelessness or bring prices down much though. They still need to sell those properties, which means they need to have a price point that makes it profitable to build. So the law of supply and demand actually prevents them from building enough housing because if the price starts to go down they just stop building.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That’s why it helps to make it significantly cheaper to build housing.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It helps, I’m not denying that. But it can only ever slow down housing inflation and it can’t solve a housing shortage. As supply gets closer to demand their profits will start to drop. The only answer to that equation is the government paying them to keep building.
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Oh I agree. It really requires -supported affordable housing. Although the best results come from integrating low-income units into mid-price housing so people can be near jobs and have decent groceries etc. Also mixing mid-price housing into high-end neighborhoods so the people who provide services can also live near where they work.
The real problem is landlords who’d rather sit on empty homes than lower the rent. And collude to keep rents inflated.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m fine with either approach. As far as I’m concerned if services and groceries are an issue then the government just builds more.