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"Oh yes I'm going to go have children because they're building more houses"......
.....said no one ever. And if we don't want people having children or starting families, how about we stop subsidizing them? Get rid of the child tax credit and other benefits for families, abolish filing statuses and tax everyone at MFJ brackets etc.
The only thing lower inventory does is make everything more miserable for homebuyers. Artificial scarcity helps no one. The only realistic solution here is to build more housing.
See there you go, came up with some solutions to curbing population growth!
It's a tricky balancing act. On one hand, the picture you painted can become a problem. But Japan and China did pretty much what you are suggesting in VERY different ways, but with the same end result; a decreased child birth rate. Now both countries are trying desperately to reverse these policies as their populations are not being replenished enough with the young and they are confronted with a rapidly aging population instead.
"Over" Population is a myth, and a very popular one. All through history, you can find some "wise head" complaining about the "useless eaters" cluttering up [fill in the blank].
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And socialism is definitely to blame for the decline in births. Women were "encouraged" (compelled) to enter the workforce instead of being stay-at-home moms. Now, they can't afford the time nor funds to have and raise a family.
There goes the promise of "taxing other people's children" for your own old age security.
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America is also socialist, at least if you examine the tax bite. Aggregate tax bite amounts to 41-44% of the GDP (local, state, and federal taxes). When almost half your working life is taxed away, it will be tough to support a family.
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The science fiction story "Make Room, Make Room," that was the basis for "Soylent Green" predicted dire consequences of dead oceans and cannibalism when the population reached 7 billions. We're now approaching 8 billions (7.95 billions).
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Ultimately, the government is at fault for the "tight" housing market. The combination of taxation, regulation, restrictive building codes that dictate what can be used - not what goals to achieve, and zoning, all add together to make it tough for the land owner who wishes to build his idea of the American Dream.
More houses doesn't fix the too many people problem (the real issue).
I was waiting for someone to say this. Unfortunately, I think you may be correct, though.
The "virus" was supposed to de-populate the older folks, but science got in the way and saved hundreds of millions. Oh well, back to the drawing board...
Those home owners are not eligible. If someone is renting out their home more than 14 days a year it is an investment property and does not qualify for the primary home tax deduction. You cannot take an investment deduction and a primary home exemption.
I do mortgage loans all day long for a living. Very common in my area is Nagshead, pulling in 260K per year in rental income for 350 days of use as a rental property. Just because they are 2nd homes, does not mean they cannot be rented. They are not doing leases. They are doing Airbnb and Vrbo and other weekly services.
Want to increase the supply of available houses? Kick all the undocumented aliens out of the country and you will have 10 million low income houses come available on the market.
You can not build your way out of a low income housing shortage because it costs serious money to build a house or apartment. Everyone involved in the building process wants to be paid for their labor, including all the people who manufacture the materials needed to build a house. It can not be done cheaply enough to rent the resulting building out for just a couple hundred dollars a month.
More houses doesn't fix the too many people problem (the real issue).
If you think over population is the problem, feel free to execute yourself and your (potential) grandchildren and save the planet.
However, I don't think that's a viable remedy.
"In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation. even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine."
- - - Great Law of the Iroquois
This is a reminder that focusing on short-term profits and ignoring the long term consequences is not wise.
Planning for the seventh generation yet to come would dramatically change the paradigm we currently suffer under.
My #1 gripe is that American housing, controlled by money maddened power hungry self-interest groups (finance, government, industry, lobbyists), is designed to be the cheapest made, ephemeral, costly to own, bare bones minimalist functioning dreck that can't endure lifetimes, let alone disasters.
IN contrast, one can find houses in Europe, that have been occupied for centuries, if not longer. I was told that the building code in one German city was simple : build your house to last a minimum of 500 years. They would point to houses 800+ years old and say : like that or better. Why waste resources and time, building and maintaining grot?
The United States is a huge country. There are many areas, some with the infrastructure already in place, where people could live without overcrowding. The problem is that recent migration trends due to more favorable weather, as well as more attractive state economic policies regarding taxes, has led to millions of people abandoning many northern and midwestern states and moving south.
I agree. I don't think we have a housing shortage, just a shortage of houses where people want to live. Perhaps figure out areas where there is the most excess inventory and anyone moving to those places get a federal tax holiday for every year they live there up to 5 years. Businesses and individuals.
I agree. I don't think we have a housing shortage, just a shortage of houses where people want to live. Perhaps figure out areas where there is the most excess inventory and anyone moving to those places get a federal tax holiday for every year they live there up to 5 years. Businesses and individuals.
I would augment those points with the consequences of government meddling, via zoning and building codes. On the surface, they appear benign, but they tend to stifle and stagnate the status quo. The worst is single use zoning. Areas that are zoned residential cease having a mixed use character. If you examine urban development 130 years ago, it was mixed use, with businesses and retail at the ground floor and apartments above. In many cases, 99% of one's necessities were within one block of one's dwelling. In other instances, retailers came to you - bringing their wares by cart and selling them on the street (local farmers, etc).
This mixed use development allows a more compact and dense arrangement that minimizes resources.
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The single family unit building, the cornerstone of suburban and rural zoning, is a resource hog, and ever more costly to own and operate, especially when built "to code." (Meh).
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IMHO, as population keeps increasing, a corresponding increase in food production comes with it. Thus, we need to maximize arable land or expand it. This means destroying arable land, via suburban sprawl has got to end. Suburbia relies on cheap fuel and automobiles to support it. As that becomes a dim memory, the costs to live in solo splendor will escalate.
Unfortunately, most architects (or their customers) want to maximize profits and not enhance the living experience of the tenants in high density housing.
An example of the most [enter expletive here], from S. Korea :
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