Cheapskate-DM t1_iux786q wrote
I reckon disaster hardiness is the big issue here.
Since Katrina, builders and realtors have (in theory) been under higher scrutiny for what they build and where they build it, especially as passing the buck to the consumer via "your fault for not having ____ insurance" is wearing thin.
Until there's a better idea of how these hold up, it's unproven tech.
fordanjairbanks t1_iuxmjld wrote
I would argue it’s less to do with being safe (look at the Florida condo collapses and tell me it’s not systemic) and more to do with choking the supply of new housing. Private equity in the US (Blackrock mainly) is the largest single owner of homes in the nation. It behooves them, and other institutional owners, to keep supply low since demand is inelastic. Putting out a message to VC firms that they’ll get buried if they invest in anything to help solve the housing crisis seems like it would be the most logical move for these giant financial institutions, and what individual VC is going to risk their entire portfolio to try and fuck over Blackrock? Not a single one could, even if they had the balls.
Puzzleheaded-Hall454 t1_iuxr6w1 wrote
Agreed. Follow the money and you will always find the answer
ThatOtherOneReddit t1_iuy7h2p wrote
I mean black rock and 2 other companies put something like 2 Trillion into buying homes in 2020. Zillow started getting out but they were only a couple hundred billion of that. Blackrock was over a trillion.
nowyourdoingit t1_iuxye3g wrote
They don't have to "put the word out", VC firms are in the business of getting between a founder and an acquisition.
MUCHO2000 t1_iuyr291 wrote
If they can't get VC funding it's for only one of two reasons. They don't like the terms VCs have offered or their business model doesn't scale to the point where VCs are interested.
VCs are extremely competitive with one another and even a big juggernaut like Blackrock can't bully smaller competitors around.
ragamufin t1_iv0r75r wrote
Nonono you don’t understand. Blackrock has “put the word out” so no VC will invest in this profitable company because it will be so wildly successful that it will actually damage Blackrock’s investments in residential housing.
/s
LaserHammerXI t1_iv2orcq wrote
My take also
Dwarfdeaths t1_iuxs9hr wrote
Eh. The houses aren't really important, it's the land they're built on. There's already enough housing, It's just that people don't own them (or the land they are built on).
Yes, you could build more houses and leave some empty, but they will be in slightly less productive locations. There's a reason people pay so much to live in NYC or San Francisco.
fordanjairbanks t1_iuxt2f4 wrote
Have you looked at real estate across the country though? It’s not just metropolitan areas that saw insane price spikes due to supply being gobbled up and new construction not being nearly able to keep up pace with demand. You’re right in that it’s definitely down to ownership, but cornering the market requires owning (or effectively controlling the price of) all assets and that includes cutting off production, unless it’s at a controlled pace and part of a vertical monopoly anyway. But disruption would generally be bad for private equity right now, which, I believe, is why we’re seeing no investment here.
Dwarfdeaths t1_iuxv6hq wrote
Have you read the link? Land rent is based on the availability of marginally productive alternatives. Think of an island with one fertile patch and a bunch of desert. The rent you can charge a worker by owning the fertile patch is the difference between output of the fertile patch vs the desert.
On the other hand, the desert is still more productive than the ocean. If we find ways to make the desert more productive... rent on the desert will also go up.
Land speculation applies to all land and the rent you could expect to collect, regardless of how urban or rural it is. The solution is to effectively eliminate private ownership of land through a Land Value Tax.
Artanthos t1_iuy2fwb wrote
Land, and housing, ownership is the single greatest means by which the middle class accumulates generational wealth.
By removing ownership, it is the middle class that gets held down. Not the wealthy.
CaseyTS t1_iuzg3fn wrote
That's only because that's how our financial system has been built in the past. We're trying to buck all sorts of bad economic habits from the past, like unregulated capitalism for instance. If we make some changes such that more people have access to good housing, people don't privately hold land property, and people have secure means to pass on wealth, that would be ideal imo.
Artanthos t1_iv06f09 wrote
Capitalism is the worst system in the world.
Except for all the economic systems.
CaseyTS t1_iv0mp85 wrote
Hard disagree, not much content in your statement
Artanthos t1_iv0munv wrote
So, name a better existing economic system.
CaseyTS t1_iv113e9 wrote
You're trying to start a hardly-relevant argument. Capitalist evangelism is silly. I said unregulated capitalism is bad. You have no decent argument against that because you know working children to death is bad.
By the way, our capitalist system is a regulated one.
I don't respect you trying to start an argument with snappy one-liners.
Artanthos t1_iv1yzfj wrote
We don’t have unregulated capitalism outside of the shadow economy.
Pretty much every country in the world is some form of mixed economy with capitalism as one of its components.
CaseyTS t1_iv594fi wrote
You're ridiculous. I KNOW. That was my point - that we don't do unregulated capitalism anymore because it's bad.
Why talk to people if you just type stream-of-consciousness without listening to what people say?
RustedCorpse t1_iv0r473 wrote
It's a Churchill quote.
CaseyTS t1_iv12f3g wrote
By the way, since you're gung-ho, go ahead and list and correctly define some non-capitalism economic systems. I constantly see many people (conservatives) talk about various economic systems without understanding what they are, so you can certainly understand my question.
Artanthos t1_iv1cyfe wrote
Your list and definitions can be found here.
CaseyTS t1_iwfxd09 wrote
I was not asking for information for my own good. I was quizzing you because I doubt your knowledge and wanted to judge whether I should keep talking to you. So your wikipedia link does not help.
But you started doing weird stream-of-consciousness comments that only vaguely relate to what I've been saying, and it's impossible to have a convo with someone who does that.
Artanthos t1_iwhg0zo wrote
And I’m not going to waste 20 minutes typing on my phone when I can just link the information.
Dwarfdeaths t1_iv2h2ir wrote
Land/housing ownership is also the single greatest barrier to building generational wealth. Owning land is what enables you to keep the output of labor, whether it's yours or someone else's.
Sharing land equally is neither good nor bad for the middle class, only fair. It's good for working class people who don't own land, and it's bad for wealthy people who rent land to others. People who own their own homes and workplaces? Largely unaffected. (Though it depends on the location.)
fordanjairbanks t1_iuxvr6k wrote
I’m down for eliminating private land ownership. It behooves us all to treat it as the commons and create proper, sustainable management of our natural resources.
Dwarfdeaths t1_iuxwhkq wrote
To be clear, an LVT only eliminates the financial portion of private ownership. The holder of the deed still gets exclusive decision-making authority over how the land gets used as long as they are paying the tax. If you want to conserve natural resources you'd have to add additional market corrections, e.g. a payment to NOT cut down a tree.
defcon212 t1_iuzf3r9 wrote
Why does a VC company care what Blackrock thinks of them? They have billionaire investors that can do whatever they want. Their business model doesn't make them susceptible to getting bullied or blackmailed, they are the rich assholes bullying out competitors in most cases.
RustedCorpse t1_iv0rabf wrote
BlackRock deals in trillions.
The difference between a billion dollars and a trillion dollars, is about a trillion dollars.
They absolutely bully anyone, including imo the Fed.
[deleted] t1_iuxqyek wrote
[removed]
ragamufin t1_iv0qzn4 wrote
This is unquestionably 1000% not how capital markets work
Seen_Unseen t1_iuz6560 wrote
Construction is notoriously traditional. Any new tech is a massive risk especially when it comes to the superstructure which often has up to 50 years guarantee period. So if anything goes wrong, whoever used that printer will go bankrupt.
But there is far more wrong with 3d printers how it's often commercially used. To begin it really contributes nothing, you get an inner wall that's not smooth so you need to spend a lot more on making it acceptable. And in the end all you got is an inner wall, you got no insulation, you got no plumbing you got no exterior wall, you got just a shell. And there are already alternatives for it. These days speed is everything and factory assembled housing becomes more common for repeated housing projects. They erect a whole street in a week. Working off site is the future not a wobbly 3d printed wall.
Now that being said, it doesn't mean 3d printing has no place in construction but in very specific projects. I've seen for example some complex spans as well bridge elements being printed.
But anyone promoting 3d printing as mentioned in the article fails to understand construction (which is baffling because even professors from TU Delft are big on this).
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