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objectimpermanence t1_j9pplwu wrote

Reply to comment by DirectorBeneficial48 in Want to know why NY metro housing is expensive? Answer in NYTimes OP-ED by Blecher_onthe_Hudson

You are literally denying reality.

What you are saying goes against the evidence that is generally accepted among economists and other housing experts.

Housing vacancy rates are near historic lows nationwide (source).

The pace at which new housing is built has lagged behind the household formation rate for years (source). The problem is particularly acute in coastal cities like NYC, Boston, and SF.

A constrained housing supply and low vacancy rates are good for landlords and existing homeowners, but they are bad for renters and prospective homebuyers.

These are basic economic facts that everyone in the real estate industry is aware of. These conditions form the basis of the investment thesis that professional real estate investors use to justify their housing investments.

>There are thousands upon thousands of empty apartments, condos and homes in every one of those markets.

Of course there are thousands of vacancies in NYC. It's a city with 3.5 million housing units. At any given point in time, some of those units will be vacant for any number of reasons. E.g., they're being turned over between tenants, they're being renovated, etc.

Sure, some of those housing units are kept intentionally empty as non-primary residences for the wealthy, but that is a small fraction of the total number of vacant units.

What matters is not the absolute number of vacancies, but the number of vacancies relative to the total number of housing units in a particular city in relation to the number of housing units in demand.

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Blecher_onthe_Hudson OP t1_j9ps4tj wrote

>You are literally denying reality.
>
>What you are saying goes against views that are widely held among economists and other housing experts.

Never stops the "socialists" who want to solve problems created by government market interference with more government interference.

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xTheShrike t1_j9q3j75 wrote

Socialists do not understand economics whatsoever. Artificial government controls create artificial scarcity which leads to higher prices.

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Blecher_onthe_Hudson OP t1_j9q82ea wrote

Precisely how rent control in response to a housing crisis during world War II has resulted in a continuous housing crisis for the past 80 years.

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objectimpermanence t1_j9pup9f wrote

Yep, I wonder how many people realize that some of the greatest urban neighborhoods were built before contemporary zoning regulations were even a conceived.

Also, people love to rave about how European cities are designed and then they oppose changes to local zoning and building codes that would actually allow us to replicate that typology in new construction here.

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DirectorBeneficial48 t1_j9pwv0t wrote

Your link is for homeowner vacancy throughout the nation, including rural areas. The discussion involves the inclusion of rentals, notably in cities, and I also included a response as to how there's not increased demand, merely an artificial scarcity and artificially raised rates. Way to gaslight, but you're just a shithead tossing out other stuff to obfuscate what the discussion is.

In fact, a huge percentage - over double that of the overall rate - of rent-stabilized units in NYC for example, remain empty, not for "renovation", but because landlords would rather wait until they can change the laws to remove rent controls. https://www.thecity.nyc/housing/2022/10/20/23413894/vacant-rent-stabilized-apartments-nyc

Getting back to the original discussion that you tried to derail, you can repeat the same line about MORE UNITS = LOWER RENTS all you like and go THIS IS SOME BASIC SHIT, but there's literally zero connection between the two. There's no housing market trend in that direction. None. Your theory does not match with reality.

Every example the OP pointed out, shows zero correlation between those two factors. I could go on and on and have in other threads. There's no correlation.

I'm sorry you're so fucking stupid that you keep repeating the same dumb shit over and over, but that's a you problem. What you want to be true and what is, simply aren't. The reality that we live in has demonstrably shown otherwise.

There's. No. Correlation.

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objectimpermanence t1_j9qceep wrote

You are the one who is arguing that the basic rules of supply and demand somehow don't apply to the housing market.

I work in finance. My work touches the real estate industry pretty closely. I know for a fact that certain people and institutions have made a ton of money because they identified the supply-demand imbalance in the housing market and figured out how to exploit it to their benefit.

I have been in meetings with housing strategists and investment professionals at large institutional investment firms. If I told them that there is zero correlation between housing supply and housing prices, I would be laughed out of the room. These are people who spend their days analyzing a dizzying array of data about the housing market.

I am not saying that the conclusions of these people are 100% accurate 100% of the time, but there is an overwhelming body of evidence to support the theory that housing prices are a primarily a function of supply and demand and that that the primary reason for escalating housing prices in this area is due to a shortage of housing units.

You are denying basic facts. You are just as bad as the anti-vaxxers who think they are better equipped than actual scientists to make evidence-based decisions.

I am done arguing with you.

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DirectorBeneficial48 t1_j9qizni wrote

>You are the one who is arguing that the basic rules of supply and demand somehow don't apply to the housing market.

Cool, show me the evidence it does. I've looked it up a bunch of times. It isn't there. There's no correlation to the locales that have had the most development and the rent in said locales. It flat out is not there.

There's clearly another force behind simply "create more units" that all y'all don't want to bring up, which is greed.

I've shown the very basic steps elsewhere, so I'll copy/paste for you.

>I'll help you. Google up "US cities with the most development" (substitute some other synonym for development, such as "new buildings/homes" if you like). Now do the same for "Average/median rent by city in US". Hell, if you really want to get spicy, toss in a third factor and add in "US cities with the highest rent growth".

And the fact that you work with the exploiters of us is not a mark in your favor. You are stuck in your bubble that believes this whole cloth without actually looking at the very basics of the argument.

> I have been in meetings with housing strategists and investment professionals at large institutional investment firms. If I told them that there is zero correlation between housing supply and housing prices, I would be laughed out of the room.

Yea, no shit, they aren't around to want to hear the very underpinnings against their raison d'etre.

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