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Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

> And by that you mean the people who worked and saved to invest in something wisely to have that take out from under them?

How is dumping your savings into a single asset "wise investment"? The idea that housing should be a good investment is ludicrous on its face when you consider its potential volatility, constant upkeep, and lack of liquidity. I'm not sure why it continues to be promoted, and I think people should be disabused of it. Not only so they make better investment decisions, but so that housing speculation is less of driving force in real estate costs.

What you're suggesting is that we allow putting barriers to new development to artificially keep this asset class valuable for its owners. Why does this make sense for housing but not for stocks or mutual funds?

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I own a house and stocks. I can live in my house. And it allows me to grow tomatoes. They are both good investments for different and overlapping reasons.

You mistake the term investment to mean solely a financial context here.

There's a thing as investing in stability, investing in the ability to modify things as you please, investing in not having to answer to a landlord, investing in having a place for your dog or children...

Your desire to change the rules to favor your taking that same block of land for yourself doesn't seem inherently any more holy than their desire to keep the rules as they are today. And when it comes to setting policy based on the whims of 20-something-newcomers, some potential downsides increasingly start to poke out. Let's put a pause on YIMBY-ism, let's fix the NYC and SF Bay Area transit systems to properly serve the density that's already there, first!

That's a bit dismissive way to put it. "The whims of 20-something newcomers". A lot of of these people are people who grew up and went to high school here but as the article says anecdotally that 2 of 400 high school graduates from one class are in the same area, the rest having been forced to abandon their native home because of housing rules preventing construction.

Also the word "whim" is just as dismissive to a group of people who are organizing, lobbying, petitioning, etc to get the right to build apartment buildings so they have a place to live and sleep and raise children. It's not a bunch of millennial google employees who just showed up and casually decided they want to buy a house.

But it's so easy to turn this into a "entitled millennials" story instead of discussing a real housing crisis that has been developing for the last 50 years due to restrictive building codes that favor the wealthy I suppose.

No one is trying to eminent-domain your land. If you own a place, you’re not going to lose it unless you choose to sell.

It's not a perfect analogy, but I typically say that people are born short a house. That is, your first house is merely covering your short position and is therefore not an investment.

>I'm not sure why it continues to be promoted, and I think people should be disabused of it.

Same goes for any IPO, or any investment in a startup, etc... Or is it?

Im advocating not changing the game because the new players find the rules unfair.

If housing is a business like every other, then why can't the rules change? The rules change for other businesses all the time: from tax changes; new laws; new technology; changes in interest rates; investment climate; etc. The rules are always changing, and businesses have to adapt. Why would housing be immune from change?

You say it's all hard work.. then why be afraid of opening the market to more competition? They can put in some hard work at maintaining their position... like every other business in existence.

I think you've missed his point a bit. If I invested in a cigarette company and then a state decides that smoking can't happen within 5 meters of an eating area and this will affect cigarette sales I don't have a right to stop this law just because my investment might be hurt.

Same with Herbalife, it's considered a pyramid scheme and a scam by many people. Maybe one day the US government says they have to shut down because some new law passses targeting them. In my world, I don't think they should be allowed to stay open just because some investors might be hurt.

Property carries a risk just like any other investment and just because property was scarce at one point doesn't mean it needs to be forever. If the bay continues to have skyrocketing rents and no construction then eventually people will leave and the owner's investments will go to shit anyway.

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