Comment by pingyong | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pingyong | Hacker News Reader

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Coming from Germany (not Canada, but maybe closer to Canada than the US in terms of spending): Housing absolutely, health care probably not for most people.

But yeah, if you live on full time minimum wage here that's ~1200€ per month, of which probably 500-800 depending on where you live will go to rent. And if it's 800, it would probably be 1800 if everyone got 1000€ per month. So in that sense, he might be right.

On the other hand some people just might actually quit their job with 1000€ per month and live somewhere further away from cities, since they don't have to live there to work. And maybe that would incentivize employers to try to create more work outside cities. Seems almost impossible to really predict the large scale effects here.

At the bare minimum, if the monthly income from rental properties doubled, I suspect that would have a major impact on housing development.

It all depends on why development isn't happening, but I have a really hard time imagining that supply would not increase even if the major restrictions are due to other factors than development costs.

Well, the thing in Germany is that (1) there is actually a decent amount of new housing being built in cities but (2) there are often strict limits around where you're allowed to build, what you're allowed to demolish, and how high you're allowed to build. And during the past 5 years, demand has vastly outpaced supply. Property prices and rents in cities are absolutely insane, and there is no indication that that is going to stop.

And the reaction to it from people is quite... shortsighted? From my perspective. Often the exact people who would benefit from a better housing market vote for parties who are more restrictive in terms of new buildings. There's this perception that new buildings are only being built for "rich" people, which is true, but it also means the rich people aren't competing for your shitty apartment anymore. But somehow, people don't really think about that.

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