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Comment by tgv | Hacker News Reader

The title is clickbait, I presume. I can't read the full article either, but in the introduction it already says that the problem is that not enough houses have been built. And in my opinion, that plus regulation failure are at the root of the problem. Who actually owns the houses is of lesser importance.

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Don't some homeowners object to increased supply because they believe it hinders appreciation of their homes?

Yes. But if a development that makes the local quality of life worse, then - surprise! - that will also deflate asset prices.

How much value does the Economist put on me starting my tech job on three hour's sleep, because of the following, all of which I've had happen nearby (as in a literal stone's throw) between 1 am and 5 am in the last year:

Redirection of arterial road traffic !

Fire alarms that nobody else shows an inclination to reset !

Dog fighting ring !

violent robbery !

I'd rank this as somewhere in the middle of flats I've rented.

Words struggle to express how much I hate neoliberal suburbanites wanking on about the values of high-density housing. Yes, there is potential. But by f*k, try living it for a bit.

I don't see much of a difference between individual home ownership and people or businesses that own many houses. The latter group is more powerful, and might have more influence on politics through lobbying.

Yeah, it's clickbait. It's not homeownership that's the problem, it's the regulations (tbf, put in place mostly by homeowners) and the always ongoing concentration of the population.

Housing prices in/near cities is a worldwide problem. Renting could be cheaper, though, but that can be done without social housing imo.

> tbf, put in place mostly by homeowners

There you have it. Follow the money. Home ownership concentrates wealth. Wealth often determines political clout and thus directs legislation and policy. The cycle continues.

So surely - largely by your own logic - home ownership is the problem?

That's what the government is for. Regulate on behalf of the majority. Sadly, that seems to be evolving backwards, from practice to theory.

Government is for regulating on the behalf of everyone, not just a majority.

They can't really do things for everyone. There's always going to be a conflict of interest between different groups, like homeowners vs those who don't own a home. The minorities are only listened to when it doesn't affect the majority in a significant way.

But I have to apologize, I've mistakenly assumed non-homeowners are the majority, when in fact it's the opposite in most western countries. So the government is doing their job in this case.

It's not of lesser importance, because who owns the housing (whether houses or flats) has implications for the politics of building new housing. If the owners are individuals, they often go the way of NIMBY, which in turns slows the (social and economic) development of the area. We can also think of housing prices (or rents) as taxes, which if the pace of new buildings slows and the area is still in demand is rising.

But if the owner is the city or state, they can plan and build accordingly. So in the city I live in after the fall of communism almost all of the state-owned flats were sold to tenants very cheaply which was great, but now it's very hard to build anything new. Even old flats are horribly expensive, which is great for sellers like me, but not great for people that want to come here to work and live.

On the other hand, we have cities like Vienna where a siginificant part of the housing stock is owned by the city. They are able to build new neighbourhoods. As a result, while my city is much smaller and less economically interesting, the price of housing is now near Vienna's levels, if not even higher. That's not good for the economy of our city either.

I believe the majority of new development in Vienna continues to be market rate and targeted at moderate income and above households. However, the backstop of state run housing encourages development generally and gives all people a stake in the land.

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