Hacker News Reader

Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

The people who made $100k on paper will end up without it if they hold on to their house until the market gives up on moving people in to their housing-constrained locale. They'd have to sell it during the rush to benefit, otherwise they pay the higher living costs for a while only to see their equity return to its original valuation.

View on HN

Housing prices are much stickier up than you give them credit for

No they are not. I've lost a ton of money on houses in the past. However it is clearly a matter of how much housing is built, when you are not allowed to build as much housing as the market wants prices go up and prices remain sticky. So long as the market is allowed to build, the cost of materials/labor is the factor. (Land is less a factor than you think because someone will get the idea of building up if allowed thus amortizing over less area)

In what part of the US are you that houses cost $1M, AND you're allowed to build houses?

There are few places in the country where houses are expensive, AND you can actually build housing.

That isn't housing prices being sticky, that is house prices following supply and demand.

Where you can build more $1M houses? Not many, if any. Where houses can cost $1M and there's plenty of room to build more housing? NYC metro for one, and I'd guess other major metro's as well. Though I've noticed plenty of anti-apartment and other anti-development signs here in my NYC-area suburb. We're not the SF bay area yet, but seem to be aiming for that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com