There's never been such a severe shortage of homes in the U.S. Here's why | Hacker News Reader

There's never been such a severe shortage of homes in the U.S. Here's why

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15 pointspaulpauper16 comments

I wish there would be a business to create spaces for Van lifers.

Im an SRE and make 6 figures and have a van and would love to live in it full time but there's no where to park safely in most cities.

I would happily pay 1k a month for a safe spot with a shower and other upscale Van life professionals as negihbors.

RV Parks?

I see RV rental spaces on Craigslist in the $400-700 range.

There is a tremendous amount of housing, it’s just not where people want to live. The housing crisis should really be reframed as an urban housing crisis.

Agreed. I think one reason people want to live in these places because there's copious amounts of jobs available.

I don’t think copious jobs are the reason, because we don’t really know that. People only think that, so it drives they’re push to the urban environment.

Also, who are the ones complaining about lack of housing? I’d be willing to guess that it’s predominantly people who can afford housing just fine, they just can’t afford housing where they want to live.

I respectfully disagree.

I'd be willing to bet there's a direct and significant correlation between number of jobs in a region and housing prices.

Sure zoning is an issue and there's other factors like weather and scenery...but I bet job availability is top of the heap.

RV Parks have very specific requirements which usually disqualify Vans. Also, RV parks aren't usually a community of youngish professionals I was looking for. I think they tilt towards retirees and/or groups not in the professions.

Kift might be what you're looking for.

It looks great! Thanks I applied but it looks like it's in early stages as the locations weren't too clear on the website. But the vision is awesome when they finally get going. Thanks for the tip!

There was Kibbo (now Kift) that was doing something along those lines but think it was more for remote working people on temporary basis.

1/3 of new construction being bought by investors (Canada)

https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-cities-have-seen-up-to-9...

No mention of Blackrock or private equity firms in general[1].

[1] "Investment Firms Aren’t Buying All the Houses. But They Are Buying the Most Important Ones"

https://slate.com/business/2021/06/blackrock-invitation-hous...

It’s a downside for the many of capital concentration by the few. Basic necessities look attractive, money like that needs someplace to go, according to its owners. Wait until tap water is mostly owned by private capital.

If the supply of houses were not artificially constrained, their price would not go up like crazy, and Blackrock would simply not invest. They don't like to invest in things that don't appreciate in value. The fact that their buying drives the price up could be superficially perceived as a win-win for them. In reality, whenever someone is large enough so that their buying of a thing drives up the price of said thing, a roundtrip (first buy, then sell) generally leaves them poorer overall.

They are buying to rent, not sell.

Driving up house prices drives up rent prices too, which cannot be “artificial” because rent is not financed.

To a limit, people leave the area when rents get too high

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