While zoning restrictions can limit housing supply, the dramatic house price increases observed globally are better explained by monetary policy, particularly historically low interest rates. This is evidenced by simultaneous price increases across jurisdictions with vastly different zoning laws. When interest rates fell to historic lows, monthly mortgage payments became more affordable, leading to increased buying power and competition across all markets - even those with flexible zoning. The rapid price changes following interest rate shifts, compared to the gradual effect of zoning policies, demonstrates that monetary policy is the dominant factor in recent price trends.
Visiting a friend in nashville and just learned of a weird loophole called a horizontal property regime. She technically only owns the land under her home but the backyard and driveway is shared with her neighbor under a “HOA” with 50% ownership exactly and zero fees.<p><a href="https://www.steinberglawfirm.com/blog/what-is-a-horizontal-property-regime/" rel="nofollow">https://www.steinberglawfirm.com/blog/what-is-a-horizontal-p...</a><p>Apparently they are all over town since the 2010s instead of waiting to split a large lot into two.
The biggest problem is the gigantic list of rules government has created called "Code" that means you can only build homes in one, very expensive, way. This is the result of giving too much power to government bureaucrats and letting them build up thousands of pages of red tape.
In the US, people have been complaining about this for 100 years. I haven't found any successes yet. I suspect it's because it's a demand problem, not a supply one. Make high-demand areas less attractive and low-demand areas more attractive.
Zoning is a scapegoat that allows us to avoid thinking critically about the "fuzzier" complexities behind housing prices. Of course it may be a primary driver of rising prices in some areas, but I think it's simple-minded to assume (and misleading to claim) that zoning is <i>the</i> cause of high prices in general.
I'm not going to say zoning isn't a problem, but the article admits "Minneapolis, for instance, experienced limited development after eliminating single-family zoning."<p>I think the problem is less about zoning and due more to the number of people around who can build houses. Everyone went off to college to be a white collar worker and there just isn't a lot of plumbers and electricians per capita anymore. And that's not easy to fix. You can't even import these sort of people because of licensing, bonding, insurance, etc regulations that exist on these blue collar workers now. It's an uphill battle trying to change any of those regulations too, because insurance companies will fight you.
Yes! And poor people are kept out of the market (aka not in my neighborhood) with housing associations and property taxes (a fine for merely trying to have something nice).
A lot of people are incentivized to keep these rules in place to keep their property values up. Artificial scarcity hurts those not in the game the most.
This is absolutely true, but also another way of saying: "Housing is expensive because people who make the rules want it expensive. People who make the rules want it expensive because they own houses."<p>To solve this you either have to convince homeowners to not want what they want, or get non homeowners to vote.
An alternate way of phrasing that is "citizens cooperate to preserve and increase the value of their biggest asset--their homes."<p>Sure, your home price would be reduced if somebody could build a pig farm, or a heavy-metal processing plant next to your house.<p>And it's not just an advantage for people who already own houses. Imagine how much of a down-payment you'd have to have--and how expensive mortgages would be--if the banker had no assurances that the value of your house wouldn't suddenly plunge to zero.<p>People can't afford houses because they are not making enough money. The solution isn't to make their biggest asset less valuable. And the solution isn't to make owning such a large asset even more risky to own.
The government is the cause of most of the things people complain about:<p>- high housing — zoning and government mortgages, low interest, etc<p>- high student debt — guaranteed loans, unnecessary pushing of college to the detriment of trade schools,etc<p>The list goes on. Sadly people are in denial and want more intervention.
its mafia racketeering thats increasing prices, lack of government oversight (due to them being the mafia) and algorithmic price fixing. youre welcome. all this talk about monetary policy, supply and demand, and interest rates is cute.