Posted on 11/05/2025 9:16:34 AM PST by grundle
We will never get the cost of housing down until we go back to the levels of per capita construction that we had in the 1960s and 1970s.
Current zoning laws make that impossible.
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Zoning is a local issue. That allows the party out of power in the White House to take the blame.
We also need to bring back the concept of ‘Fixer-Uppers’, and have them be in safe neighborhoods.
Stephen Moore was on Glenn Beck yesterday. He’s invested in a company that will build homes with robots, which he expects to dramatically cut the cost of new homes. But when no one has a job, who will be able to buy?
There are a pile of housing regulations—federal, state, local that have a major impact on housing costs.
My electrician briefed me on some of the electrical requirements these days and it was mind-blowing.
While houses today are safer than they used to be we have paid a high price for it—probably overkill in many cases.
The problem is, places with ‘affordable’ homes, will most likely be crime-ridden. Our cultural rot is a big reason for high housing costs, people are willing to pay more to not live in a crime-infested hellhole.
No one cared about unemployment when factories were offshored and entire communities died.
There’s more. Fewer kids means less of a need as the parents die off-surplus. Control immigration.
Then there’s my previous post. Market forces will bring prices down to an affordable level if every single man and woman living alone shares their studio or 1br apartment with someone of the opposite(or same)sex. Share the same bed-they’ll be a whole lot happier!
Then there’s my previous post. Market forces will bring prices down to an affordable level if every single man and woman living alone shares their studio or 1br apartment with someone of the opposite(or same)sex. Share the same bed-they’ll be a whole lot happier!
Use genetics to reduce the height of people, so they can fit twice as many people in the same building.
Why didn’t I think of that!?
Maybe because you’re not a Genesis fan. ;)
That’s one issue
Getting rid of as many illegals and fake “legal” aliens as possible would help too.
Investors would still be buying up single family homes too though
That would drop the cost of everything. ....imho
Perhaps big multinational corporations buying every family home they can get their hands on and turning them into rental properties might be why home prices are up?
President Donald Trump proposed the "Freedom Cities" initiative during his 2024 presidential campaign, first announced in a March 2023 video. The plan envisioned creating up to 10 new master-planned cities—each roughly the size of Washington, D.C.—on a tiny fraction (about 0.06%) of undeveloped federal land, primarily managed by the Bureau of Land Management in the Western U.S. The goal was to spark innovation, boost manufacturing "hives of industry" to reduce reliance on Chinese imports, increase affordable housing, promote homeownership, and incorporate futuristic elements like vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicles for personal transport. It also included socially conservative incentives, such as "baby bonuses" to encourage population growth, and a push for neo-classical architecture in public spaces.
America is in a printed, fiat money and bloated government debt-spending bubble.
That probably explains 90% of the inflation in this country.
“He’s invested in a company that will build homes with robots, which he expects to dramatically cut the cost of new homes. But when no one has a job, who will be able to buy?”
They need the robots to replace the illegals.
We always get those cards with the we buy cash and a dude’s name on it. Last time we got one it showed a map with all the properties around us that they have purchased. 🫤 These investors with cash ruin it for struggling families.
The NEC in 1980 NEC looked like a pamphlet. Most of the changes between then and 1999 were specifying means and methods that led to safer installations. Starting in 1999 many of the changes have been driven by companies lobbying the NFPA to enforce their “fix” to a problem.
With that said, starting in 1980, the number of residential electrical fires continues to drop to the tune of about 1000 per year and the total number of residences has gone up by roughly 0.8 mil per year. From an underwriting standpoint the ROI is miserable but the “don’t burn to death” factor is pretty persuasive.
The changes in total U.S. population have been:
2010 - 2020 7.4%
2000 - 2010 9.7%
1990 - 2000 13.2%
1980 - 1990 9.8%
1970 - 1980 11.5%
1960 - 1970 13.3%
1950 - 1960 18.5%
1940 - 1950 14.5%
That shows that the argument that the housing problem is that we are not building new housing at the rate we did in the 1960s and 1970s is false. The U.S. population is not growing at the rates it did in the 1960s and 1970s, and is at present growing at 1/2 the rate it was in 1940.
No, too easy credit, and FED generated money-printing inflation, boosted lending and it boosted housing prices, making houses out of reach for new buyers at rates not seen in decades. With fewer buyers willing to take on inflated housing prices, builders must build less or get stuck with unsold inventory.
What’s actually needed is housing price deflation on existing homes and it will be a painful correction, to individuals and the economy. However, it is more local market dependent than general across the nation. “National” housing statistics are often not representative of thousands of local markets across the country, where their prices and building rates are often a good deal below or a good deal above the reported “national” figures.
If there is more new housing actually needed, it is specific to some local housing markets and not the nation.
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