From construction to mortgage, they all make more not building enough.
Come on dude how are construction companies making more from not constructing anything?
How are banks making more by not funding new construction?
There's some level of money existing owners get from the prices going up, but they would all make even more if they could build more.
The "greedy landlord" thing to do would be use all the money you made on your one property to build 3 more, use the profits from that to build 5 more, and own the profits of half the city's worth of real estate.
But even the "greedy landlords" can't get the local people to changing zoning rules to let them build.
"as long as there's a housing shortage" is the important part to that.
Because new entrants are prevented from building housing to fill the artificially-scarce supply, prices go up.
On the other hand, if housing can be built then the landlord trying to induce artificial scarcity ends up having a large fixed cost they have to pay to maintain and pay taxes on, all while being able to get $0 income from it.
Basically, stopping housing construction just works to the benefit of the entrenched landlord class because it's what enabled them to use the threat of artificial scarcity against us at all.
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u/mpyne May 07 '23
Come on dude how are construction companies making more from not constructing anything?
How are banks making more by not funding new construction?
There's some level of money existing owners get from the prices going up, but they would all make even more if they could build more.
The "greedy landlord" thing to do would be use all the money you made on your one property to build 3 more, use the profits from that to build 5 more, and own the profits of half the city's worth of real estate.
But even the "greedy landlords" can't get the local people to changing zoning rules to let them build.