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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.218s | source
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mikhailfranco ◴[] No.42735790[source]
If insurance and property taxes are proportional to property price, and property prices grow faster than incomes, then cost of ownership will eventually become unaffordable to existing residents.

A similar argument works if insurance is just based on reconstruction cost, but construction costs inflate faster than incomes.

If properties become unaffordable, then to restore equilibrium, property prices must fall, incomes must rise, or lower-income residents will sell to higher-income purchasers. If there are few higher-income purchasers, property prices will fall.

Property taxes could be cut, or decoupled from property values (e.g. poll tax), but that never happens.

If the risk really is high, there is no practical insurance available, and all purchasers are rational, then the price may go to zero.

An example of an irrational purchaser would be one who assigned high status to a beach house, even in the face of threats from coastal erosion, hurricane floods or tsunamis.

replies(2): >>42737670 #>>42742814 #
1. lambertsimnel ◴[] No.42737670[source]
I don't disagree, but...

> Property taxes could be cut, or decoupled from property values (e.g. poll tax), but that never happens.

Couldn't the total property tax take be set to be proportional to incomes, shared between households in proportion to property price?

> If the risk really is high, there is no practical insurance available, and all purchasers are rational, then the price may go to zero.

Rational purchasers might reason that:

1) they need a home

2) unless they own a home they'll have to rent

3) even an uninsurable home could be expected to be habitable for a while

4) if rent for the duration of expected habitability exceeds transaction costs and property taxes for some uninsurable home, it could be worth a nonzero amount