What happens when private equity buys homes in your neighborhood

> But the bigger problem for housing affordability, he adds, is that "we just haven't built enough [homes] to keep up with the population growth and household formation."

The circular incentive here is left unsaid. If a house is an investment, you and every other homeowner has an incentive to keep supply low and demand high. This ultimately drives votes, lobbying, and policies that prevent houses being built. Otherwise you end up with falling rents and stagnating property prices, like in Austin.

https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/cooling-rent-growth-d...

This cannot be said enough. If we were remotely serious about addressing the lack of supply, we have multitudes of hard/heavy levers to yank on:

* Taxing non-owner-occupied single-family residences at higher rates (incentivizes sales)

* Removing or barring the traditional zoning/approvals boards beyond a rubber-stamp for developments that meet safety codes (incentivizes building)

* Taxing the capital gains of home sales without ability to roll over (disincentivizes housing as an investment strategy)

* Mandating housing as a human right (myriad of knock-on effects for decades after)

* Barring no-fault evictions of tenants (helps renters save to buy a home)

* National rent control (helps renters save, incentivizes construction since growth must now be achieved through volume, not price hikes)

* Public Housing (a la Singapore’s model, where we can place a down payment on a home or condo with a gov-backed loan to the developer, but with restrictions on sales/residency requirements)

* Prohibition of algorithmic pricing (flattens rent increases)

* Mandating longer leases (to help renters predict housing costs for longer periods)

* Allowing renters to “buy” their apartments and convert into a condo (reduces apartment vacancies, allows more renters to build equity and control housing costs)

* Price controls on rent increases or sale prices, especially for First-Time Buyers (e.g., 20% margin on a home’s cost for sale by builder but with a gov-backed loan, or restricting rent increases to local COLA or a 20% margin, whichever is lesser)

We have so many more options, and nobody wants to try anything because it’ll tank housing values across the board. The longer we wait to pop this metaphorical bubble, the worse it’s going to hurt, for longer.