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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   29347 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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But each person who buys a house is taken out of the pool of would-be renters, so how is the shortage worse?

This argument presented is these people are buying formerly rented units, so those units are now forever denied to future renters. And also people occupy more square feet per person when buying than renting. And NIMBYism prevents significant amounts of new units, so we aren't going to build to make up for the loss.

Things just get a bit worse for renters. They get to fight over fewer rented square feet of living space.

people occupy more square feet per person when buying than renting

Thanks, that’s an interesting nuance that I missed. It seems to me like an unfortunate consequence of large mortgages and housing-as-assets in that people usually buy houses as a conscious investment now and take out large amounts of money to do so, thus they get as much as they think they can get away with. Houses for sale also tend to be built differently from rentals because people assume that owner occupiers are starting a family.

A larger, more flexible market with less borrowed money might reduce this problem. However, I concede that’s a self-serving assertion and I can’t back it up.

these people are buying formerly rented units, so those units are now forever denied to future renters

This argument only works if the majority of people are renters by choice, ie that the pool of buyers and the pool of renters are inherently separate. I don’t think they are. They appear to be because of financial pressure on house buying. If you assume that would be buyers and would be renters are mostly the same people, a house being bought by someone is no different from a house that is being rented by someone. It’s removed from the pot either way. If anything, it’s an argument for punishing people who buy too much, which is the underlying logic behind most anti-landlord resentment.

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