Homes as a wealth vehicle has been the standing wisdom for a while. That being less and less true (by virtue of requiring a higher and higher degree of wealth to even play) is scary in that there isn't an immediately obvious alternative with nearly the same odds. Also scary in that a lot (a lot a lot) of rules have been written and enshrined with the assumption of that fading wisdom.
At what point does it cross a type of pandemic level where fighting it isn't the best strategy but mitigating it and finding alternatives is the only route forward?
Edit: Some people might have misunderstood what I said so here's what I mean: What we really want is states to force localities to reduce zoning restrictions on new construction
Phrasing this as "forced deregulation" is...not going to get people to recognize what you actually mean, because 95% of the time, when people say they want "deregulation," what they mean is they want big businesses to be allowed to exploit the middle and lower classes however the hell they want with no consequences.
If you do, in fact, mean specifically "reduce zoning restrictions on new construction", I suggest using phrasing like that, because it'll communicate your intention much more clearly. (If you don't, then I have misunderstood you, and apologize for the confusion.)
That's a claim you should be substantiating and not making a blanket statement about.
Basically anyone can just maliciously sue if they don't like a development and force a length environmental review process.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/signature-...
Also just as an aside, I'm in favor of large, expensive intervention for both climate change and the environment in general but Environmental review at least in California is basically worth nothing compare to investing a billion dollars in solar cell research or building a nuclear power plant.
Regulations are written in blood.
Regulations are written for a wide range of reasons- legitimate safety issues, quality of life concerns, propping up values, funneling money to groups favored by the politicians or bureaucrats crafting the rules, political grandstanding against imaginary problems, particular rules favored by coordinated special interest groups, etc.
I once lived in an area where several suburbs all met, you could drive a few blocks and cross imaginary lines separating different legal cities. They had different regulations for minimum lot size, how close structures could be to the property lines, how trees on the property needed to be handled, whether you could put two separate structures on one property, etc. Obviously none of these things impacted safety, but did impact density, home prices, etc.
Several years ago I read a German interview with a construction engineer who complained about the industrial lobby that pushes more and more regulations that, incidentally (/sarc), increase a (forced) demand for their products.
He gave several examples, of which I remember one. It is now law in Germany that new homes with French windows must have extra strong glass in them. The reason? What if a toddler on a tricycle ran into the glass and suffered serious injuries or death?
Now, said the engineer, there are no cases in Germany of this actually ever happening, or at least we do not have any records of them. But this what-if theoretical scenario increases construction costs of new German homes by a thousand euro or so. (And increases a basically guaranteed demand for products of a few certified safety glass vendors A LOT!) Take forty or fifty such extra requirements together and their cumulative effect on price of the finished home starts being significant.
But no one wants to be known as a potential child killer, so it is not worth opposing such measures.
The level of safety gained by such measures is nevertheless dubious. People didn't die in homes built to the less stringent standards of 1990 like flies.
get rid of the requirement for large lot sizes, and single-family residential-only zoning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization#Deregulation_...
>The securities that were so instrumental in triggering the financial crisis of 2007-2008, asset-backed securities, including collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) were practically non-existent in 1978. By 2007, they comprised $4.5 trillion in assets, equivalent to 32% of U.S. GDP.
There exist good arguments for the existence of rentals in some capacity. However, the rentier class have abused their power enough to distort the market in their favor without adequately maintaining their properties. Once property has decayed too much to provide an adequate return the owners are left with a few options: massive capital investment that they won't make back for ages and in many cities won't justify a rate hike, insurance fraud, go bankrupt and walk away clean leaving a toxic eyesore to rot while keeping the all the illgotten profits. Holding corporate stakeholders personally liable for their properties externalities, and management failures, would help chill the burgeoning rentier class buying up everything they can rent, flip, or airbnb without a thought about how their actions effect everyone else. Sure, people will take a bath on their misguided 'investments', but that's what happens in efficient markets. 90% of Americans shouldn't suffer so a small class of people can make gains out of inefficient distorted and government reinforced markets.
Development companies aren't innocent here either, the crap they get away with doing and not doing is insane and dangerous. I don't think regulation is the answer to developer fraud, instead I believing strengthening the rights of owners/tenants and funding actions against bad developers to chill the industry against taking shortcuts is a better solution. If a developer knows that their own house can get taken for cutting corners they're going to be very invested in doing things right, and having the paperwork to prove they did it right, the first time. Sure massive companies building cardboard boxes might go bust, but that's what we want in an efficient market right?
The question used to be pretty simple: "has a sufficient portion of the market been priced out to the extent that demand collapses"?
As we've seen in equities / derivatives (and increasingly, commodity) markets - the answer to that question is now perpetually "lol, number go up" because large investment banks have essentially infinite access to free money and will be bailed out if they get in trouble.
On a long enough timeline the end result of this is that more and more Americans write their rent checks to institutional investors. [1]
Sure, many Americans own their homes now (or have a nice cushion of equity). But what happens as wage growth continues to stay relatively flat while cost of living rises dramatically and folks need money for medical bills or their kid's college tuition (or w/e)? They sell and become renters.
There's a pretty bleak future for American housing absent regulation in this space.
[1] - https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/singl...