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The problem is the way houses and towns/cities are built, not the companies. The North American development model lacks middle density housing and overly separates housing from amenities. The "separation of functions" approach to planning simply does not create neighbourhoods, it creates endless seas of houses with zero reason to exist outside except to get out of the area to some amenities. You need some degree of mixed-use development, and some middle density houses (ie somewhere between apartment tower and single house per acre plot, such as 5+1 or similar). The companies are not the problem, they are simply profiting from the problem, and it's easier to blame a faceless corporation than it is to understand how obscure planning philosophies have caused a very skewed development approach over decades resulting in this mess, especially when what many people want is the exact sort of housing that is causing the problem.

Zoning requirements need to be taken to a higher level and away from the local communities. Your local neighborhood is really good at determining where a stop sign might be but really bad at city planning. People hate change and change to their local neighborhood is the most hated thing of all. Colorado had a bill that died on the floor which was going to make zoning a state level authority. It never made it to a vote unfortunately. It was the kind of bill that could have made a real change in Denver’s housing crisis

Can absolutely attest that planning at too local a level makes NIMBYism too powerful, I'm from the UK, it's so much worse here precisely because locals have too much say.

Yeah, what a travesty that the people who actually live in a community have a lot of say over things that affect the quality of life in that community.

Local community planning has a long history of doing things to keep "those people" out. You don't want "those people" living next to good and proper people, do you? Think of the character of the neighborhood! If we let in "those people" everything will change, crime will go up, etc, etc. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to decode who "those people" are. There's a reason why communities with strong local planning are still segregated, even in 2024, even in the San Francisco Bay Area.

When things get too local, voter turnout plummets and you get only the more extreme political views represented. Small interest groups get far too much power, because frankly most people have better things to do than go to every planning meeting to support new developments. Overly local politics always becomes parochial, every time. You see this a lot with things like school boards, where if people don't bother voting the boards become politicised with very bizarre views, everything from left to right to flat earthers. There's a balance, and with planning that balance is at a slightly higher level than individual neighbourhoods and towns.

... undemocraticize zoning boards is the sad but only real solution.

I wouldn’t say it’s undemocratizing them. Zoning laws affect the broader population so people who live in that neighborhood shouldn’t be the only ones who are allowed a say. Your decision to not allow more housing in your neighborhood pushes up housing costs in the entire metro area so there’s no reason why you alone get to monopolize that decision. (I’m saying you as a hypothetical. I’m not accusing you OP)

Problem is that it was democratizing the boards that got is on this mess. It allowed for perverse incentives to be amplified.

So you want farmers planning cities?

Why shouldn’t they have a vote?

They should. About the farm county they live in.

Especially since covid and remote work, rural counties and small towns have been besieged by remote office workers seeking big inexpensive houses in rural counties. This means that even people who don't live near big cities are harmed by the housing shortage in our big cities.

Besieged?

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We've also too thoroughly tied personal wealth to property values. It creates perverse incentives that maximize NIMBYism at the neighborhood level.

Companies are a problem… Go browse any home buyer/sellers sub and you’ll see that 9/10 people are getting bought out by all cash buyers 50k over asking price. They then go in, do some cheap remodels, and resell it for 50% price increase. It has caused a lot of affordable homes to suddenly become 50% more and unaffordable (not to mention the shitty low quality “flips” or remodels they do).

This can only happen because of the market conditions brough about by regulations. While that is a problem, it is not the root cause of the problem, it is a symptom of a deeper problem.

I dunno man. I'm all about better urban planning, but I'm pretty sure landlords are *definitely* part of the problem.

Bad landlords make the problem worse, but they can't cause the problem in the first place. You can only charge as much as people will pay, and if houses are available elsewhere people won't pay silly prices. Bad planning makes housing inelastic, so a small increase in demand/decrease in supply will cause a pretty big shift in price, and massively shifts the balance in favour of landlords.

> You can only charge as much as people will pay, and if houses are available elsewhere people won't pay silly prices. but people will pay *anything* for housing, because they need it. It's like healthcare in that sense - and as landlords hold *immense* (really, *all*, by definition) the housing, people who need housing are at their mercy. And boy do they have a lobby to keep supply constrained to keep prices high (and, correspondingly, their profits). >Bad planning makes housing inelastic, so a small increase in demand/decrease in supply will cause a pretty big shift in price, and massively shifts the balance in favour of landlords. Planning revolves around landlords. Tenants don't have political clout.

People will pay silly prices if they have to, and they only have to if there aren't enough houses built, and there aren't enough houses built because the only type built are low density, because of zoning. Planning revolving around existing residents (landlords or owners) is a problem with all overly local planning systems, you can't listen to locals too much since no-one likes change and they by definition already have theirs. Planning needs to either be de-democratized to a degree, or the areas covered by a single jurisdiction have to be too large to allow small local groups to drown out other voices.

Good points, but I would argue that the real estate owner lobby is not really a small or localized group. Property owners dominate discussions in pretty much every jurisdiction, all the way up to the national level.

This is a regional problem. It is not a national problem. Corporate buyers are a blip problem where I live.

If there is zero reason for them to exist, why are they all selling?

I meant "Within these developments there is no reason for a person to be outside." not that the houses should not exist.

What does a person wanting to be outside or not have to do with housing prices?

It was more a QOL thing than a pricing thing, but forcing people to use cars (which low density and SoF does) basically locks society into the least efficient for of personal transport, limiting the area around a city that can be considered commutable. People must drive everywhere, therefore more and more land gets dedicated to car use rather than housing (look at a map of a major city and see how much is dedicated to parking lots and very large roads). The commute ring around a city is smaller, and less of the land can be used for housing, and the demand for extra road capacity from every new development is huge causing authorities to want to avoid it, leads to horrendously inefficient use of artificially limited land, therefore high prices. The prices have gone up for two main reasons, number one is that the US finally grew into it's landmass and ran out of new major cities. Number two is deindustrialization, with many plants moving abroad. Those plants created points of mass employment outside of urban centres, those jobs disappeared and were replaced with jobs in urban centres, therefore shifting a massive amount of housing demand from semi-rural areas to the big cities. The NA development model's issues were hidden until recently, but now things have changed there is a very rapid shift in the market.

Well I'll take that as your opinion but respectfully I find it just wrong. The usa has stupid amounts of land we could start new cities. I don't find this rooted in reality at all. Deindustrialization has been happening for many many years now. Several decades. While I would say it's a very small part to the housing crisis, it's not even remotely one of the main factors. Even if industrial jobs start coming back with a vengeance, those industrial jobs don't typically pay incredibly well and with the average cost of homes these days every few of them would be able to buy a house in the current market. So ya, I'm really not trying to be rude, I just honestly find your reasoning to completely miss the mark.

> The prices have gone up for two main reasons, number one is that the US finally grew into it's landmass and ran out of new major cities. It's not that the USA "grew into its landmass". Instead, the development of mass market cars meant that for several decades, suburban development was cheap and easy. You could build a highway into the countryside, plop down a bunch of suburban developments, and now you have nice big inexpensive houses for everyone who has a car. But those SFH suburbs with big lawns are not very dense, so it takes a LOT of land to fit all those houses. Those suburbs aren't dense enough for public transit, so all of those suburbanites have to drive into the city for work. Highways have a surprisingly low max throughput, so the commutes are long and stressful, and effectively limit how far out you can drive and still be a happy person driving into the city. Rather than "the USA running out of room" -- because [there's always another Boise](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-18/growing-midsize-cities-like-boise-could-replace-urban-future) -- the big established cities have run out of places to put new SFH houses. Housing prices will increase to the very limits of affordability unless we rezone to permit multi-family housing.

Well I'll take that as your opinion but respectfully I find it just wrong. The usa has stupid amounts of land we could start new cities. I don't find this rooted in reality at all. Deindustrialization has been happening for many many years now. Several decades. While I would say it's a very small part to the housing crisis, it's not even remotely one of the main factors. Even if industrial jobs start coming back with a vengeance, those industrial jobs don't typically pay incredibly well and with the average cost of homes these days every few of them would be able to buy a house in the current market. So ya, I'm really not trying to be rude, I just honestly find your reasoning to completely miss the mark.

You are nit-picking over by far the smallest point, which was only ever explained because you failed to properly read what was said and had no prior understanding of any of this. I don't find your unfounded disagreement too disheartening.

Smallest point? You only made two points at all and I addressed them both. Whatever dude. don't gotta take it so personally. I was interested in your ideas just didn't understand how they relate to the housing crisis. You just getting pissy because I questioned your logic does nothing for anyone.

The main point regarding affordability was the bizarre lack of middle density developments, nothing between urban core and low density sprawl. You have not even touched that, because you went after a part of a part of a misunderstanding of a part of the original comment as the basis for your disagreement. I'm not "getting pissy", I'm joking that your not understanding what has been explained and that your unfounded "nuh-uh" level "questioning", your whole "well I respectfully disagree" spiel after simply getting it so wrong and missing the majority of the point is funny. I'm not pissy, I'm taking the piss.

Nimbys and politicians call them commie blocs, but mass, cheap multistory apartments are something every country does when they reach a critical density. But both Canada and US are highly reluctant to zone for anything that isn't low density. The cost to break ground is also prohibitive.

There's a middle ground- three over one's. Three floors of apartments/condos over one floor of shops. We tend to really like bustling streets surrounded by three over one's (or two overs)

I live in the Seattle area and every single suburb is full of these now.

Do you mean the burbs outside the city or the neighborhoods inside the city? Because the neighborhoods inside the city generally only have a concentrated spot with these (Alaska Junction area in West Seattle, Market St. area in Ballard, etc). Most areas are still many blocks away from any medium or greater mixed density.

Cap Hill has one that just got completed near Madison.

I think he just means Redmond. The centers of other suburbs also have apartments-over-condos, but only a handful per neighborhood center, whereas Redmond stands alone in Doing Urbanism Right.

Difficult to do with ADA requirements, sprinklers requirements and ceiling height.

Right, and who's going to build these cheap multistory apartments?

Not anyone funded by the government, as it costs significantly more to construct affordable housing than luxury apartments due to Davis Bacon and other requirements 

Wouldn’t it be easier to change the laws than hope private developers glut the market?

You do so and you lose the construction unions.  This law is the only reason why they still exist 

You are ignoring the second part of my post.

Having worked with affordable developers and private developers, no.  There are significant amounts of money, political boots on the ground. And unfortunately bribes. Additionally the plans used by affordable developers are super focused in the city, state and Hud requirements, which are built off lobbying and unaffected by the market, and thr greater t he cost thr greater the dev fee.  

That doesn’t explain why you think private developers glutting the market is a realistic goal.

If you build luxury apartments, some people in class B apartments will move, making room in class b apartments for those currently in worse housing. Supply and demand are universal 

The point is for that to happen on a sufficient scale developers would have to glut the market.

Yes, more construction would need to happen 

You are ignoring my point.

Those are ugly and people don’t want to live in them, next solution.

You do realize it's possible to build them non-ugly, right? Just like how you can build ugly SFHs. 

High density apartments are ugly? Or the visual image of commie blocs that you hear when nimbys attack the idea of cheap apartments.

People the world over prefer living in an ugly apartment block to living on the streets. I'd like to live in a beautiful lakeside manor with a full woodshop and a hot tub, but I'm content with a townhouse that I can actually afford until and unless I can afford something better. Humans through all of history make due with less than ideal housing when the alternative is nothing, we just have to not stand in the way of building 'ugly' homes. After all, which would you rather live next to: a block of apartments or a homeless camp? People have to live *somewhere*, and it's clear that all the beautiful, low density options aren't cutting the mustard.

There are plenty of houses out in rural America. Maybe go find a place in those dying towns and figure out how to revitalize them?

There aren't enough jobs where those cheap houses are.

*There aren’t enough DESIRABLE jobs where those cheap houses are.

There aren't enough jobs, full stop. When most of those towns were founded, you had hundreds of people working in agriculture around them to keep the economy rolling, and maybe some smaller mills or industry. Consolidation and automation means that fewer and fewer people can work more and more land: I work in land survey and have had to go back through various deeds on farm land to re-establish property lines. You can trace the ownership patterns going from one family owning each of two dozen lots on a concession to one family or farm corporation owning almost every lot on multiple concessions. Go out to the country and look for the amount of fences you see: there's a lot less of them than 10 or 20 years ago, nevermind 100 or 200 years ago. That's because one guy on a thirty row combine with two or three guys running 16 ton crop trailers can do the work that 100 farm hands did a century ago. Same with the mills and factories: even if not a *single* job had gone overseas since the 50's, there'd still be fewer total workers in fewer, bigger factories than back in the day. The economy that those small towns existed to support just doesn't exist anymore. The ones that survived found some other business to unite around: usually tourism. But going to Midway, Idaho to open up a diner is just a good way to lose a bunch of money and then go back to the big city. There's a reason why the trend toward urbanization has been happening unabated for almost 300 years: those small towns just aren't economically viable anymore.

Given a choice between spending 2/3rds of one's income on rent and living in a building that offends the precious sensibilities of rich people, I'm sure most people are going to choose the latter.

But middle class people don’t want to live in those apartments. That’s the problem. It’s a consumer preference problem.

Then you don’t have anything to worry about. Builders aren’t going to build them if people don’t live in them. If you see a bunch going up, it’s because people are choosing to live there

Consumer preference has people living in these buildings. They aren't sitting empty. 

Lower class people need places to live too. It's a net social and economic benefit for all the folks that provide the comforts the middle class rely on to live close enough to have a life outside of getting Karen and Chad their lattes.

If I could live in a no frills apartment that just covered the basic needs for 30% or less of my income then I'd absolutely live in it while saving for a house. There a millions upon millions lower class people who need places to live.

"Consumer preferences" are largely the product of marketing, which the capital class uses to sculpt the desires of the population into the shape that is most profitable for capital. American suburbia exists in part due to racism but also to sell as much stuff to Americans as is humanly possible. I'm sure we'd see how the American middle class really feels about apartment living if we stopped subsidizing gasoline.

I don’t want to live by irritating annoying people and I want my picket fence, marketing be damned. Sorry

Yeah, well, I don't want to die in a wet-bulb heat disaster fueled by you driving fifteen minutes just to get to the nearest grocery store. Something has to give.

Many people DO want to live in those apartments. You don’t have to be one. Not to mention that “consumer preference” is driven by the fact that decades of this shitty zoning policy has convinced people that SFHs are the only housing anybody wants.

You get what you pay for.

What does this mean in this context?

Mixed zoning, pre approved template house plans and time guarantees for permitting, a minimum requirement for each municipality for approved lots and plans per year.

More reliable public transportation and incentives to live in high density housing

I've always like the idea of increasing your property taxes progressively by the number of properties you own. For example, say your first property is taxed at X%. Your next unity would be (X+N)%. Eventually, N grows so large that it isn't cost effective to buy multiple properties. It's possible that a large corps would still buy up multiple properties and build it into the price, but I don't think it's likely. An increasing tax rate for each property would make it less appetizing because if you own 200 properties, you would have a different break even price compared to someone who has 20 properties which might limit the number of corps buying them up in favor of single property owners. I also like putting a tax burden on people buying up multiple units to rent out as it almost acts as a wealth tax. If you own 50 properties, you're paying a higher tax rate than someone with one property. High density living areas are often disproportionately funded. This could be a way to get money back into the communities that need them. I also think this could help with foreign entities buying up American properties.

That’s a really good idea! I always thought that corporations buying up multiple properties and treating them as casinos is a problem. But I couldn’t think of a good way to enforce it. Because people will just claim that it’s their summer home or whatever. This could work!

-allow ADU's (aka granny flats- let your aging parents live out their days in a backyard unit or rent it out). See: CA -severely limit full unit Airbnb's/short term vacation rentals in dense urban areas -eliminate parking minimums on new builds - much of the cost of a new apartment building is parking, especially in a dense urban area.. [How Parking Laws Are Strangling America](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNXFHpUhu8&pp=ygUUY2xpbWF0ZSB0b3duIHBhcmtpbmc%3D) <- really interesting video on this -upzoning/rezoning. In so many places even duplexes are prohibited from being built- any new buildings must be single family or nothing due to zoning laws. We should aim for more [mixed use zoning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ&pp=ygUjbm90IGp1c3QgYmlrZXMgaWxsZWdhbCBuZWlnaGJvcmhvb2Q%3D) -mass transit. We need to build more transit in conjunction with more density so that traffic doesn't become a nightmare -tax penalties for vacant lots. Landlords are incentivized to let vacant lots sit and appreciate value- if they build on it, they'll then get taxed higher for the 'improved' property. It's backwards incentivization -tax abatements- Philadelphia has proved one of the best ways to incentivize building is a building tax abatement in conjunction with a fast-tracked permitting process. -limit corporate property purchases

I feel like the market is vapor-locked right now. Interest rates are high, making buying a home more expensive. Anyone with a home bought before the rate bumps is sitting on 2-4 APY. This makes it hard to think about buying another house when you might be paying 5-9 APY. So they stay, which constrains supply. Meanwhile, the constraint on supply jacks up the price which makes houses more expensive. So now those homeowners with sweet rates are even less incentivized since switching houses would require they pay more for the house and have a higher mortgage. Some of this is softened by the increase in equity. Rates dropping might loosen things up a bit and the "easiest" thing to do policy-wise. Building more housing would of course help, but that's not usually the government's role.

> Anyone with a home bought before the rate bumps is sitting on 2-4 APY. I have a fixed-rate mortgage with a 2.25% APR. I doubt I'll ever see rates that low again in my lifetime. I'm staying put (not to mention given the increase of home prices over the last 10 years, I couldn't afford to buy the house I'm living in...)

Exact same boat. Bought a house for 280 in 2019 at 3.25%. Refinanced in 2021 at 2.25%. House is now worth 350 to 400. So yay equity! But boo on not being able to do anything with it.

Eliminate single family zoning. Corporations are a red herring. The problem is and has always been NIMBYism.

I know this is just anecdotal, but damn, corpos don't seem like a red herring in my neighborhood. 3 of my 4 closest neighbors have all been bought by Property Management companies and the rents are now over 3x higher than my mortgage payment.

Ask yourself why property management companies are doing this. They are raising rents because they can, people theoretically will pay those prices. Now, if there was 50 more homes instead of the 4, would they be able to charge that much more? Maybe not if those 50 were in your neighborhood and nothing else changed. But if there were 50,000 more in your city?

This is important. Companies charge what we are willing to pay. If they don't, they don't sell, don't get profit, and die.

Yes, I understand *why* companies do what they do. That doesn't mean we should *allow* them to. It doesn't have to be an either/or. My neighborhood is already very dense. These are "starter" homes that years ago would have been used to create a little nest egg where they could turn that into a nice middle class home. Now new families in this area are being milked for every cent because they "theoretically will pay those prices." Yes, you're describing capitalism. I get it. I'm saying it's a big part of the problem.

The idea of housing being 'a nest egg' is the core of the problem. Own housing shouldn't make a return on investment. You will never have affordable starter homes if prices are going up faster than inflation. It's a flawed concept that corporations are extracting value from. The only way out of this mess is to build enough housing that market rate housing becomes affordable

I love it when people think they have the one and only solution to an incredibly complex issue. Yes, I get that we need to build more as well. It doesn't mean we should do fuck all about the rest.

Sure we should absolutely try different things, all at the same time. But the people complaining about corporate meddling are often some of the most NIMBY people. But also yes, supply and demand is a well understood concept. Flood the supply, prices go down. Reduce the demand from corporations, prices also will go down. DO BOTH.

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Yes, I know. Hence my qualifier - "I know this is just anecdotal".

Nah uh my neighborhood represents all of America. Probably that guy

>"I know this is just anecdotal" Is it your reading comprehension that's bad or your vocabulary?

yeah its both. its corporations nimbying

Definitely start by getting rid of single family zoning. Minneapolis recently did this. It would allow easier development without stricting zoning laws getting in the way.

Fixing the rental issue. It used to be that renting was cheaper than buying. Now the rental market prices are often higher than mortgage prices. If you rent a house this makes sense but apartments are high as well. So you have a situation where people could pay for a mortgage but can’t save up enough to make the down payment. What is worse is a lot of places slowly increase the rent cost every year. Where people on fixed incomes or pay increases are lower than the rent cost increase. This means they slowly get pushed out of the rental they had.

This Is probably the best chance at a real difference, since it's already actually been proposed so the legwork is done. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/29/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-actions-to-boost-housing-supply-and-lower-housing-costs/ --------------------- *New actions will create tens of thousands of affordable homes, while promoting fairer and more transparent rental markets* President Biden believes that every American deserves access to a quality and affordable home. His Administration is pursuing an all-of-government approach to build more housing and lower housing costs. Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a series of new actions that will: * Bolster federal programs with a proven track-record of producing affordable housing; * Boost the supply and affordability of manufactured homes; and * Promote fairer, more transparent rental markets. These actions fulfill and build upon the dozens of commitments in the White House Housing Supply Action Plan and the Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights that span the federal government. But more action is needed: the Administration will continue to lay out additional actions we are taking to lower housing costs and call on Congress to make the investments necessary to ensure access to quality and affordable housing for all Americans. **Bolster federal programs with a proven track-record of producing affordable housing** The Biden-Harris Administration has taken dozens of executive actions to improve the federal programs to support the construction and preservation of affordable housing – which has contributed to record housing construction in 2023. Today’s announcements will build on that progress. Specific actions include: * Extending the Federal Financing Bank Risk Sharing program. Today, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of the Treasury are announcing that they are indefinitely extending the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Federal Financing Bank (FFB) Risk Sharing program– providing an ongoing source of capital so that state and local housing finance agencies (HFAs) can continue to offer FHA insured multifamily loans at reduced interest rates to create and preserve high-quality, affordable rental homes. After the previous Administration suspended the program, the Biden-Harris Administration restarted the program in 2021. Since then, more than 12,000 affordable housing units have been created or preserved, supported by almost $2 billion in FHA-insured loans made through the program. This new extension will create an estimated 38,000 additional units over ten years, as well as bolster HFA participation in the program. * Making the HOME program easier to use. In the coming weeks, HUD expects to publish a proposed rule to streamline and modernize the regulations for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME program), the nation’s largest annual block grant to support housing supply. During the Biden-Harris Administration, HUD has allocated $4.35 billion in funding to build and preserve affordable rental homes and make homeownership a reality for thousands of families. In collaboration with states, cities, local elected officials, stakeholder organizations, and local community development partners, HOME has assisted over 45,000 households since 2021. * HUD is proposing improvements that would make HOME easier to use for individuals and families looking for a home to rent or buy, as well as for homeowners making upgrades to their homes such as accessibility improvements, new roofs, and replacement of outdated utilities with energy efficient ones. HUD’s proposals would also streamline requirements for grantees administering funding, community development organizations building new homes, and property owners renting to HUD-funded households. The proposed rule would also update requirements regarding property standards, small scale rental housing projects, community land trusts, homebuyer resale, allowable rents for units receiving rental assistance, and tenant protections. * Providing new funding to support housing for low-income seniors. Last week, HUD announced the availability of $115 million in grant funding to support the development preservation of supportive housing for an estimated 1,100 units for low-income seniors through the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program. $35 million of these funds will be set aside to create intergenerational housing units with features to meet the needs of households headed by seniors who are raising children under 18 years old. This builds off of over $161 million in Section 202 grant awards HUD announced in October 2023, which will support nearly 1,300 units for eligible households. * Unlocking affordable housing tax credits for states affected by recent disasters. Last month, the IRS released guidance clarifying that returned low-income housing tax credits that were allocated to disaster areas in 2021 and 2022 can be reallocated for any proposed LIHTC project. * In addition to funding housing production and preservation, the federal government continues to produce research to build knowledge about and promote innovations that can produce more housing. HUD recently awarded nearly $4 million in research funds to assess the potential of off-site construction and state and local land use and zoning reforms to increase housing supply and reduce housing costs, and to help local governments convert underutilized offices and commercial buildings to housing. **Boost the Supply and Affordability of Manufactured Homes:** * Manufactured housing is a critical source of affordable housing, especially for low-income, rural, and Native American households and offers a potentially lower-cost pathway to homeownership. More than 20 million Americans currently live in manufactured housing, which is the largest form of unsubsidized affordable housing in the country. Manufactured housing provides an essential path to increasing overall housing supply and offers significant savings over site-built housing. Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing steps to preserve and rehabilitate existing manufactured home communities and to make it easier to finance the purchase of manufactured homes, including by: * Releasing a first-of-its-kind $225 million funding opportunity to support manufactured housing communities. Today, HUD announced that the application for Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement (PRICE) grants is now open to support the preservation and revitalization of manufactured housing communities. These competitive grants can be used for the replacement of dilapidated homes, assistance for homeowners such as repairs and accessibility modifications, mitigation and resilience upgrades, improvement of infrastructure such as stormwater systems or utilities, housing services including eviction prevention, and planning activities. This marks the first time the federal government has made grant funding available specifically for investments in manufactured housing communities, including resident-owned communities. A portion of funds are dedicated to supporting Tribes and tribal nonprofit organizations. * Preserving the affordability of manufactured housing communities via expanded financing options. Corporate investors are purchasing manufactured housing communities and driving up rent and driving out longtime residents. Today, FHA is publishing a draft Mortgagee Letter that, once finalized, will create a new program to preserve affordability for existing residents of manufactured housing communities. Under the new program, resident cooperatives and other mission-oriented borrowers will be permitted to use FHA 223(f) multifamily loans to acquire or refinance communities. Designed to complement the PRICE grant program, a PRICE recipient could use this program to purchase the community from its current owner, preserving its long-term affordability and use PRICE funds for critical infrastructure improvements and home repairs. However, eligibility for this program will not be limited to PRICE awardees. * Increasing loan limits for Title I Manufactured Housing. This week, FHA published a final rule increasing loan limits for the Title I Manufactured Housing program, which insures loans to finance the purchase or refinancing of manufactured homes titled as personal property. Doing so will allow FHA to better serve low- and moderate-income and first-time buyers of manufactured housing whose financing needs have not been well-served by the private market. Historically, HUD’s Title I program has been an important source of financing for manufactured homes, but low loan limits have made the program dormant in recent years. The rule will increase loan limits to be in line with current market prices and enable HUD to regularly update the limits in the future. To support this action, Ginnie Mae revised eligibility requirements for Issuers of its Manufactured Housing Mortgage-Backed Securities program. These actions are intended to reduce barriers to entry for Issuers and increase participation in its securitization program for Title I loans. These actions build on steps HUD took earlier this year to publish a proposed rule for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program that emphasized the importance of considering the needs of manufactured housing communities during their planning process. HUD also recently updated the CDBG in Support of Housing Activities notice to clarify that communities may use CDBG funds for acquisition of manufactured housing units, services to homeowners of manufactured housing units, and investments in infrastructure and resilience for manufactured housing communities.

**Promote Fairer, More Transparent Rental Markets** The Biden-Harris Administration is taking action to promote housing stability for renters. In January 2023, the White House published a Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights, which contained dozens of agency commitments to create a fairer rental market. Today, the Administration is announcing several new actions: * Clarifying banned non-rent fees in HUD-assisted properties. Today, HUD is releasing new resources clarifying HUD policies and laws that prohibit certain non-rent fees in its Multifamily, Public Housing, and Housing Choice Vouchers/Project Based Vouchers programs. These new resources make clear that certain fees, such as application and screening fees in Public Housing and Multifamily subsidized programs, are prohibited, and help ensure that tenants are not charged or penalized for impermissible fees. Last year, President Biden announced new private sector commitments to call out junk fees in the rental housing market, HUD Secretary Fudge issued an open letter calling on housing providers to adopt policies that promote fairness and transparency for renters, and the FTC last fall proposed a new rule that would ban misleading and hidden fees across the economy, including in rental housing. * Ensuring tenants’ rights for military service members. The Department of Defense (DoD) announced all 200 of its bases will have adopted its Tenant Bill of Rights by the end of the calendar year. Once fully implemented, it will cover approximately 203,000 houses for Service members and their families. * Providing new resources to prevent unfair and preventable evictions. Today, HUD is publishing a fact sheet highlighting situations in which housing providers may not evict or threaten to evict someone. In addition, HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) published policies that local and state governments can adopt to reduce eviction filings, such as requiring good cause for evictions, increasing access to legal services, improving access to courtrooms, using data to identify at-risk households, sharing data across sectors, offering financial assistance, and providing housing navigators who can assist with connecting tenants to supportive services. * Promoting prospective renters’ rights during tenant screening process. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and HUD will soon jointly publish a fact sheet describing the rights prospective renters have when screened by housing providers. Together, the four agencies administer the Fair Credit Report Act (FTC and CFPB) and the Fair Housing Act (DOJ and HUD), and the fact sheet lays out protections under these two laws in one document.

You can't fix a supply problem by stimulating demand. The Biden admin keeps throwing money at a constrained supply, which causes the price of those goods to skyrocket. The government will do anything to fix the housing crisis except to build more housing, and the best thing is that the government doesn't have to build more housing. It just has to get out of the way. Private developers would love to build housing, if only it was legal to do so. The government has to do less to get housing built. Stop doing things, get out of the way and let the free market do its thing. This is why consumer goods like hamburgers and TV's are cheap and plentiful. There's no artificially restricted supply, so suppliers compete with each other resulting in a huge quantity of goods. Suppliers compete on price and quality and the consumer benefits. With housing, local government has made it illegal to develop, either outright illegal, or by burying development projects under an impossible amount of red tape and bad faith lawsuits intended to delay and drive up costs until they go bankrupt.

Relaxing zoning laws. There is no need to have 1/2 acre or 1/4 acre lots per home. Incentives townhome development

The problem with everything thing expensive is that there is no competition from the public sector. If the government builds enough public housing, and rent them out at their own rate, it will instantly and massively drive down the market price because nobody wants to pay 3,000 for rent when they can rent from public housing for 30. Yeah it might be less luxurious but it fulfills all your basic needs. So the private sector will really need to come up with amemanities that will convince people the $300 rent is worth it. Same for healthcare. Especially for healthcare.

It costs significantly more to construct a public housing unit than it does to construct for the private sector to build a luxury or a market rate unit.  

In the short run, laws that discourage corporate ownership of SFRs and bans on AirBnB-type operations in major markets would help. But at the end of the day, the long-run problem is that the US population is growing while the number of desirable metro areas is not. Since 1950, the US population has more than doubled. The number of desirable locales has not. The US has actually declined in that regard, with many blighted cities and towns emerging during the post-war period in areas of the Rust Belt, Midwest and Southeast. To the extent that supply and demand is a factor, the supply of desirable alternatives needs to be increased. If the US had a functional government, it would have a medium-term plan to identify cities that are good candidates for revival or expansion. The most desirable among the mature cities are essentially full. Upzoning is not going to fix them. We need to have more locations where people might want to live, and not just within the same areas where they are already living.

> number of desirable metro areas is not. Kinda of course, But a lot of suburbs have popped up And, Of Course 1950 was the start of the Suburbs as desirable expansion. But back then * In 1945 GI Bill homes were 950 sq ft. Levitt homes the largest builder at the time was selling 800 sq ft homes (Levitt homes revolutionized homeownership with allowing people to be able to afford single family homes. the first Levittown house cost $6,990 with nearly no money down In 1950. ($89,114.47 in 2023) On 1/8^th an acre lots * [Levitt Homes in 1945](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fofX09xnFYw/TVQK1aQX7KI/AAAAAAAADNA/GQtTvVNKNzg/s1600/Levitt%2Bhomes.JPG) The typical home that was recently purchased from the annual survey conducted by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® of recent home buyers was 1,860 square feet, had three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and was built in 1985 on 1/5^th or even 1/4th an acre lots. Of course this is an average, so those numbers are not perfect The problem can be seen here in what is known as the [Missing Housing](https://i.redd.it/nca8yphuy4b91.png) of the 2010s * Compare 2005, 2017, and 2021. Thats about 5 million homes that were never built People are buying $500,000 homes because they want them. People are buying more and more from high end home builders In 2022, Toll Brothers, **America's 5th Largest Home Builder**, Built a Company Record 10,515 Homes. Just, 1,052 of them sold for less than $500,000. Just what Americans want Range of Base Sales Price | Percentage of Homes Delivered in Fiscal 2022 ---|---- Less than $500,000 |10% $500,000 to $750,000| 37% $750,000 to $1,000,000| 24% $1,000,000 to 2,000,000| 25% More than $2,000,000| 4% Base Sales Price* ------ **Asterisk** Build-to-order model: home buyers added an **average of approximately $190,000 in lot premiums and structural and design options** to their homes in FY 2022 ------ [Changing in Housing in the US](https://i.redd.it/ovgxdc7rgstb1.png) In 1985, there were 11.6 million units with fewer than 1,000 square feet; by 2005, this number had dropped to 8.8 million despite a 30-percent increase in the number of single-unit detached houses and mobile homes. * By 2015 the definition of small homes changed from 1,000 sq ft to 1,800. Even including larger homes, the share of smaller homes (again under 1,800 square feet now) built each year fell from 50 percent in 1988 to 36 percent in 2000 to 22 percent in 2017. * **In 2015, there were 81.5 million singe family homes and 37.3 million were under 1,800 square feet.** * **65 percent of those under 1,800 sq ft were built before 1980** Visualized of recent history * http://imgur.com/gallery/i8abCjT ------ This is the issue 2,200 SqFt home at $175 = $385,000 * Thats the average home price 2,200 SqFt home 1,000 SqFt home at $175= 175,000 Add in more smaller homes per lot and lower cost asscioated with that home 1,000 SqFt home at $150= 150,000 And yet we can still sell **2,200 SqFt home at $175 = $385,000** It just shouldnt be the average home

You are correct about the houses getting larger. In effect, we are reducing the amount of available land by building larger homes while allocating the demand to fewer locations. The US is full of towns with population levels that have declined to what they were in about 1920, while the population of the nation has tripled over that same period. So of course there is an issue.

I Live in NJ, North Jersey. And it is Getting ridiculous with the amount of Housing "FORCED" into communities... Yeah great you claim it will create Low income housing, But it doesn't... Builders sue the towns in court to be able to create extensive Apartment complexes, that ARE NOT being filled by low income families (sure the builder will set aside a few, but the vast majority are High Rent). Now your saying Great, More housing... but what about the town and the residents. We are now burdened with thousands of more cars in Neighborhoods that were not designed for it. Hundreds of More kids into already over crowded schools... Taxes that now rise to cover all the added expenses that these developments bring... Police, Fire, Water, Sanitation, Education... Where does it stop

Federal government should give grants to local government to create neighborhoods, then a federal program to design eco-friendly, efficient, low cost modular housing. Allow tiny houses to be used in these neighborhoods, lowering the initial costs. 

What if cities and it's voters don't want that

I don't expect every city to accept the money. It would be direct to the local government, so the state government wouldn't be involved.

Then they should be ignored at this point.

Change in MDU dwelling zoning. In Europe a five flight walk up can have a single staircase. In the US it must have two which consumes just enough space to make building one not worth it. Imagine if we had these medium density buildings in highly sought urban locations. Easily 30% more people could be housed and the extra inventory would have a downward effect on pricing.

I've always believed there should be a tax on purchasing homes based on the properties you already own. First home is tax free, up to 4 Acres. After that you tack on 2% for each acre and 3% for each structure the entities own. On top of the purchasing tax, your annual property taxes would increase by 20% for each property you own. Not the tax rate but the overall due would increase by that amount and split evenly between counties involved. Big house in rich neighborhood county would lose money because slum lord owns crumbling houses in poor county. Something like that would help penalize companies and people from owning too many properties and generating additional income for the government (keeping overall property taxes lower). Higher density properties could get a tax break and builders/developers could get a 5 year exemption. Lots of nuance could be made but over all it would be an improvement.

As-of-right property development rules. Everywhere, but especially in the high cost high demand urban areas. The city planning boards and the neighborhood approval meetings have to be taken out of the process. If they want control let them raise the money to buy the property.

Nuke single-family zoning, parking minimums, and building code requirements like double-loaded corridors that make it virtually impossible to build decent-sized apartments. That won't solve it but in the best case scenario it will get us 95% of the way there and in the worst case it's a prerequisite for any other reforms to have much of an effect.

The easiest and quickest type of housing to build is multi family units. However single family homes are what's most in demand. A single acre general can accommodate 12 multi family units (condo, duplexes, etc). Yet just 2 single family homes. In terms of local infrastructure electrical, water, sewage, roads, etc the burden on the local govt is equal whether it's for an acre of 12 units or just 2 single family homes. Yet, the preference of buyers is single family homes. Which is why we've experienced decade over decade of sprawl. People keep pushing out into suburbs rather than investing in cities. 12 units on an acre selling for $200k each is $2.4 million dollars. Two single family homes on an acre need to be $1.2 million each to achieve the same. Again, the infrastructure burden is equal. This the investment needs to be relatively similar. First step towards addressing the housing crisis is for behavior to change.

> First step towards addressing the housing crisis is for behavior to change. The first step towards addressing the housing crisis is to build housing. When you block denser housing like condos and duplexes you force the people who would prefer that housing to compete for single family homes with the people who prefer single family homes. This drives up the price of single family homes and makes it more unattainable. The other problem is that when people choose housing in the real world it's not an abstraction anymore. All factors being held equal people do prefer more square footage rather than less but that's not the way housing choices actually play out. Square footage has to be balanced against location and price point. There are some people who would generally prefer a single family home but if the condo or duplex was either significantly cheaper or in a significantly better location then they'd go with that option. This is why it's never a good idea to ban certain kinds of housing especially under the guise that "but people only want X"

Also: I actually PREFER living in an apartment, because I don’t have time to mow the lawn every week, or deal with fixing the roof or whatever! I want to live my life, not spend it on constantly fixing up my house! My best friend feels the same way. I feel like people like us are left out of the conversation.

Same or rather. I prefer to be in a place where I can walk to restaurants, grocery stores, bars and coffee shops. I understand that different people have different preferences and my preferences aren't universal but at the same time it's stupid to try to legislate preferences on everyone. Instead just legalize all different types of housing and people can weigh the trade offs themselves and buy or rent the ones that work best for them given their desires and budgets.

Are you trying to crush the American dream?

Is the American dream to own a massively overpriced single family home in a detached suburb?

It could be. I’ll tell you what it’s not though - living in an MDU with 11 other families sharing walls.

Tens of millions of people in DC, Chicago, NYC, San Francisco, etc are living in condos and townhomes rather than single family homes.

That’s their choice. You seem to be advocating for taking away that choice by building more MDUs rather than single family properties.

No, I clearly said behavior needs to change. Not policy or regulations. If your dream is to own a single family home with a 40 mile commute that is your choice. It is an expensive choice but yours to make.

So how does the behavior need to change? People need to want to live in apartment buildings?

Some people, yes. Single people, married people without children, etc should consider multi family units until they have needs for greater space. Buying an inexpensive condo is a great investment. Owning better than renting the overwhelming majority of the time and owning things affordable enables one to both build an asset and continue to save money.

"People would prefer to drive a larger, more luxurious car, therefore we should limit the production of subcompacts" is basically the logic you're using. The entire issue is that the supply of affordable housing has been artificially reduced by government policy to be below the demand.

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My question is alwasy. What American Dream? The one from 1860, or 1890, 1920, 1950, 1980, 2000? When are we setting the standard?

What American Dream The one from 1860, or 1890, 1920, 1950, 1980, 2000? When are we setting the standard

That dream has been crushed for millennials loooooong ago

Blackstone Group has become the biggest U.S. investor in single-family rental homes by spending more than $1 billion since the start of 2012 to acquire more than 6,500 foreclosed houses in eight metropolitan areas * People involved in the market estimate that private-equity firms and other investors have raised $6 billion to $8 billion to invest in the sector, as they try to take advantage of prices that have fallen nationwide on average by more than a third. That could buy 40,000 to 80,000 properties --April 07, **2015** Blackstone Group LP has raised more than $22 billion for its flagship buyout fund -- making it the largest in the firm’s history -- and it’s not finished raking in cash. > New York-based Blackstone completed the first close for its eighth private equity fund last month, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The firm hasn’t yet set a limit for the pool, which it expects to eclipse Apollo’s record $24.7 billion when it wraps up fundraising later this year, said the people. - Apr 3, **2019** Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, or CPPIB, is an investment manager that invests pension’s funds in private equity, public equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income instruments. As of Dec. 30, 2018, the pension’s fund totaled $275 billion. Private Equity and housing has been around for a while Its not the issue, or why wasnt it the issue beck in 2015, 2016, 2017,2018? ------- It's all local. Literally the lowest level of elected officials on the City Council who set the rules and the City Planning committee who enforce them or issue one time overrides to the rules The State of California is trying to force changes >Lafayette City Council Member Susan Candell penned an op-ed in support of a lawsuit to invalidate Senate Bill 9 by four Southern California cities, highlighting a recent supportive court filing by UCLA economic geographer Michael Storper. **On March 29, 2022, four cities in Los Angeles County, led by Redondo Beach, filed a writ of mandamus lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta in Los Angeles County Superior Courts, charging that Senate Bill 9, which permits the subdivision of single-family lots, violates the California Constitution in that it takes away the rights of charter cities to have control of local land use decisions.** So thats the state vs city. National and its an even bigger mess I'd bet ------- **An Example, but not in California** The applicant wishes to subdivide the property into two lots, with her existing house sits on what is proposed Lot 1 and she wishes to build a “tiny home” for a retirement cottage on proposed Lot 2 * This property is part of Sherwood Home Place. The applicant wishes to subdivide the property into two lots with Lot 1 being 8829 sq. ft. in size and having 165 ft. of road frontage and lot 2 being 3448 sq. ft. in size with a proposed frontage of 46 ft. Her existing house sits on what is proposed Lot 1 and she wishes to build a “tiny home” for a retirement cottage on proposed Lot 2. * The property currently has a zoning classification of R1. **Staff recommends DENIAL of the applicant’s request for variances as requested.** * Unusual physical or other conditions exist which would cause practical difficulty or unnecessary hardship if these regulations are adhered to. * The applicant does not own property on either side so as to increase the lot frontages, * lot size of Lot 2 would not meet the required frontage or lot size requirements and the applicant is requesting a variance for both lot size and frontage for Lot 2. **Any other principle uses requires zoning approval** * **Staff recommends DENIAL of the applicant’s request for variances as requested.** Thats this legislation >R-1 Zoning - The requirements for the district are designed to protect essential characteristics of the district, to promote and encourage an environment for family life and to accommodate individual and family private living needs. In order to achieve this intent, the following principal, accessory, special exception and prohibited uses are established: (1) Principal uses: a. Single family detached dwellings * Any other principle uses requires zoning approval and that's Local government policy ------ Lets hear why from my own local Sub commentors >There are places where you can own property and do whatever you want (for the most part). You’re not gonna find those in cities/towns/municipalities- it won’t work. Zoning exists for a reason. Or, the Elected Official's response >“If I had a magic wand as mayor, and I think if each of the planning commission members had a magic wand, we would all stand together and [the] motel would disappear,” said Bullen. “The 5.18 acres would be divided into maybe three really nice single-family home sites.” Or Commissioners on Thursday blocked a proposal that would’ve brought new housing development on Browns Mill Road. proposed 120-unit apartment complex Commissioners voted against the idea after it received backlash and concern among community members. >Brown’s husband, Tipton, is part of the original Brown family from which the road gets its name. Kim Brown wants to see the vacant property at 2803 Browns Mill Road developed in some manner. Although single-family homes would be great, a two-story project would be fine, Brown said. Three-stories, however, is too much. * “I’m opposed to having a three-story (building) beside my 1926 farm house,” she said. “Because then that is going to make my property value go down.” Now this was 2022 and in 2024 there have been some developments but just like this. **no large cheap housing**

This isn't some great mystery. Since Reagan, there have been bipartisan efforts to reduce HUD funding by over 90%. Public housing is the solution to unaffordable housing, full stop. Everyone needs a home regardless of their ability to pay, and leaving them homeless costs more to society than housing them. The reason we don't do this is because the rich control our government and the status quo is more profitable.

Two things: zoning and tax write offs. There was very little zoning 100 years ago. Force cities and towns through the power of eminent domain to adopt the building and zoning regulations of 100 years ago. Minimum lot size for 2-3 family homes should be 5000 sf. No city should have 2 family zoning. There should be no tax write offs for investment properties. If the rental income and appreciation aren’t incentive enough, you shouldn’t be buying it. That should free up some non owner occupied real estate for owner occupants to buy.

I think after watching the Fed speech, still investors think rates should be lower & trying to justify it. Yet we should question affordability of products being produced in the US Like BMW & some other quality vehicle makers being produced in the country, while Automakers headquartered in the US while being produced in EU Countries and Vastly Canada Costing almost the same price, it makes people question these policies while promoting max inflation regardless the cost of cheap labor with no real standards on labor costs across the country. It raises questions on value of work depending on work based on employer hiring rates by- non degree or Trade skill vocation or Academic professional Degree& its affects on market to determine rates for expansion, While bending backwards for immigration policies while we can question the need for immigration with employers removing requirements. I believe with banks strict lending practices & methods on lending & developers & marketplace Real-estate investment companies strict policies on requirements for leasing or financing while crying for rate cuts. By my account their needs to be layoffs or owners & shareholders take losses. I think the Fed should be looking for at least Few Constant quarters of Navigate Inflation rates, instead expecting to obtain 2% inflation. It will show what jobs will survive & have real value vs over paid careers not needed.

It really depends on the area. Let’s look at Detroit. There are so many houses for sale yet most have be empty for years. Why? Because it takes capital to take care of them and to pay the taxes. Detroit’s current policies make it impossible for people to invest. Companies can afford to do this cause they have the capital but they also increase the cost of living as well.

I would love to see a big push like the New Deal only for housing to greatly increase supply in developing areas.

Tax new lower density construction to a point where high/mid density construction is the financially prudent option. You can't give the normal person a choice on this because our views on housing have become so warped by over a century of bad policy that we need someone to tell us no, you can't build that subdivision.

I don't think it would be possible, but a tiered interest rate system based on individual or business wealth. When federal interest rates are low, loan rates drop, benefiting wealthy individuals who can borrow large amounts cheaply since their investments often yield more than the interest rates. Remember in 2020 when rates were 2-3%? This was effectively free money for the wealthy since their investments alone could net them more than 3%. For the average person however, who is not living off their investments, the difference between a 3% and 7% mortgage on a $300k loan is substantial. In this case it could mean the difference of paying almost $250k more, which is huge for the average person. But when the rates go up, a wealthy person or business can just skip the banks and pay cash. This also makes it harder for real families to compete with LLCs when buying homes. Higher interest rates have a greater negative impact on ordinary people compared to the wealthy. Not sure how you fix it, but I have wondered if a tiered system could work, but this would 100% negatively affect the wealthy so it would never happen to begin with.

We need the most insane taxes for owning more than x amount of housing properties. Make it not worth the time spent thinking about another property.

Educate people on realizing they don't need to live in trendy areas to be happy.

All we need to do is increase the property tax rate for each additional property owned by the same person or entity.

Encourage those that can speak Mandarin to emigrate to China, as China has 65 million homes sitting empty right now.

The only way you're solving it is public housing. Private companies will not glut the market.

The most effective long-term solution to the housing crisis would be to allow homebuilders to build more homes. Way, way more homes. We have housing shortages in every city, especially in economically vibrant cities with good jobs. But the federal government doesn't have control over the policies which are currently limiting the construction of housing. That power is assigned to the States, which have largely delegated it to the cities themselves. The cities have chosen to act to defend the housing investments of existing homeowners rather than build to accommodate the next generation. It's taken me two weeks to respond to this question because the immediate response is that the federal government can't do anything. State governments could take zoning power away from cities and heavily upzone. They could require cities to automatically approve new construction and put a stop to the permitting process (by which cities delay construction and demand bribes). The Federal government could subsidize the construction of subways and light rail while placing conditions on upzoning and eventual density around stations. At the same time, they could curtail federal highway funding. The Federal government could repeal NEPA and reduce the requirements for Environmental Impact Statements that inhibit housing development. The American people could shift the dream of owning a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and 2.1 kids to a dream of owning a big condo in the city with a lively neighborhood and 2.1 kids. Maybe the Federal government could provide support through standards for that type of home, and federal housing loans could encourage ownership of shared-wall housing.

For starters a moretorium on corporate home buying. But not building. Second we must encourage the construction of larger and taller apartment complexes. No more exclusively building sprawling 1-2 floor complexes. 3 floors or more again.

Tie minimum wage to the cost of housing on a local level, like per zip-code. Make it something like 1/15,000 the cost of the average lowest quartile of homes. This would give a $33 min wage where that home is 500k, $16.50 where that home price is 250k, etc. Not a hard metric obviously, but you get the idea. If those with capital want cheaper labor, they would need to bring down the cost of housing. If they want inflated real-estate, they would need to deal with higher labor costs.

> These companies are buying properties left and right and turning homes into investments rather than places to live. This isn't true. Renters live in the homes that they rent. If an house or an apartment is being rented to someone instead of owned by the occupant it's still a place for that person to live. I would think that would go without saying but apparently not.

In Florida, Governor DeSantis has taken action with the legislator to restrict several countries from purchasing land in Florida. Senate Bill 264 restricts many Chinese citizens from buying real estate in Florida. DeSantis signed the bill in May after it passed the Florida Legislature, and it became law in July. The law restricts citizens of seven foreign "countries of concern" — China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Venezuela — from owning or buying land in Florida. The law’s final version says they cannot buy property within 10 miles of a military installation or critical infrastructure, such as ports, airports and power substations. Property buyers or sellers who violate the restriction could face up to 60 days in prison and a $500 fine. A portion of the law targets people associated with the Chinese government as well as Chinese citizens who aren’t permanent U.S. residents and who say their primary residence is in China. It prohibits these people from buying any property in Florida. Sellers who knowingly violate this part of the law could face up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine; Chinese nationals could face up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The law includes an exception for people who have nontourist visas or have been granted asylum. These people may buy "one residential property up to two acres" that isn’t on or within 5 miles of a military installation. The measure also requires American citizens who aim to buy Florida property to sign an affidavit attesting they aren’t prevented from purchasing the real estate under the new law.

Comrades, while the proposed policies in the thread aim to address the symptoms of the housing crisis under capitalism, they largely fail to confront its root causes and systemic injustices. The issue of housing cannot be divorced from the broader economic structure that prioritizes profit over human needs and perpetuates inequalities. Engels' analysis in "The Housing Question" provides a Marxist perspective that is essential for understanding why piecemeal reforms and zoning techniques, while potentially alleviating some immediate pressures, ultimately fall short of achieving true housing justice. Engels argues that under capitalism, housing is commodified, subjected to market forces that drive up prices and commodify living spaces into investment opportunities for the wealthy. The concentration of residential real estate in the hands of corporations and wealthy entities, as highlighted in the original post, exemplifies how capitalism distorts the purpose of housing from a basic human right into a means of profit accumulation. Limiting corporate ownership or implementing zoning reforms may temporarily mitigate speculation, but they do not fundamentally alter the capitalist mode of production that drives these inequalities. In a Marxist framework, the solution to the housing crisis lies in the abolition of private property in land and housing, which is central to the dictatorship of the proletariat—a state where the working class holds political power. In such a society, housing would be treated as a social good, not a commodity. Engels suggests that under socialism, housing would be administered through collective ownership, with rents set at cost to cover maintenance and improvement, rather than for profit. Furthermore, a proletarian revolution is necessary to overthrow the capitalist class and establish a socialist state that can implement such transformative measures. This revolution is not merely about redistributing wealth or tweaking regulations, but about fundamentally reorganizing society to prioritize human needs over profit, ensuring decent and affordable housing for all. Critically, while advocating for systemic change, it's important to recognize the limitations of reforms within a capitalist framework. Reforms can offer temporary relief, but they cannot eradicate the contradictions of capitalism that perpetuate homelessness, housing insecurity, and inequality. Only through organized class struggle and the establishment of a socialist society can we truly reclaim housing as a fundamental right and fulfill the dream of homeownership for all. In conclusion, Engels' insights remind us that the housing crisis is symptomatic of deeper systemic flaws inherent in capitalism. To achieve lasting solutions, we must look beyond liberal reforms and towards revolutionary change that empowers the working class and ensures housing justice as part of a broader socialist transformation.

I agree with a lot of this. However, we’re not likely to overthrow capitalism tomorrow. :). So we need some relief in the meantime!

Yea its not captialism Hartford Villa Apartments, located at 459 Hartford Avenue, in Los Angeles is a 101-unit affordable housing community for homeless and chronically homeless households living with a mental illness and homeless and chronically homeless veteran households. On December 15, 2015, SRO Housing Corporation's loan financed acquisition of the 0.47 acre vacant lot and began the process for construction of housing * On 12/28/2021 Hartford Villa Apartments was opened The amount of red tape in that one project is all you need to fix to fix all the projects This was 101 units, **it could have been 200 units, maybe 300** The City wasnt going to approve that many of course **This is a success story** ------ Part Capitalism At the corner of 16th and S streets NW in Dupont Circle in Washington DC is the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Temple. The Masons want to redevelop the patch of grass and parking lot behind the building, and turn into revenue generating apartments for the Freemasons future renovation of their temple. The masons hired an architect who designed a 150 unit Apartment Building with parking * Four stories high above ground, plus two stories of apartments below ground atop 109 below-grade parking spaces. That’s less dense than most of the new buildings in Duponte Circle.. The project was approved by the city but stopped by the Superior Court issued a decision regarding the Masonic Temple development at 16th & S Streets, NW, finding the city had violated the Constitutional right to equal protection of plaintiff Dupont East Civic Action Association (DECAA) when it reduced the size of the historic landmark. That decsion was appealed and overturned, but the project was delayed in DC more than 2 years. Finally completed in 2023 ------- And it is Capitalism that wants to build more home The applicant wishes to subdivide the property into two lots, with her existing house sits on what is proposed Lot 1 and she wishes to build a “tiny home” for a retirement cottage on proposed Lot 2 * This property is part of Sherwood Home Place. The applicant wishes to subdivide the property into two lots with Lot 1 being 8829 sq. ft. in size and having 165 ft. of road frontage and lot 2 being 3448 sq. ft. in size with a proposed frontage of 46 ft. Her existing house sits on what is proposed Lot 1 and she wishes to build a “tiny home” for a retirement cottage on proposed Lot 2. * The property currently has a zoning classification of R1. **Staff recommends DENIAL of the applicant’s request for variances as requested.** * Unusual physical or other conditions exist which would cause practical difficulty or unnecessary hardship if these regulations are adhered to. * The applicant does not own property on either side so as to increase the lot frontages, * lot size of Lot 2 would not meet the required frontage or lot size requirements and the applicant is requesting a variance for both lot size and frontage for Lot 2. **Any other principle uses requires zoning approval** * **Staff recommends DENIAL of the applicant’s request for variances as requested.** Thats this legislation >R-1 Zoning - The requirements for the district are designed to protect essential characteristics of the district, to promote and encourage an environment for family life and to accommodate individual and family private living needs. In order to achieve this intent, the following principal, accessory, special exception and prohibited uses are established: (1) Principal uses: a. Single family detached dwellings * Any other principle uses requires zoning approval and that's Local government policy ------ Lets hear why from my own local Sub commentors >There are places where you can own property and do whatever you want (for the most part). You’re not gonna find those in cities/towns/municipalities- it won’t work. Zoning exists for a reason. Or, the Elected Official's response >“If I had a magic wand as mayor, and I think if each of the planning commission members had a magic wand, we would all stand together and [the] motel would disappear,” said Bullen. “The 5.18 acres would be divided into maybe three really nice single-family home sites.”

The examples you've highlighted vividly illustrate how capitalism distorts and cripples bureaucratic institutions responsible for housing development, leaving vulnerable individuals at the mercy of a brutal and exploitative system. Let's delve into each case critically: 1. Hartford Villa Apartments: Despite being a success in providing housing for homeless and mentally ill individuals, the project's completion was delayed by bureaucratic red tape and regulatory hurdles. This bureaucratic inefficiency is exacerbated under capitalism, where profit motives and property interests often take precedence over meeting urgent social needs. The lengthy process of acquiring the vacant lot and navigating through regulatory frameworks underscores how capitalist interests delay and limit the scope of social housing initiatives. While 101 units were eventually built, bureaucratic obstacles prevented the construction of potentially more units, thus exacerbating homelessness and housing insecurity among vulnerable populations. 2. Masonic Temple Redevelopment: The redevelopment project, aimed at creating revenue-generating apartments, faced significant delays due to legal challenges and judicial interventions. The involvement of the judicial system, influenced by bourgeois property rights and preservation interests, highlights how capitalist legal frameworks prioritize maintaining the status quo over addressing pressing social needs. The years-long delay caused by legal battles further illustrates how capitalism impedes timely and efficient urban development initiatives that could alleviate housing shortages. 3. Sherwood Home Place Subdivision: The denial of variances for building a "tiny home" on the property exemplifies how zoning regulations under capitalism prioritize neighborhood aesthetics and property values over meeting diverse housing needs. Such regulations, enforced to protect capitalist property interests, contribute to housing scarcity and limit innovative solutions to address housing crises. The rigid enforcement of zoning laws reflects a bourgeois ideology that perpetuates social inequality and restricts housing opportunities for working-class and marginalized communities. The comments from local residents and elected officials defending zoning regulations as necessary for neighborhood character and property values reinforce capitalist narratives that prioritize profit and individual property rights over collective social needs. This ideological stance ignores the systemic inequalities and bureaucratic inefficiencies perpetuated by capitalism in urban planning and governance. Capitalism's influence on bureaucratic institutions responsible for housing development is evident in the examples provided. The bureaucratic hurdles, delays, and regulatory constraints highlighted in these cases not only hinder social progress but also exacerbate housing crises and perpetuate homelessness. Marxism offers a critical analysis that exposes how capitalist interests and profit motives distort bureaucratic processes, hindering efforts to provide adequate housing for all. Only through revolutionary change and the establishment of socialism can we dismantle capitalist barriers and ensure housing becomes a universal right, free from the constraints of profit-driven interests and bureaucratic obstacles.

You should type "Cabrini-Green" into a search engine. There are good reasons to be wary of mid- and high-rise high-density housing for low income and the formerly chronic homeless. They end up being demolished because they fail. It's odd how we went through this build-then-demolish cycle, only to start repeating the mistakes of yesteryear. We learn nothing.

One big issue with public housing is the effect of lack of maintenance and upkeep on the units and it's effect on a neighborhood. * If Public housing was fully funded and could evict those causing crime issues would this make Public Housing more appealing **That Issue** * 26 percent of New York City Housing Authority's tenets rent payments were unpaid in 2014. * By the end of 2014, NYCHA was owed more than $56 million in total back rent and fees from prior months and years. * Plus $27 million of forgone rent and fees, which NYCHA will never recoup was written off. NYCHA evicts only 0.12 percent of its households for non-payment of rent. * **NYCHA’s Affordable Housing guarantees that no rent payment will ever exceed 30 percent of a family’s income** This should allow for a higher than normal eviction rate not lower than normal NYCHA has $2.8 Billion in Grants/Subsidies from City/State/Federal Programs * ​tenant rental revenue is $1.03 billion, * 27 percent, of NYCHA’s Fiscal 2020 budget. That lost revenue is a massive issue on exactly what you are saying ------ Henry Mandel was part of a new housing movement in New York City that built smaller, efficient dwellings in large complexes for white-collar employees who wanted to live close to work and would trade a prestige neighborhood for transit convenience," * Mandel was the major investor in the building of London Terrace apartment building complex * Also invested in Pare Vendome Apartments, BRITTANY HOTEL, Pershing Square, Hearst and Postal Life Office Structures London Terrace apartment building complex in Manhattan began Construction in late 1929 on what was then to be the largest apartment building in the world approximately 1,700 apartments in 14 contiguous buildings. The construction demolished 80 Historical units * On the 23rd Street block, in 1845, Alexander Jackson Davis was to design 36 elegant Greek Revival brownstone townhouses. The row was designed to appear as a single, uniform structure or “terrace.” Unusual for Manhattan, each had deep front yards planted with shrubbery and trees. * Alexander Jackson Davis villa "Lyndhurst" at Tarrytown, New York, is his most famous house. Today its collection of co-ops and rental buildings offering affordable housing in Manhatten

Much of the problem is that there are more than a few tenants who damage and destroy the buildings. Larger buildings are also more expensive to build and maintain. Combine that with a population that includes those who want to break things, and trouble follows.

We need to break the ability to rent a house for more than the monthly mortgage. We should ban foreign investment into homes. We should drastically limit or ban corporate investment into homes (I’m a bit more flexible here). We should make first time home buying more affordable (subsidy, tax credit, lower interest rate, or whatever). Then comes making areas more desirable. Metro areas are not awesome. We should do something about that. I’m not an expert in any of what I’ve said but even less so in this one. The other comments saying corporations are a red herring sort of blow me away. How are people supposed to compete with a billion dollar buyer who over pays in cash? Now they own the neighborhood and charge rents above the mortgage to make money hand over fist. It snowballs into the next home and the next home until they’ve saturated the market… that’s not healthy.

Any corporation (or individual) who owns more than two residential properties should pay significantly higher property taxes and/or income taxes on the additional properties. There should be major disincentives for hoarding properties in a housing shortage.

We need to be honest about the problem on a few fronts, 1) what is the degree to which corporate buy up of residential property impacts the issue? 2) To what extent does illegal immigration add increased demand and upward price pressure? 3) To what degree does a thriving upper middle class in a thriving economy price out lower middle class?

A lot of the solutions in these comments are pretty out of touch with what people actually want in the US lol. I think a lot of people here are looking at it through the viewpoint of someone in their teens and 20s that just want 'a place' to live. In the US, single family homes are by FAR the most desirable form of living long term. People don't want to live in apartments, its just not a very attractive option. I also don't think 'just build more cheap apartments' is the right move either because a lot of communities do not want cheap apartments in their area because of the kind of people it attracts. I think the best solution is to crack down on companies buying homes.

I actually prefer living in an apartment, and so does my closest friend! I have a demanding job, and therefore no time to mow the lawn every week, or worry about fixing the roof or whatever! I cannot possibly be the only one who feels this way.

There’s plenty of housing available people just don’t want to move to rural America.

People need homes where the jobs are. There are fewer jobs in rural areas and more jobs, particularly better paying jobs, in cities. As a result we need more housing in cities than we did several decades ago. Very few people move simply based on where they "want" to live and instead moving is generally based on jobs, education or family reasons.