User talk:Avatar317

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Housing shortage

I saw your posting on my Talk page a few months ago. I wanted to respond right away, but had not the time. My schedule has been hectic most of this year. Sorry I could not respond to your welcome request sooner. Good that your writing has been posted.

Today I looked at it, your "California housing shortage" article. It is a very important topic, and an interesting one. Many people are severely affected. Everyone on the coastal metropolitan areas are. I have been on both side of the supply and demand equation, personally and professionally.

I will try to read your article this month. In the meantime, one issue suggests itself to me. The 'Great Recession' quickly stopped new construction. Many construction companies made drastic cut-backs on skilled employees, or went completely out of business. Now that California needs a building boom, the housing supply factor is relatively anemic. It should be robust.

A dramatic increase in housing supply is clearly the long term solution. Ironically, short term fixes like rent control work to reduce future housing supply. Yet in the meantime rent control can alleviate some of the pain of the housing shortage, especially needed for low income renters. It's a difficult zero-sum calculus, at best. Studies have shown that rent control does not effectively lower rents over time for a region, but instead benefits certain tenants (who stay put in rentals in favored locations) and increases the rent for new tenants and those in adjacent locations that are not controlled. It also favors some more prosperous tenants, who would not qualify as low income.

It's difficult for government to intervene in the economy in the interests of a sense of political justice, to challenge the supply and demand reality, without serious unintended consequences. Rent control can alleviate today's housing pain, in exchange for prolonging the shortage. Yet sometimes the short-term realities are so abnormal that such intervention is warranted. Rent control is often a blunt instrument, but part of the political-economic tool kit.

Another major factor driving up the price of real estate in California is foreign investors. Obviously, through the influx of funds. But also, many buy homes as investments (for appreciation of their value) and then let them sit unoccupied. In not a few Los Angeles suburbs 10% of the homes are said to be idle due to absentee investors.

I salute your interest, and your contribution to Wikipedia. Elfelix (talk) 22:21, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Avatar317. You have new messages at Fiftytwo thirty's talk page.
Message added 03:46, 31 May 2018 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Fiftytwo thirty (talk) 03:46, 31 May 2018 (UTC)