zlacker

>>kenton+(OP)
This is neat, but as a $NET shareholder and someone with another ~$1m in net worth that can't afford to buy a house for at least another 6 years this makes me think we should significantly increase taxation.

>>laidof+aE
Housing price issues in the US are fundamentally the result of every major city making it expensive or impossible to actually build enough housing. Changing taxes (in either direction) really wouldn't move the needle at all. What's needed are local zoning changes and significant revamps of permitting and approval processes to remove endless discretionary roadblocks from anyone who doesn't like medium density housing.

>>crooke+SF
No.

The global housing crisis is the result of international organised crime owning or operating most of the large construction conglomerates, using real estate as a fiat currency to wash the proceeds from all their illicit business, and (org crime infested) private equity companies cashing in on the former situation, pumping assets by buying up available real estate just to make it unavailable.

CRIME is the real reason worldwide for people not being able to afford a house.

>>clucki+ZK
> using real estate as a fiat currency

Even if we take your premise as a given, the entire reason real estate is so valuable is that there isn't enough housing in the first place. Real estate is, by its nature, a bad investment; it's only the scarcity of it that makes the value continue to go up exponentially.

> buying up available real estate just to make it unavailable

There isn't actually any available housing in the first place, at the point of cities even approving projects, compared to the number of people who need housing. That's the problem. The most extreme example is San Francisco, where as of this July the entire city had approved only 16 housing units [1] out of an already comically poor goal of only about 10,000 housing units per year.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-only-agreed-build-16-...