Property Values > Everything

We need to stop treating housing like bitcoin

That's exactly the point many people don't seem to get. Yes, zoning more land for construction or lowering building cost might help but the key issue is that housing has become a major asset for the rich and especially institutional investors globally. There's just so much money out there in search of investment opportunities but unlike stocks or Bitcoin housing is a core human need. Coupled with increasing wealth inequality and stagnant wages this is a major problem. When crypto or Nasdaq celebrate new records that's nice for investors but when the property market goes up and up many people can no longer afford rent.
Privat property investors are part of the problem whether they like it or not. Given these circumstances I find it hard to imagine a solution that doesn't include massive state intervention in the housing market.
- Re: intervention
  I think it's a tough sell because building more housing density upsets current NIMBY citizens at the expense of future citizens. People who want to move to Austin, TX, for example, don't have any say in who is on the city council today.
  Housing policy is very much driven by people who want to pull the ladder up behind them and ride land appreciation into retirement.
- Given these circumstances I find it hard to imagine a solution that doesn't include massive state intervention in the housing market.
  Oh, the solution is anarcho-communism. No state, no investors. Best of both worlds.
Decommodification is the way to go for any basic human need.

It's becoming horrendous in many areas where I live. Once what was 5 acre lots that were once a part of 60+ acre farm lots are now becoming high density townhomes and condos.
The roads in the area were built for lightly populated rural life and struggle to keep up with not only this new traffic from residential, they have added an industrial park to the mix and the large commercial truck traffic on these 2 lane roads adds to the fun. Then there is still the farm traffic.
The areas are no longer the sleepy parts of town our parents grew up in. They are in the way of the roads but not much else. This has been 20+ years in the making. I just wish the roads were upgraded along the way to match all the new developments.
- All the fields around me are being bought by KENWORTH so they can park their fucking trucks for months on end.
  Fields that once grew things now do nothing but provide storage space for massive pollution machines.
  I can't use my telescope at home anymore because the goddamn glare from their fucking lights just bounces off the gravel and concrete and makes light pollution worse than the entire city a few miles down the road. When the clouds are low I can walk around outside in the dead of night and read large print books, because the reflected light shining off the clouds.

The person who owned the property next to my house built a huge, ugly, $700k single family home.

I didn't have much choice about it. I would have much preferred if it was affordable housing. If it was going to be huge and ugly, I'd rather it have 2-4 apartments.

Of course, all my neighbors probably hate me for how my yard looks. It's not like I have dead cars in my yard, but I probably would if I could afford to have more than the one I drive.

I wish we would just build a shitton of tiny apartments. I currently live in 22m^{2, and honestly, it's nice (except for the price..). Give me like 30m}2 or 35m^2 instead and I could probably live there for as long as I live alone. I don't need a big place, what am I gonna use all that space for, anyway?
- 35m^2 = approximately 377 sqft
  There's plenty of small apartments in the United States, just as there's a lot of small (under 1000 sqft) houses. But apparently, the minimum square footage people demand these days for houses is 2,000.

My house is literally across the street from a large community of affordable housing. It’s largely made up of immigrants and BIPOC folks. I love living here.

Granted there was a police involved shooting this summer 50 feet from my back door, but that guy fled to my neighborhood and wasn’t so much a part of it.

It's not necessarily about property values, but rather the types of people low income housing attract. Most of them are perfectly normal people I'd be happy to have in my neighborhood, but there's always a few who ruin it for the rest. I don't want to suddenly worry about getting robbed on my street.

I also hate that I feel this way, and I'd really prefer to just give everyone the benefit of doubt, but I've seen it happen too many times to just ignore it.

It's always an unpopular opinion to say that there are bad people in the world but it's the truth.
- Of course there are bad people in the world. That's why I don't want rich people to move into my neighbourhood. I want to live in a neighbourhood full of working class people who are well-off enough not to need drugs or stealing to survive, but who haven't gained their money by stepping on others.

Honestly I think that a lot of the "affordable housing" ideas are problematic. Its way more complicated than most people think. What's worse is that it usually involves tons of government spending

Yeah.

It took me 15 years to pay off my house. Making double, sometimes triple payments. Keeping it nice. Doing minor upgrades along the way. I took major pride in that house. I'd be pissed off if some shit hole affordable housing project was built nearby. Places like that breed crime and other trouble. It would have nose dived my property values. Which would have sucked for my family because I sold that house for a nice profit later on. We were able to move to a nice place in the country and pay cash for it. I would not have been able to do that if some crap hole government buildings moved in nearby