Comment on 'Starter homes' cost at least $1 million in over 200 U.S. cities, Zillow data finds
Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks agoHousing as an investment leads to real estate speculation which pushes up prices. It creates a class of people who stand to gain when property values, and downstream of that rent, go up.
This class of people are very wealthy and tend to oppose any action that will decrease there property value. That includes things like building dense affordable housing, especially close to them, as that increases the supply of housing and thus decreases there property value.
This is true especially for land lords, even small “mom and pop” landlords. There goal is to raise rent and the value of there investment. Anything that will lower rent or even stabilize it like rent control they will oppose, no matter their scale.
Tl;dr: housing speculation creates a wealthy class of people opposed to housing affordability.
refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Exactly, and trying to fix the problem with regulations is only a temporary bandage to a problem that looks a whole lot like a shotgun wound.
The thing about social democracy (regulated capitalism) is that it is a system that leaves the wealthy in charge of everything. This will inevitably lead to corruption solely because of the fact that corruption is possible to begin with.
It’s like putting a box of matches next to a campfire expecting it to never light on fire when there’s a bucket of water next to it that you can dunk it in, except the bucket is behind you and everyone keeps telling you to not look behind you because it’s dangerous.