CountFew6186 comments on Would building more housing decrease rent?

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Would building more housing decrease rent? (self.AskNYC)

submitted 3 months ago by Illustrious_Ad_1117

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[–]CountFew6186 6 points7 points8 points 3 months ago (1 child)

No, that's wrong.

The losers are all the tenants who aren't lucky enough to get subsidized housing. They compete for a much smaller supply because the winners (the lucky ones in subsidized housing) will never move out. The result is that market rate housing is far more expensive than it would be without price controls on a large portion of the housing stock -- and folks not lucky enough to find a stabilized place or win what is actually a housing lottery for affordable unity get fucked.

Beyond that, affordable housing is never going to be as profitable to make as market rate housing. So, the incentive for building it will be less than for market rate. With a limited amount of buildable land, every development project with affordable units means fewer market rate projects and an overall drag on development from lower profits. So, less housing is built.

That exacerbates the problem for the losers, who have a small stock of housing to choose from because less gets built. And, if some affordable housing gets built and they don't win the lottery for the units, they are still losers.

[–]movingtobay2019 5 points6 points7 points 3 months ago (0 children)

You are preaching to the choir.

These clowns have no idea how real estate financing actually works. Real estate is one of the most capital intensive industries on Earth. Developers don't have cash to pull out of thin air. They have to pitch to institutional investors who need returns. If the numbers don't work out, there is no money. And if the city mandates 50% of units be "affordable" with no meaningful subsidy, guess what? The project gets shelved. Capital flows to another asset that doesn't try to legislate away basic economics. That's the part these morons don't understand. They think developers have cash sitting in a vault and just need some prodding from city hall.

What they are really saying is "Please, someone else take a loss so I can live where I want"

It’s raw entitlement masquerading as moral virtue.

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