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Not to defend YIMBYS but isn't this a business-illiterate take? Companies are incentivized to bring their per-unit cost down to charge less to sell at higher volumes. (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't work the same as a commodity. As @[email protected] so helpfully explained, its more like we privatized infrastructure development. Remember, for real estate, location literally means everything, and areas that cannot be made to carry wealth simply won't be developed. One of the jokes that one of my business management professors used to make was that the only reason people push for nuclear war hysteria is to raise the value of isolated real estate that no one would be interested in otherwise. He was joking, but this kind of principle runs through the real estate market, you want the land to be valued high (for whatever reason) well before you even think of developing on it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

i guess i'm not really disputing the structure of development of land but the "amount of money they can charge us" from OP is governed by more than how much is built

because it's not just development/construction, it's also rent which can be changed more readily than building new housing. unless all the rentiers are in on a cartel, there's an incentive for gaining competitive advantage by undercutting the others

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

The market is generally good at setting the market price for rent, it's just that the market price for rent is very high because people need shelter, the location of that shelter matters, and the supply of it at the location you want is limited. As long as rent is set by the market, it will be as high as people are willing to pay, and that price is very high. There's no need for a cartel to overcharge people for rents. The cartel is land ownership. It's built into the system already without any coordination needed.

What is required, as you said before, is decommodification of housing. If housing is no longer an investment vehicle, then its value can be determined by how people are using it.