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this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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California
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It is a supply and demand problem. Man, I’m pretty left, but it always appalls me the way many on the left do not understand basic economics. California’s population was 23 million in the 80s. It has effectively doubled today without a meaningful increase in the supply of housing. No amount of price controls will get you more housing to put people in.
If there are five homes and two families that need a place to live. Those landlords are going to compete with each other to incentivize the families to move in to their property by lowering prices. If there are two homes and five families, whichever families are willing to pay the most are the ones who will get to have housing.
I think you missed the point of what I was saying. It won't matter how many houses you build, if the price is dictated by whatever the last house in that area sold for. This is then reinforced by local property assessment and taxation systems, that effectively "lock-in" the new property values at the increased rate.
Those prices are never coming down on their own. They will only continue to rise. The only way to "out-supply" that trend, would be to build so many houses that demand drops to zero for an extended period of time. And that is never going to happen, for what should be obvious reasons.
This is far beyond "basic economics". It's way more complicated than that, and is only marginally dictated by supply and demand. Those "basics" would have to overcome some nearly impossible conditions, in order to have any effect on affordability.