So, Kyle Kulinski covered a segment on his program today where he talked about how apparently there's been a lot of price fixing in the housing market, and this has been responsible for raising prices to an insane degree. Basically, some online service landlords were using had an algorithm that told landlords what to charge for apartments. And basically, it ended up giving landlords way too much information about the state of the housing market, allowing them to charge more than they would if they had less perfect information. Even worse, the service basically required people to sell at at least the price suggested, or they couldn't use it. So basically, this ended up creating a criminal conspiracy to keep the housing market high, completely breaking many city wide housing markets.
This has also been going on since before COVID, since 2016, and it's very well possible a lot of COVID era price surges are due to this. Remember how even before greedflation the housing market went insane in 2020? Yeah. That happened. And the argument at the time was supply wasn't high enough to account for all of the demand of more people seeking apartments because they wanted to move out of their current living arrangements since lockdowns were driving roommates who lived together but obviously werent forced to put up with each other for extended periods of time insane, so everyone wanted to move out and live alone, and that's what allegedly drove prices up in 2020 and 2021. And of course in 2021, the price of everything went up, and housing just went with it.
Anyway, I know at the time, i was being pretty contarian to leftists who were screaming ITS THE LANDLORDS BEING GREEDY, but most evidence I saw at the time seemed to suggest the problem was supply, and that the solution was also supply.
But yeah, the problem seems to be landlords to some extent, especially with this app, and collusion related to it. It's literally breaking the housing market. And something like this really should be banned IMO. Especially the part where it's part of TOS to keep prices high to keep using it. That IS just pressuring the market to inflate insane amounts. And that ain't good.
I mean, here's the thing. I always say it, the economy exists for humans, not humans for the economy. Our social systems exist to serve us. And while markets do seem to be the best way to deal with housing, I do think that given it is a scarce good in limited supply that can be messed with by bad actors, that market needs tight regulation to ensure a fair deal to consumers. The entire point of housing, is for people to live in them. That's the point. They're a commodity for people to consume. This mentality that they're an asset that's supposed to just appreciate in value and F the people is an anti humanist sentiment, and against the very principles of human centered capitalism as I envision them.
I won't go so far to say we should do away with capitalism. Leftists are still wrong on that one, and their normal suggestions for fixing the housing market are normally bad and lead to all kinds of issues, but yeah. We kind of need some sort of solution that involves stopping obvious profit seeking and rent seeking behavior.
I really would like to have a policy of "no one gets seconds until everyone gets firsts." Idk how exactly we would implement that. Im not sure its good to make owning multiple properties full on illegal. But at the very least, yeah there should be heavy taxes there, and discouraging people from owning too much property. Everyone should be entitled to A place to live, but multiple places are a luxury and people should have to pay for that.
We should probably make it easier for first time buyers to buy homes, while discouraging house flipping. House flipping is a huge problem in my area. My area's poor. So housing isnt super valuable, but keep in mind everyone makes minimum wage here so it kinda evens out (there really is a correlation between employment opportunities and the price of housing, it's yet another reason i deemphasize jobs and support a UBI to make living away from the big cities more viable). But then you get these people coming in from NYC who make the big bucks and they're just cashing in on cheap real estate, buying crap up, renovating, and then throwing the stuff back on the market top dollar. It might be great for them to make money, but it's ruining the market for normal people who actually live here. I mean the reason ive been so lax on housing over the years is because while people in big cities always complain, where i live you couldve easily found a $400-600 apartment if you really wanted to. it wouldnt be great but it was viable. Now its like $700 minimum with most over $1k. And I know that doesnt sound bad, but that's the bottom rung. Before, the "average" was probably $1k. Now it's $1500-2000 a month. It's insane. For the same place to live.
That's the problem with capitalism and the housing market. We always go on growth this growth that, but then an old home built in like 1900 that used to be insanely cheap now costs $1k+ to live in, and people are struggling to survive. This is why i dont buy the narrative of growth and a tide that lifts all boats. Yeah the economy grows, GDP goes up, but then when rent is still AT LEAST a third of income, if not more for those at the bottom, who the hell cares? We're keeping people on this treadmill of poverty, where they need to keep working their brains out just to keep their heads above water, while some jerk just gets rich by owning buildings. it's nonsense.
Again, the point of the economy is to serve people, we don't exist to serve it. Well, actually we do exist to serve it, and that's the problem. We're slaves to this system we created. And anyone who has to pay insane money to a landlord just for the housing they need to survive, is a slave.
Housing is gonna cost something. Don't get me wrong. it always does. But, most people should own, pay off their homes, and then own it outright, and just be able to live literally rent free. Maybe if they wanna move somewhere else, to get another job that's higher paying, they can move. But many can just stay put and live in their home. And heck, for homeowners who own only one home, I dont even like the idea of property or land taxes. it's rent by another name, just paid to government. And while I can understand it to discourage people exploiting the market, i dont even like it for normal home owners. Which is why I'm so anti LVT normally whenever georgism comes up. It's a principle thing for me. They wanna turn the economy into something where we're all slaves to the institutions too. And I don't want that. I want to free people from wage slavery. So, to me, it makes sense to make housing as affordable as possible, and ensure everyone has a place to live.
But yeah, the rental market, at the very least, needs to be more heavily regulated to stop price collusion like this. maybe even ban these practices entirely. i can see how an algorithm like this could break the entire market. And it is. And honestly, the market doesnt exist for the landlords, it exists for the people. The whole point of housing is for people to live in them. The money thing only is a thing to incentivize people to build and sell houses. Thats why we give corporations and individuals profit. It's intended to increase supply, to better meet peoples' needs. When profit becomes decoupled with the public good, then bad things happen, and that's what's happening here.
Something has to change here, man. I might need to revamp my housing policy, although idk if I'll do it soon, I got other things planned in the near future.
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