Can We Beat the Housing Crisis By 3D-Printing Homes? (msn.com) 160
"As housing prices across the country continue to skyrocket, an Iowa-based company, Alquist 3D, is looking to combat the crisis by 3D-printing homes," reports NexStar Media:
Alquist, one of a few U.S. companies that 3D-prints houses, is looking to build 200 of these homes in Virginia starting this summer.
The process is somewhat simple. First, a person designs what they want the frame of the house to look like by using a computer program. Then, a file is transmitted to a machine, which tells it what to do and how to move. On-site workers pour in cement material, then the concrete is pumped through the tubes and dispersed in layers...
Zachary Mannheimer, founder and CEO of Alquist 3D, believes 3D-printing is a game changer because it cuts costs up to 15% by scaling back labor, materials, and time. He does understand that there are concerns about displacing traditional construction jobs, and some environmental impacts of this method, but he says he is working to attack those issues.
The process is somewhat simple. First, a person designs what they want the frame of the house to look like by using a computer program. Then, a file is transmitted to a machine, which tells it what to do and how to move. On-site workers pour in cement material, then the concrete is pumped through the tubes and dispersed in layers...
Zachary Mannheimer, founder and CEO of Alquist 3D, believes 3D-printing is a game changer because it cuts costs up to 15% by scaling back labor, materials, and time. He does understand that there are concerns about displacing traditional construction jobs, and some environmental impacts of this method, but he says he is working to attack those issues.
Just wait five minutes (Score:2, Insightful)
The housing market is widely believed to be in a bubble. Give it until this massive recession hits in a year or so and you will see home prices drop instead of increase.
Re: Just wait five minutes (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. The housing market is short 1-3 million new homes. While rising interest rates may affect it slightly. The reality is mortgage interest rates diverged from federal rates a decade ago and the two have nothing to do with each other now.
Same with credit card rates. You used to be a good payer they would lower your rate. Now they just give you more credit while mainting the rate.
A decade of stupdily low rates has screwed up all the bubble calculations. Doesnt mean bubbles arent forming. However the talk and fear of bubbles forming will keep them from doing much.
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit.
There are 15 million vacant homes [stlouisfed.org] in the US right now. We are NOT short housing.
You can argue that we're short housing in a handful of hot market areas, but that's about it. Across the US there are more vacant homes than there are homeless people.
With the shift to remote work looking pretty permanent for a lot of companies, I expect that our localized housing issues, either excess or deficit, will start to balance out. If you can work remotely for $100k a year, a $75k house in a Detroit suburb that
Re: (Score:3)
That's the point though, we're short housing in the places people want to live. Sure you can buy cheap houses in bumfuck Nebraska, but people want to live in nice places where there's stuff to do. Even working remotely there're still other factors like education, crime, local services, and of course people want to live near people they know.
Re: (Score:2)
For all the sturm and drang about "not being short on housing" the vacancy rate is as low as its been since 2003 and on a downward trend since about 2011. I'd love to see that graph starting in 1950.
It might just be that 15 million vacant homes actually is a low(er) water mark on a national level which exposes how acute the shortage really is on some local levels. It's also pretty divorced from housing trends, too. Just because you have empty homes in some aging second-ring suburb, it's not going to addr
Re: (Score:2)
And yet I get 2 or 3 cold calls a week wanting to buy my house. Yes, cold calls. I am not interested in selling. I have not shown any interest in selling.
Re: Just wait five minutes (Score:2)
Rates are trending pretty closely at the moment. They've gone up over a percentage point in just the last couple months.
Re: (Score:3)
It really depends on the problem. Prices WILL come down as rates go up. That is a certainty; at least for the middle market single family segment.
That market is large enough that even industrial cash buyers can't snap them all up and turn them into rentals. I expect there will be a lot less movement in lower income single family and multi-dwellings because real-estate investors probably can will continue to snap up all the inventory for conversion to rentals. A lot of the investor market is pretty cash flu
Re: (Score:2)
Beyond all this, remember that investors are "cash flush" because the US effectively printed giant sums of money during covid, and frankly the amount of free money floating around was increasing before covid just due to tax cuts. The fed will attempt to pull some of that money back out of the system over the next few years, but that could easily miss the housing market and come out of equities instead. I wouldn't say there's any fundamental reason to think that housing will drop in the near term, even as
Re: (Score:2)
We have been through many recessions since the 1970s, but house prices have continues to rise, both adjusted for inflation and in relation to income.
Recessions have a temporary damping effect at best, they don't return property prices to sane levels.
Re:Just wait five minutes (Score:4, Insightful)
I have been hearing that the high cost of housing is just a bubble problem for ~20 years now. At some point the bubble becomes the norm.
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard this story before, last year, and the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
To stop the housing crisis we need to:
1. Ban BlackRock, Blackstone and Vanguard from buying up available houses.
2. Ban AirBNB.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
To stop the housing "crisis", we need to stop printing money whenever we want to buy something we can't afford (which means we'll have to raise taxes to match government spending instead of just "increasing the money supply").
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
As an example, in my area, I did a quick check and there about about 3x as many rentals listed as for sale. Further, I clicked on the top 3 rental results, and all were sold in the last 6 months prior to becoming rentals. People seeking to be homeowners are caught up in rich organizations trying to own all the housing.
Re: (Score:2)
As an example, in my area, I did a quick check and there about about 3x as many rentals listed as for sale.
While the second half of your post is quite relevant this first half is not. A large portion of the rise of rentals is due to the impossibility of actually owning a house. When people can't afford a house it stands to reason that there would be a large rental market instead as it is the short term cheaper and more available option.
Re: (Score:2)
The short list of 'for sale' means they don't last on the market before being bought. Having more rentals available on the market does not mean that people are renting because of the home ownership, it means that properties aren't finding tenants as quickly as homes are seeing purchases. Given that usually you'd expect the opposite, that a lease seeking person is easier to get going than to find someone willing to commit to a purchase, I think it is relevant to show the relative difficulty of finding a re
Re: (Score:3)
3. End Buy-to-let schemes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I understand where you are coming from on point 2, but the problem with doing that is that an otherwise effective blanket prohibition on what AirBnB provides might also negatively impact *ACTUAL* B&B places.
Re: (Score:2)
It depends.
One sign to watch is if the market in question has relatively few home to sell, but significant rental capacity available. Currently, in my area if you want to buy a house, well you're out of luck. If you want to rent? There are vacancies, many of them that *were* for sale last year, but were immediately bought and turned into rental properties. However, they stay vacant longer, indicating that there's less demand to live in them than to own them. Companies are betting that this area is going
Re: (Score:2)
"Please transform this desirable neighborhood into something less desirable so that I can afford to live there."
A big part of the problem IMHO around here are low-rise, mostly SFH neighborhoods adjacent to in-demand urban areas. The "pro housing" people (mostly young people who can't find cheap apartments near their favored on-trend areas) want apartments built where SFHs exist.
What they don't seem to completely grasp is that the areas are considered desirable because they are not concrete canyons filled w
I don't think the problem is building the homes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't think the problem is building the homes (Score:5, Informative)
Not only. It's *all* limiting right now. You can zone a house but if you can't find someone to build it, an electrician to wire it, a plumber to install your ceramic throne then you're still left without a place to live.
Re: (Score:3)
The pro-nuclear crowd here on /. wants to blame the nefarious "them" for the industry's woes, but it's really this.
Go to a large contracting firm and ask them to lock up their company for 10 years to make a paltry profit. They'll tell you to take a leap while putting up condos in a year that have the same ROI. This boom isn't going to last forever, they're going to take profit while they can. Good luck competing with that.
Re: (Score:3)
Also buy-to-let (not sure what you call it in the US, people buying property to rent it out as a source of income).
People wanting to actually live in those homes are at a disadvantage. They need a mortgage, and the bank has to agree with the valuation of the property. Much easier to sell to a cash buyer who will rent it out, or who can get a much smaller mortgage with the rental income used to justify the valuation.
Re: (Score:2)
people buying property to rent it out as a source of income
You misspelled Wall Street investment corporations. [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Zoning and infrastructure is likely the limiting factor.
I'd add land prices. It's great to cut construction costs 15%, but if land costs are a significant part of the price then that will not make much of a dent in availability. Once an area has little available land to build on it becomes the limiting feature. What would likely happen, if someone built such homes and sold them for less than the going rate is people would snatch them up and resale prices would rise to their actual value based on comparables.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
3D printed houses will have the same big disadvantage as brick houses - it's much harder to modernize and retrofit them. Right now the UK needs to transition to heat pumps, away from gas heating, but the brick housing stock makes it much harder than it would be with a steel/wood framed building.
Re: (Score:2)
Err no not in the slightest. It's basically just as difficult to retrofit high grade insulation into a timber / drywall house as it is a brick house. One way or the other you'll be destroying a large part of it or building internal fake walls to accommodate it.
But you do raise another point. 3D printed houses are generally made of some structural cement or concrete. It's not a good insulator and even where concrete is used in modern construction it is typically combined with some form of insulation. There a
Re: (Score:2)
Beat the housing crisis by allowing more housing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The UK actually has enough housing. It's just that a lot of it is in areas where there are few opportunities and little work, and much of it is in a state of disrepair. Most houses have poor energy efficiency. The new ones being built are low quality and overpriced.
Because most houses are joined to others (semi-detached or terrace) and made of brick it's not easy to modernise or replace them either.
Re: (Score:3)
"Most houses have poor energy efficiency"
I lived in Ireland for a year back in the day. My rental was built in the 1970s.
I was sitting there one night and wondering why it was so cold. I looked around and noticed that the drapes on the window were blowing about.
The window was closed.
I then took a more careful look at the place. The windows were all single-pane. There was no insulation anywhere, even the attic. There was no form of weather sealing anywhere - you could see the lights of cars passing by throug
Re: (Score:2)
"The way to beat the housing crisis is to allow more housing. The problem isn't technological but regulatory. It is incredibly hard to build more housing in the US. Zoning restrictions along with strict building codes make it extremely difficult to build new housing or build new housing at any reasonable density. "
This is the US-centric view that every problem is due to the gubbermint. It's a lazy argument used for every problem.
If this were actually the problem, then jurisdictions with more liberal zoning
Re: (Score:2)
Yet housing in the Toronto area is more expensive than LA, for instance.
Toronto is about 4000 people per a km^2. https://worldpopulationreview.com/canadian-cities/toronto-population [worldpopul...review.com]. LA is actually less dense. https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/los-angeles-ca-population [worldpopul...review.com], which contributes to that difference. Also, density and building isn't the only issue. But it is a major part of the issue and in this context, for many places the biggest part. It is also worth keeping in mind that populations are influenced by what happens in nearby areas. If there's not enough housi
Re: (Score:2)
This is the US-centric view that every problem is due to the gubbermint. It's a lazy argument used for every problem.
And your post is a lazy "America is right wing so obviously any complaints about government are nonsense"
If this were actually the problem, then jurisdictions with more liberal zoning laws would have cheaper housing.
And that's the case, hence places like Texas seeing large influxes of out of staters. I'm a million miles from the type of person who blames government for every little thing but sometimes government doesnt do a good job. In this case the parent is spot on, there is a significant and growing problem with local zoning laws in the US creating a housing shortage. I see it right where I live.
Re: (Score:2)
Not that much savings in 3d printing (Score:4, Insightful)
Sadly these 3d printer houses usually only print the walls, often requiring finishing work. All the cabling, plumbing etc still needs to be done by humans, so in the end the savings aren't that great. Cheaper to build modular homes in a factory and ship them in ready to use modules that just need to be joined and sealed.
Re: (Score:2)
"Cheaper to build modular homes in a factory and ship them in ready to use modules that just need to be joined and sealed."
Is it though? If it is, why are they so rare?
I pass dozens of new subdivisions in my area on a daily basis (yes, dozens), not one is using factory construction.
Re: (Score:2)
I have seen most of them used as second homes and cottages. I even rented one for a vacation one time and it was very nice.
Putting up the walls is not an issue (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like saying can we build more cars by 3D printing the steering-wheel. There's a lot of parts involved in housing beyond putting up a few walls.
- Location
- Infrastructure at the location
- Utilities external to construction
- Utilities internal to construction (it's hard to get electricians, plumbers, or heating system installers right now)
- Wide social capacity (so you build new houses, don't forget to build schools, zone in additional shops etc).
The walls of the house aren't what is causing the affordability or availability crisis.
Simple (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simple (Score:5, Funny)
I've got this idea for going crypto on the housing market: the brickchain!
Re: (Score:2)
Now I want to see Butters pitch this shit. [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Can't afford a house? Buy an NFT of a fractional pixel of a 3D model of a house in mentalverse.
It's value can only go UP!!!
No (Score:5, Interesting)
So no, 3d printing won't solve a housing crisis. It might be slightly faster than (some) forms of construction but it's not some panacea or solution to housing problems. In fact to solve such a crisis it would probably be relieved by some proper urban planning - high density units like flats, condos & high rises instead of a sprawl of suburban properties.
Re: (Score:2)
There is also a question of how durable in the long term the 3D-printed house components are. When it comes to any construction work, compressive strenght and tensile strenght of used materials are a critical factor, and a new manufacturing technology may mean a completely different distribution of forces inside a component, affecting the durability as well as safety of the building.
Re: (Score:2)
Geez, who the fuck wants to live like that...stacked up on each other like rats, sharing walls, with no private yards with room for veggie gardens, smokers/grills, off road sheltered parking, etc....?
If you want that, go live in an urban city, but don't try to force that on everyone.
Ugh, I can't stand to share walls with people.
Ummm ... no. (Score:2)
Can We Beat the Housing Crisis By 3D-Printing Homes?
I'm sure we could, theoretically, but I also know that politicians everywhere are working hard to prevent it in order to keep housing prices sky high and thereby also property taxes and the profits of their political donors in the hopelessly corrupt real estate industry.
Re: (Score:3)
No (Score:4, Informative)
No more than we could with prefab already (Score:3)
Prefab housing has been a thing for a long time, housing doesn't really need/benefit from '3d printing' especially. Housing already is friendly toward existing manufacturing technology.
No, of course not (Score:2, Interesting)
The actual cost of a house in terms of materials and labor is not a huge factor in the selling price.
The only way to reduce home prices is (duh...) to lower property values with things like mixed denser developments and ending the subsidies on money-draining car-dependent suburbs. Since homeowners form a large and motivated voting bloc, they will fight tooth and nail against anything that lets their kids actually afford to buy a house. It's all about greed and "I've got mine, so screw you."
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, the increase in CRIME that mixed denser housing brings into an area also really helps the property values to plummet, because, who the hell wants to live there then?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe in the US that's a problem, but European cities have a long record of dense mixed-use areas without any crime problems. Amsterdam, for example, manages to be a compact, dense city that's nevertheless way more livable than almost any place in North America.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair petty theft is pretty horrible In Amsterdam. I visited some time ago and on a regular basis I'd see flat bed boats moving through the canals piled high with stolen bikes that had been ditched in the canals. Several times I even had people walking down the street try to sell me the bike they were walking with on the cheap. Pretty certain they were stolen.
This is why despite bike riding being a big deal over there no one owns nice geared bikes. It's all cheap ass cruisers because who's going to spe
Re: (Score:2)
It absolutely IS the way it is in the US.
I would think one of the main differences in Europe, Amsterdam for instance, would be that is it a smaller populace that is far more homogeneous than most places in the US.
That tends to make a difference.
Zoning is the issue (Score:2, Interesting)
In places where housing is expensive, it is mostly due to zoning. Places with strong restrictions on building hav higher prices. Let developers build more - lots more-housing, and it will also kill the interest of the big companies buying up scarce housing.
Of course, those big companies donate heavily to the politicians who would have to change the zoning laws, so...
Just a very small part of the cost of a new home (Score:5, Insightful)
Only IF (Score:2)
3D printing structure - finish by “others” that people like where its development is located, landscaped and its humanscaped for living .vs. housing.
not a chance (Score:2)
Housing Crisis? (Score:2)
You misspelled "Bubble".
No. (Score:2)
As others have already commented, only about 10% of the effort of a house is in the wall construction. And that's probably less than 10% of the time - the finish work, electricals, plumbing, foundation, etc are all MORE time and MORE cost.
Honestly, a far bigger benefit to fast home construction would be a hard push into modularization, and better prefabs. Being able to build standardized wall panels in factory has multiple advantages - volume, repetition, automation, and controlled environment. Then 'con
Tornado alley (Score:2)
Obvious Slashvertisement aimed at ignorants (Score:2)
SEO baby! OOOOH! "3D printing"!
BTW the so-called "crisis" is exclusively local and purely a matter of gold rush mentality. Everyone wants to live in places already occupied by property owners. They rage if their option to live elsewhere is pointed out so that's pointless.
There are other places to live and there are other jobs. Most humans however specialized their intelligence have the terrible flaw of being silly so they make silly choices. Wise humans profit from their lusts. There is no way to reach them
No (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I seen plenty of old houses that were dilapidated old shanties that should be knocked down and hauled to the dump, they were decent houses back in the 1960â(TM)s but not anymore
3d houses, inflatable houses blah blah (Score:2)
::SLAP::
What we need is to fix the *system* that allows land barons to buy up huge tracts of land and build giant "condos" made of the cheapest materials possible while charging cartoonish level high prices. And we need to end the whole "speculation" game too.
This pie in the sky adolecent thinking involving 3D printing and such is complete nonsense.
Grow the fuck up.
Look on the bright side. (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
The way this was solved (back when the boomers were buying homes) was the gov't moved in and subsidized homebuilding with low interest loans structured so they could only be used for affordable housing as well as zoning l
More fundamental problem. (Score:2)
If you want home ownership to be a glorious wealth-building investment you can't really escape from the requirement that housing prices must go up; if
Re: (Score:2)
A house is only an investment if you're not living in it. If you are, you can't afford to sell it, or you're going to have to move to a place that isn't as good or as convenient.
The winning strategy, under the circumstances, is to make sure that the value of your house does not go up. If it does, you're paying higher taxes. You never really "own" your house. You rent it from the government.
Whip-maker (Score:2)
"He does understand that there are concerns about displacing traditional construction jobs, and some environmental impacts of this method, but he says he is working to attack those issues. "
It will be the Whip-maker solution again.
What is that, you ask.
Exactly!
No (Score:2)
3D printed houses are the concrete parts, prefab concrete slabs are just as quick and cheap ... the rest is built exactly the same way as normal
Land price inflation (Score:3)
In the UK at least, the main cost of a house is the land, regardless of what you build on it. Land in sought-after locations is more expensive than land in less popular locations. The cost of actually constructing a house has relatively little effect on the price of the house.
There is the problem that because land is generally an appreciating asset, it often pays developers to own land, but not develop it. This is termed "land banking". Similar things happen when a developer builds an apartment or office block, then leaves it empty, because it earns money anyway, even without any tenants paying rent. If you rent the property out, you then incur maintenance costs. I believe there is quite a lot of expensive property in London like that.
The main political problem with tackling house price inflation is that existing home owners treat their homes as financial assets, so any attempt to drive down house prices generally will be met with fierce resistance. In addition, many home owners have borrowed heavily to finance their purchase, so a falling asset price would leave them with a debt that is increasingly difficult to service. I imagine falling house prices would make mortgage lenders nervous, because of reduced security. If the lender did decide to foreclose, they would not get their money back.
Though there is regulatory pressure to coerce developers to build affordable housing, along with more expensive neighbourhoods, there is a fear among existing residents that this might drive down property prices in the area, so they don't want it where they are.
cool (Score:2)
so where are you going to build this
no crisis (Score:2)
There is no housing crisis. For example, in California, the official shortfall in housing units is approximately equal to the number of illegal aliens in the state.
Meanwhile, regulatory requirements are a huge burden on the cost of a house, up to 20-30%, and legislators keep adding more burdens, not to mention property taxes that have to be paid in addition to mortgages. Nevertheless, houses fall apart in 30 years, because none of these regulatory requirements has to do with actual quality.
Can you print land? (Score:3)
When I look at property assessment reports in my area, Vancouver Canada, the majority of the home value is the land.
Think (Score:2)
You think this is cool right now. But your owners, in league with the housing industry and construction worker unions (something for both!) will at some point launch memes as to problems with printing houses.
Then, useful idiots will pick up on this fraud and promote it. Then, yokels around here will state how evil it is.
Such is life. Enjoy it as cool for now.
Think I am kidding? Nuclear power, genetic engineering of food, fake boobs, many others. Someone can make a profit destroying, destroying, destroy
The problem isn't the ability to build homes. (Score:2)
Or even the ability to build them to code.
The problem is zoning and other political opposition.
And simple 3D printing costs are misleading.
Yeah, you can print the SHELL of a building.}
Insulation, wiring, plumbing, glazing, weatherproofing, etc? That's where the real costs lie.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
In Japan houses are depreciating assets. There is a strong preference for new houses, and old ones usually get torn down and replaced. As such, houses lose value constantly and if you own one with a mortgage you don't really have an asset because its value is approximately the same as what you owe the bank.
The net result is that houses are still quite affordable, and usually reasonably modern and suitable.
There are downsides. Sometimes people refuse their inheritance because there are property taxes to pay and the property is near worthless. The environmental cost of replacing houses has to be considered, although compared to say the UK where we have the oldest housing stock in Europe I'd think that the energy efficiency savings would outweigh it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's the oldest average age of housing stock. Much of Easter Europe has new developments that bring the average up.
Re: (Score:2)
They also don't have local zoning boards to fight. Zoning is essentially national. Not sure that's the best option but something to consider.
https://marketurbanism.com/201... [marketurbanism.com]
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
Japan has a birth rate of 1.4 births/woman. The replacement fertility rate is 2.1. Japan also has a very low immigration rate for a wealthy, industrialized country.
Japan's population growth has been very slow since the 1980s, and population is currently *falling*. The total number of children in Japan has been declining for the past 40 years. It's hard to see how *housing* would be a good investment under the circumstances. But that's just a curious economic fact in the face of a looming demographic catastrophe.
The US with a sub-replacement birthrate of 1.8 would be in a similar, although slightly less extreme situation except for our high immigration rate.
The Valley is even worse (Score:3)
Probably the worst spot for this is in America is Silicon Valley. Suburban level zoning meanwhile they have major urban area housing demands, hence modest family homes selling for over a million bucks.
Honestly the state should step in as at this point the Valley's zoning rules are effecting the entirety of Northern California's housing market in a very significant way. Families throughout Nor Cal increasingly cant afford to buy and twenty somethings (with a degree or without) live at the parents house at ra
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't just places like San Francisco; almost every suburb in America is that way. The American suburb is not a natural product of market forces, it's an artificial construct rising from zoning ordinances that prohibit multi-family and multi-use buildings except in very restricted areas.
The irony is that that kind of low-density, exclusively single-family development where you have to get in your car and drive to buy a carton of milk isn't that desirable anymore. I grew up in a densely populated, urban
Re: No (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is more of a case where the problem isn't the ability to make affordable housing, but way too many areas where the locals are like "My PrOpErITy VaLue!!!!" The problem is worsen because such Ken and Karenism is nearly uniform across Political and geographic areas.
While the cycle of poverty can be elevated by having cost effective housing spread in wealthier areas, vs creating slums or "the projects" where all the poor people are grouped together and mostly forced to create their own sub culture, without
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is, you start mixing in very low income housing, denser multi-family dwellings into "wealthier" or middle class neighborhoods...it doesn't raise up the poorer people, instead it lowers everything for the area they move into.
Not only do property values drop, but quality of life drops.
You bring in more poverty class people, often with subsidized housing...and you then bring in crime. The subsidized people don't have a real stake in the area, since they aren't paying for it, so the upkeep on the neighborhood drops.
You see families with the means living in what was a safe, clean neighborhood...picking up and moving out.
I know you mean well in what you say, but the reality is that it never results in how you picture it.
And property values ARE important in that with most families, the home is the single most expensive investment of money they will ever make. You don't want to dis-incentivize people buying property by making the risk of it dropping in value too common.
That's not a good scenario, unless you are wanting to drive everyone to rent.
Re: No (Score:2)
That's not a good scenario, unless you are wanting to drive everyone to rent.
Commie blocks. That's the end goal.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
There's several complexities here. In regards to mixed neighborhoods, you state one possibility where better off people help lesser off people being the same neighborhood. Have you considered the possibility that better off people can be brought down by trouble. Which is more likely to happen say a class room?
A good student helps out a troublesome student?
A troublesome student interrupts class and bullies some good student?
Most likely both will happen to various degrees and the net positive/negative will be determined by the details. As an ex-teacher, I'll say that a few troublesome kids can ruin the whole class and destroy a good kids life.
I would say what you propose is even harder to do these days with a lack of a very disciplined school system. Teachers aren't really allowed to properly discipline troublesome kids, so the tendency is for the class to be brought down by troublesome kids.
As to poorer people being shown a way out. I'd actually suggest that has little to do with poverty, and more to do with culture. I'll use the age old trope of how Asians do well in America even if they show up here dirt poor. I know we came here dirt poor, but in one generation we're doing okay financially. On paper, we were in poverty, but we know the way out (hard work, discipline, education...) It's a part of our culture. I knew my parents sacrificed and I knew I had to sacrifice as well. I knew I had to go for the stable career even though I may not love it because we need to establish ourselves. Maybe my kids can have a bit more slack in how they approach life.
The main point is that poverty and culture are not the same. Poor people can know the way out. There just may not be opportunities or it's just a matter of time. And rich people can lose their culture and end up ruining their lives just as much.
There are broken culture-less people in the world. Perhaps a harsh term and it may not be their fault (colonialism, slavery, war...) They might really struggle no matter how much money you give them. Ultimately, those groups need to be brought into a culture. In my view, this is really where society fails these groups.
Take something as simple as say kids. It would be a great shame in my culture to have a kid out of wedlock. There's good and bad to it, but it's there. That's a pretty good rule to keep you from making your life way more difficult than it needs to be. Can you do it as a single parent. Of course you can. The situation of a well off white woman who has a kid out of wedlock is vastly different than a poor brown woman who has a kid out of wedlock. One might have the resources (financial/social) and time to make it work. The other might not. Playing the odds, it's not a good idea.
I'm a parent myself and I could probably do it on my own, but having another parent there is just a great help for day to day things. We have different strengths. My wife is great at details and keeping track of things. I'm much better at sorting the kids out, having talks with them...
There's actually a lot of counter-intuitive things in terms of creating more integrated communities. I genuinely don't know the answer to any of these. I just know the common tropes often don't hold water. For example, parents will literally leave the neighborhood to go to a better school. So, forcing kids into the same school might actually result in more segregated communities. Maybe allowing kids to go to different schools might actually keep the neighborhood more diverse. It's just something to think about. I know in my area, there's a lot of Italians. I'm pretty sure, a large number of them would leave if they couldn't have their kids in the separate catholic school board (Ontario, Canada). Is it better they leave the neighborhood or is it better they stay in the neighborhood, but their kid goes to a different school? I like my Italian neighbors personally.
Even things like rental discrimination. If you prevent landlords from being selective with their tenants, then a lot of poor housing b
Re: (Score:3)
The solution is very simple but everyone wants more than what they have and push to skew the rules in their favour. We need laws and policies that apply to all uniformly. The social safety net should be set to help the disabled and a safety blanket when life happens.
The housing problem is an accumulation of many factors which try to fix some perceived injustices. We like to use meaningless terms such as social housing and affordable housing to garner emotion and restrict the discussion. Who can argue agains
Re: (Score:3)
Now, who is going to pay for this stuff?
I don't understand the question. The reason properties are increasing in value above inflation is because there is not enough housing to accommodate the demand. Housing meeting demand would ensure old housing is cheaper than new. Remove factors that are depressing wages such as temporary foreign workers and imports from slave wage countries and the affordability is not an issue. Currently we are allowing large corporations to rape citizens while not contributing to the society that allows them to rake in th
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit. We had a low income project come in that was placed to lower property values. [...] The area was chosen as a part of Obama/Biden's policy of lowering property values for the middle class (yes, this really does exist). .
Got any sauce for that?