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Fed should have hiked rates or started QT a year ago. Even 6 months ago it was pretty obvious the economy was rapidly approaching full employment.

Feds policies led to artificially low interest rates which juices prices. But the prices become sticky when rates rise again, which they are now.

All locales should allow for greater density, and YIMBY attitude needs to prevail over NIMBY. Plenty of people would love to live in small place in a great neighborhood. It's exclusionary and increases wealth disparity to prevent construction in desirable areas. Though denser zoning can actually be lucrative to homeowners (landowners).

Government could also easily curb investor activity in residential by limiting the amount of leverage investors can use for buy and hold rentals. E.g. investors need to put 50% down if it's a buy and hold, and not just a flip. This would clearly kill large amounts of speculation in the SFH market.




For an example of the third paragraph, Oregon passed a law in 2019 that overrides local zoning to legalize duplexes on almost all residential lots and fourplexes and cottage clusters on residential lots in cities with a certain density minimum.


Yeah, I'm not familiar with the exact legalities, but it's similar in Austin. Lots of SFHs being converted to duplexes.

Of course this alone doesn't completely solve the problem, but at least the duplexes are cheaper than the SFH.

E.g. In the northwest hills neighborhood, lots of smaller homes that are noticeably cheaper than the SFH equivalents.




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