alt Hacker NewsThere's loads of other inefficiencies as well. Moving is a huge hurdle. It's difficult to find housing that meets dozens of conditions, and even then you don't respond to supply + demand imagined equilibrium, you pay more or pay less to live near friends or family. It's something you only do a handful of times in your whole life. Trying to use the same analysis as for buying a can of beans is absurd. You might need to take econ 201 before you understand why econ 101 is wrong about housing.
Replies
False. Even if you don't move, people move all the time and that moves the needle for everyone.
You need Econ 301 and stats 101 to see Econ 201 is wrong.
Not really, it used to be the case that a full third of Americans moved every year. Obviously life is more complicated than econ 101, but it's also obvious that a current undersupply of housing is one of, if not the primary, drivers of home pricing. Admittedly other factors like the governments interference in the home loan space have also had large effects on the market over the last century.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/america...
“People like to drink certain kinds of beer” and “some people don’t drink beer often” are not arguments against supply and demand driving beer prices.
I'm not clear: does Econ 201 inform us as to how demand and supply are not related to price?
> It's difficult to find housing that meets dozens of conditions
Correct. That's why when there's more housing you're more likely to find what you need.