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4gotunameagain • today at 1:16 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

In the popular cities which is where everyone wants to live, it's quite low.

They've been full for quite a while, turns out land in desirable places is not infinite and there's no supply. So don't increase demand by allowing wealthy foreigners to buy out everything.


Replies

theinability • today at 1:20 PM

The inability to build fast mass transit is what keeps this so true. High speed rail into nearby towns could / should change the amount of land available but nobody builds it except the Chinese. And Americans don’t even consider it

jon-wood • today at 1:22 PM

They're not full, people just aren't willing to increase density so the only option is an ever larger sprawl of houses rather than apartment blocks.

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ericmay • today at 1:26 PM

> So don't increase demand by allowing wealthy foreigners to buy out everything.

I’m not sure about the effect of “wealthy foreigners” since if they are wealthy they are probably competing for more expensive properties that your school teacher or grocery store worker aren’t.

But you’re on to something here which isn’t being addressed which is the effect of mass migration to some of these countries. Obviously the migrant workers too want to and gravitate toward the cities with the most jobs, which would place additional pressure on housing prices since they join an already hyper competitive pool of buyers.