Reddit reviews The Housing Boom and Bust: Revised Edition

What drives prices up in housing markets more than just "nice jobs" and "density" is price of land. If the value of land increases, the cost of development increases, and who pays for that increase? Residents, companies using that space, etc.

One of the primary factors that led to skyrocketing housing prices in 1970s California and New York were stricter zoning laws. Politicians spouting phrases like "preserving farmland," "saving the environment," or "preserving open spaces" led to policies that had a direct market impact on the price of land.

This is your "basic economics" at play: the demand increases (baby boomers wanting houses) while the supply is artificially limited. What's the result? Rapidly rising prices.

Think Boston is different than 1970s California? Nope. In some neighborhoods in Boston, buildings cannot be more than 45 feet tall. Buildings cannot produce too much shadow over Boston Common (yes, seriously).

Thomas Sowell wrote a fantastic book on this.

great idea.

I recommend any book by Thomas Sowell.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Housing-Boom-Bust-Revised/dp/0465019862

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rednecks-Liberals-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1594031436/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

But we need time to order the books.

Dodd Frank is a net loss attempt to address symptoms. Greedy businesses and market failures didn't create 31 million subprime mortgages, government programs to increase home ownership did. Which businesses are hurt by Dodd Frank? Just take a look at the numbers. Billions are spent on compliance and lending has been cut down. The cost is passed onto everyone. Productivity and profitability are traded for unproven claims of protection. This has been the slowest economic recovery since The Great Depression. Average Americans are being hurt by a meddling government. It's terribly ironic that the federal government causes a crisis with bad policy and then uses it to justify more bad policy.


Here is some reading material:

https://www.amazon.com/Housing-Boom-Bust-Revised/dp/0465019862

http://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hhrg-114-ba00-wstate-pwallison-20150728.pdf


https://www.hillsdale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/FMF-2015-Dodd-Frank.pdf

If you'd like to read more on the specifics of the issue you can find Sowell's book here. I use the library though as it's free.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465019862/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?ref_=ntt_at_ep_dpt_5

It's exactly the case here.

Lack of housing development in California due to "open space" laws and protected lands is one of the primary drivers of their absurdly high housing prices. Thomas Sowell digs deep into this phenomenon in this book.

It wasn't deregulation. You could maybe make the case that it was under-regulation of the unintended side effects of bad policy but it wasn't deregulation. A good book on this is The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell. Here is an interesting discussion about the book worth watching.

"Housing Boom and Bust" by Thomas Sowell.
https://www.amazon.com/Housing-Boom-Bust-Revised/dp/0465019862/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540076536&sr=8-1&keywords=housing+boom+and+bust

the rule of law and dispute resolution are good institutions to have, but those aren't regulations on the market, nor do they prevent monopolies, nor are all monopolies bad.

> you get a mass boom, as speculation kicks in, you see people get massively wealthy, everyone wants the same, they all pile in! "Me too!" but at the first scandal, the whole edifice crashes down around your ears. Welcome to unregulated derivatives

this is just all wrong. i'm not going to get into it since i don't have all day, but here's ben powell again to educate you; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRj2OSNWRC4

or if you prefer reading, i recommend The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell

Regulation is always justified with a very broad brush, because from a high level it always sounds good. To expose the problems with it, you have to drill down into the details and examine very specific effects.

The good news is you can start absolutely anywhere. I have yet to run into an example of regulation that didn't create worse problems than it set out to solve.

Take, for example, the VW emissions scandal. Eric Peters explains in a Tom Woods interview how it was caused by overregulation. He also has a gazillion blog posts on auto overregulation generally and VW specifically.

Or take the housing market. Sowell does a great job of showing how regulations pile up, layer after layer, trying to patch the problems caused by the previous round of regulaton.

Or take pharmaceuticals.

Or take childcare.

Or take healthcare.

Or take food waste.

Or take fisheries management.

Or take toilets.


Pick any regulation, and google the libertarian take on it. You'll find the case against it.

no I am an economist who watched it happen. You can get this esteemed economists book for a penny & educate yourself https://www.amazon.com/Housing-Boom-Bust-Revised/dp/0465019862

Add to reading list: http://www.amazon.com/Housing-Boom-Bust-Revised/dp/0465019862/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418350654&sr=8-1&keywords=housing+boom+and+bust