What happened to politics?

@Fukfacewillie You genuinely think the market would do what you want it to do if there were fewer regulations? That's funny. You are vastly underestimating human greed.

@LordShadowfire There is pent up demand, but not enough supply. The entry into the market to build housing is expensive and there is tremendous red tape. There are other reasons, like corporations buying up properties to rent.

The market is greed, let it open up and units will come on line easing the cost of housing. Easing up zoning, too.

@Fukfacewillie I have a friend who lives in a studio apartment with no kitchen, just a shared stove area on each floor that 30 people are expected to share. You know what he pays for the privilege of living in a little box like that? $850 a month. And if you think deregulating the market will make the company that owns his building reduces rent payment, you're іnsаnе. $850 time 30 tenants per floor. Five floors. Do you know how much of a profit margin those people get? Before taxes and utilities, that's a gross income of $127,500 per month. And you think somehow putting fewer regulations on them will make them reduce rent?

@Fukfacewillie the market never worked for public services. A lot of things have been privatized in the Netherlands and the quality/availability went downhill for everything: public transport, healthcare, utilities, housing, postal services, you name it. I guess it could work to some extend, but all regulation favored suppliers and protected profits more than the service. And then you get greedy people who don't care about their customers.

@NerdyPotato The problem is, @Fukfacewillie has fallen for the classic blunder. He believes that humans are basically good.

@NerdyPotato As I said, the methods will be disagreed with, but I don’t think anyone where I live, in Los Angeles, doesn’t understand that there is too much demand and not enough supply.

Housing in the US isn’t a public service, for the most part.

Getting rid of silly regulations would help quite a bit.

@LordShadowfire No, greedy. Greed would help the housing crisis if roadblocks were lifted. That requires good governance, and stopping corruption and monopolistic practices.

@Fukfacewillie Okay, now I'm confused. First you want to deregulate the market, and now you want to increase regulation to prevent monopolies from forming.

@LordShadowfire Very few believe in pure capitalism. Monopolies hurt competition and therefore efficiency. It’s why Microsoft office products aren’t very good.

You want many different entities entering the market, competing.

@Fukfacewillie Okay, but what I'm saying is that right now we need more regulation preventing these companies from consolidating and forming these huge monopolies. That's part of the problem. The apartment complex I spoke of, Alcove Northwest. It's part of a huge national chain of apartment complexes. The owner probably has his own private island somewhere.

@LordShadowfire I agree. If the size of the corporation means they can operate at a loss in one area to destroy competitors then anti-trust regulations are needed.

@Fukfacewillie Well, this is a historic moment. We've argued our way to an agreement.

@LordShadowfire

@Fukfacewillie Land prices affect house prices, The larger cities are all developed so there are no vacant lots to construct new housing on. The history of project housing is not good. There are no easy answers to the problem.