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Ok-Title-270 t1_j7plfq5 wrote

Reply to comment by Jerry_Williams69 in How Can We The Increase Affordable Housing Supply? Ideas? by twentiesforever

>Big developers will just keep building McMansions that will get bought by investors to become high prices rentals

That only happens until there's not enough people with enough money to rent or buy them. The last time I saw affordable rentals being built by developers was last year in Gainesville Florida where housing is significantly less expensive than Vermont and there is more supply than demand

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Jerry_Williams69 t1_j7plq0w wrote

We haven't reached that saturation point. Not even close. Nobody learned anything from the 2008 meltdown. Adjustable rate mortgages are even making a comeback.

How does the average income in Gainesville compare to the price of that "affordable" housing? Might not be affordable to the locals.

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Ok-Title-270 t1_j7qu4au wrote

>We haven't reached that saturation point. Not even close.

Exactly, my point is we need to allow more building to occur if we want to drive down housing costs on the long term.

>How does the average income in Gainesville compare to the price of that "affordable" housing? Might not be affordable to the locals.

It's a university town with a huge hospital system supplying many good paying jobs

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Jerry_Williams69 t1_j7qup4b wrote

"It's a university town with a huge hospital system supplying many good paying jobs"

So? "Good paying" is relative to the region.

We will not hit a McMansion saturation point in Vermont before a large portion of the population is crushed and forced out of the state. Even then, it may never happen. You place too much faith in the free market.

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Ok-Title-270 t1_j7qvygo wrote

>So? "Good paying" is relative to the region.

There's no housing crisis there so clearly it's working much better than here. You can rent a decent apartment there for 1/2 of what it would cost in Burlington, if you can even find one.

>We will not hit a McMansion saturation point in Vermont before a large portion of the population is crushed and forced out of the state. Even then, it may never happen. You place too much faith in the free market

You place too much faith in the government, which has never managed a housing market well. There's really not that many people who can afford a mcmansion in this state so I think it would shake out pretty quickly

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Jerry_Williams69 t1_j7qzgjx wrote

I never said I put my faith in the government. I just said don't trust the free market and the people/companies who dominate it. Especially not in this late stage of capitalism we are in. It is not an either/or situation.

I don't know enough about Gainesville to determine if you are actually making a point or not. Low cost of living and available housing could point to the area being undesirable as much as being better run. That's why I was asking about wages and cost of living. Detroit has a low cost of living and available housing too.

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Ok-Title-270 t1_j7r0rzg wrote

>I never said I put my faith in the government

Then why do you want them to control everything?

I don't know the intricacies of VT vs Gainesville incomes etc but my point is I lived there and there's readily available multi unit housing for prices that residents can afford, and there's not a bunch of people desperately looking for housing they can barely afford

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Jerry_Williams69 t1_j7r17r4 wrote

Never said that. Is it really that binary for you? Solutions need to be collaborative in Vermont's case. Neither the free market alone or the government alone can solve this puzzle.

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Ok-Title-270 t1_j7smtvf wrote

We've seen lots of government already and it's failed. Why would more work better?

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