Tuesday 13 May 2014

A housing observation worth remembering: expensive markets build little housing

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Especially for people who think planning isn't most of the problem.

Although the real world is a lot more complicated than that, a simple scatterplot makes the point: expensive markets build little housing. Every metro where the median price per foot is over $200 has added housing at an annual rate of no more than 10 new units per 1,000 existing units since 1990. Conversely, no metro that builds a lot of housing is expensive. 

So the divide widens - wealthy New Yorkers (or Londoners, for that matter) use their position to elect people who promise to build absolutely nothing anywhere near them.

The whole review - loaded with interesting stats (if you like housing and/or the US economy) is well worth a read!

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