freediver wrote on Apr 17
th, 2024 at 11:18am:
News to me. How do you quantify (the housing crisis) ?
Number of homeless, car sleepers, couch surfers, caravan/tent dwellers.
Percentage of income swallowed by mortgage payments or rents.
Lack of houses for rent.
Falling home ownership rates since the 1980s.
Quote:Why is 'better quality houses' not an alternative explanation for the higher cost?
Not all houses are "better quality", and indeed dumps in Sydney are now "worth" close to a million bucks, in the Oz-wide housing-price ponzi driven by ever-increasing demand backed by high immigration, and rising private indebtedness during the low interest rate era - now coming home to roost for late entrants to the ponzi scheme as interest rates have risen and remain high.
Either way, the free-market 'housing as investment vehicles' greed-based policy, in conjunction with reduced public-housing as part of "small government " ideology, has resulted in the current housing crisis, the problem to be solved today.