Heaton fixes the housing crisis

A significant number of zoning laws are restrictions homeowners put in place on other people's property to ensure their own property maintains or gains value.

This is great if you're a homeowner, but it sucks if you're Andrew Heaton.

Written and starring Andrew Heaton. Produced by Meredith Bragg, Austin Bragg, and John Carter.

Photo credit: Media Drum World/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom. Music: "Wellington Joke" by Manos Mars; "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod.

[MasterJediJason]

We def need more Heaton on here. He is awesome

[LouisEmery]

Learned that in SF bay area in the 1980 as a student renter. My landlady complained her three grown children can't find housing near anywhere her. I told her about building restrictions that she, by default, supported all her life. It was a shock to her that a young guy could teach her something about real estate.

[AntonioBianh]

Back in the day, when I purchased my first home to live-in; that was Miami in the early 1990s, first mortgages with rates of 8 to 9% and 9% to 10% were typical. People will have to accept the possibility that we won't ever return to 3%. If sellers must sell, home prices will have to decline, and lower evaluations will follow. Pretty sure I'm not alone in my chain of thoughts.

[recurrenTopology]

The emerging alliance between libertarian free-market supporters and leftist urbanists on housing density is an exciting development for improving American cities. In Washington state, for example, the recently passed law banning single-family zoning in the state's cities had broad bipartisan support.

[gingerkilkus]

I think a housing crash will happen because all those people who bought homes over asking price, although it was at a low interest rate, they are over their heads. They have no equity if the housing prices continue to go down, and if for whatever reason they cannot afford the house anymore and it goes into foreclosure because even if they try to sell, they will not make any money. I think this will happen to a lot of people especially with the massive layoff predicted for the future and the cost of living rising at a high speed.

[anthonyyoung]

This is 100% true.
The ugly truth is the people don’t want to change zoning. Because if zoning laws change the value of their house goes down.

[RealGJZig]

It's the attitude of: "We got ours! Screw you if you can't afford to get yours!"
Prove me wrong

[danielrizzo]

If you’re also concerned about exhaust gases from transportation, guess what? Zoning restrictions make distances bigger between your potential destinations in the city because you’re not allowed to build up. So more individual houses next to each other make cities expand horizontally instead of vertically.

[LouisEmery]

I actually did something about zoning a few years ago. An adjacent 0.75-acre empty lot was zoned for some townhomes, but was opposed by neighboring townhomes on the other side. (I own single family home.) I went to the zoning hearing and gave an unsolicited case for property rights, using standard libertarian arguments. This impressed the board and also the neighbors who initially opposed. I also said that my preferred land use would have been a donut shop, but for that I would have needed to purchase the lot when it was on the market. This is how an individual can affect a little part of the world.

[askjeremy]

As a Real Estate agent and investor, I have been saying this for years! Nonsafety-related regulations and zoning restrictions create unaffordable housing, which leads to increased homelessness in the long-term

[spartaninvirginia]

Taking the fangs away from HOAs would help, too.

[oldgeek]

The constant change of increasingly restrictive building codes are driving up the cost of new construction. Each year new codes are added. They increase the complexity and cost of building a new home or apartment. Certainly some level of standard is needed but it is getting ridiculous.

[justsomenobody]

Zoning is just legal classism. Overt classism. As someone trying to build an affordable house in a US county that represents the epitome of every stupid policy you’ve talked about in this video, watching this makes me want to cry 😭

Classist policies that prevent a professional couple who makes 170k a year from building a home (my husband and I) is a bit of a red flag that this shit has gotten out of hand!

[aleidius]

Andrew Heaton is the Jimmy Stewart of Economics.

[michaelscott]

I was looking at old Heaton content, and are glad for new old Heaton.

[freakinsweetdude]

When people started thinking of their properties as an investment more so than just a place to live we set ourselves down this path. People don't want to hurt their "investments" so they'll do everything they can to stop them from going down. Like you said artificial scarcity and NIMBYs have stagnated new developments and it's crazy how far property values have snowballed because of it.

[ryanwilliams]

I’m in Michingan and the housing market here over the last 7-8 years is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Homes that were bought for $130K in 2015 are now being sold for $590k. I’m talking about tiny, disgusting, poorly built 950 square foot shit boxes in quite mediocre neighborhoods. Then you’ve got Better, average sized homes in nicer neighborhoods that were $300K+ 10 years ago selling for $750k+ now. Wild times.

[GRNBaseball]

I think that's only part of the problem. The federal reserve held interest rates far below the neutral market rate for a decade, allowing individual buyers to leverage higher into prices while maintaining lower monthly costs. Eventually firms noticed that they could earn better returns on housing units than bonds, and profligate REITs started purchasing whole neighborhoods. With higher interest rates (but still not touching some versions of the Taylor rule) we're seeing housing cool down. Unfortunately bubbles don't pop slowly, so we may see a wave of unemployment and forced selling soon (look at the 10 y to 3m spread).

[CompuBrains]

So some people don't want more neighbors. And you know what, fair enough. The issue these people fail to realize is that they're going to get more neighbors whether they like it or not, the real question we have to ask ourselves is "would I like my new neighbor to live in a large apartment building, or would I rather they live in a cardboard box in front of my house and poop on my sidewalk?"

If you really want to get away from people, go live in a rural area.

[vnews]

How about some laws restricting the restrictors?