“If ‘Habitat For Humanity’ cared about people and not virtue displays, they could rehab ten houses for the time and money is takes to build a new house – poorly.”
Vide: There is a huge surplus of effectively-abandoned housing building up in the rioted cities. No one is talking about this, but it is simple math: Massive exodus from urban to suburban leaves empty urbanity behind. Moreover, big cities are now bursting with emptiness in their inner cores, as every Ant who could scurried home and stayed there.
Is the problem that poor people need better housing? Nah. Is it that all of China Joe’s newly-imported voters need places to live? Nah. Do we finally plan to actually “do something” about the homeless? C’mon! Get your head out of your ass.
No, the problem is that the very wealthiest of Americans own a ton of urban dirt – and the value of those investments is – so far secretly – in freefall.
Sometime very soon, expect to hear about a housing initiative that will convert underperforming office towers into grim government-owned tenements, instead.
Two points, I think: First, if big cities become vertical homeless encampments, they will never come back. Second, if you own C- or D-quality rental housing in rioted cities, your best day to sell – forever – is probably today: The government’s handouts will be going to richer landlords in other neighborhoods.
In other news:
The San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. has nearly 16 million square feet of vacant office space. Why can’t it become housing?
Redfin: Housing Market Update: A Record 39% of Homes Sold Above List Price.
Real Clear Education: The War on Merit.
Joanne Jacobs: ‘They sit and stare’.
City Journal: A Big Gamble: The Biden administration downplays the risks of its historically massive spending bills.
Angelo Codevilla: American Exodus: Don’t wait for the oligarchy to let you in. Just walk away.
