The government heavily interferes in the housing industry. Hence, the higher costs. It's the same for everything the government interferes with - such as education and health care.

For examples:

1. there are 57,000 unoccupied apartments in NYC because city regulations on rents make them unprofitable to rent out.

2. the glacial pace of issuing building permits for burned out homes in LA.

3. the sudden influx of many millions of immigrants pushes up the demand for housing, resulting in higher prices

▲

Timon3 an hour ago | parent [-]

I genuinely cannot understand how anyone with basic knowledge of economics could believe that government intervention is responsible for all unoccupied apartments in a market.

▲

socalgal2 31 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I genuinely can not understand how anyone with basic knowledge of economics could believe that government intervention is not responsible for the majority of rent price increases

The market, left to its own, will keep building because someone will see the prices people are willing to pay and think “I want in on that” but then the government comes in and blocks them from building. No building = supply lower than demand which always equals higher costs

Further, It would only have taken you one 5 second search to see the ways government regulations can cause unoccupied apartments

https://www.google.com/search?q=in+what+ways+can+government+...

▲

WalterBright 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's because you inserted the word "all" which was quite absent from what I wrote.

Please try again.

P.S. google "how many unoccupied apartments in nyc"

▲

JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> all unoccupied apartments in a market

Which market are you thinking of?

▲

Timon3 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

Let's assume I'm talking about the same market as the person I responded to.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> the same market as the person I responded to Los Angeles? Where the homeowner vacancy rate is 0.7% and rental vacancy 4%? If you literally weren't thinking of anywhere when your responded, where did you get the notion from? [1] https://api.census.gov/data/missing_key.html +/- one percent