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By Christopher E. Baecker
The current explosion in rental and home prices is the direct result of government intervention aimed at making it easier to buy a house. Mises wrote that government intervention into the market tends to make things worse. He was right.
I've started to tell people in my life, "Stop thinking about price and start thinking about quantity."
Because whenever we talk about affordability it's always about price. So the smooth-brain solution is obviously to subsidize, or control the price somehow, right?
Obviously anyone who's taken Econ 101 knows the problem with that, but most adults haven't taken Econ 101, or they've forgotten. But when you remind them that quantity is what matters, everything starts falling into place.
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The government doing these things are really shady. Especially at a local level. "We all remember the fallout the last time that happened." Its just about time for our generation to have its own housing crisis and economic downturn!
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I'm really hopeful that this will be the last cycle of this nonsense, but who knows? We're going to try to take advantage of this next housing crisis to get set-up in our ideal situation.
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How will you try to take advantage of it?
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By moving into a very affordable house in a depressed market that has all the amenities we're looking for.
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Interesting. Its hard to find what you want.
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It sure is. My wife's been doing a lot of online house hunting and research into different areas. We have a bunch of candidates in mind, but we're still waiting for prices to drop.
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Price drop and everything has to be right. Especially if you are moving from a house you have lived in a long time.
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No we've only been here a few years and there are several things we'd be happy to change.
Ah government, the cause of and “solution” to so many problems.
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truth be said, government intervention can have short-term benefits by making it easier for some individuals to buy homes, it also carries risks and potential unintended consequences. Effective housing policy
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