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Zoning doesnt matter unfortunately, prices go up in line with maximum possible mortgage amounts.

Real-estate prices have no bearing on 'value' of the land or materials. The buyer is convinced that he will get that money back and then some from the next sucker to buy it off him. It a pyramid scheme, detached from real economy.



In this particular economy, absolutely - where else is your money going to go?

However, part of the way we got here is specifically due to neighborhood segregation and zoning laws. People don't like their housing going down in value, so they protest anything that might cause it to do so. Whether or not upzoning would actually harm property values is not material: the fact that people believe it to do so is enough to get them to protest increases in the housing supply. This means that every local government is blocking housing supply and working to keep prices high, which makes housing an artificially safe investment, and thus encourages infinite speculation.

This will continue until we break the idea that home ownership = retirement plan and that dense housing = cheap housing = crime. Once that happens, then it makes far less sense to speculate on real estate and we can start unwinding this long con. The reason why maximum mortgage amounts are so high is that banks can't lose - if the the debtor pays off their investment in full, then the bank wins; and if they default, then the bank repossesses a house that is likely worth more than the principal of the loan, so they win. There's no default risk - if that were to return, then banks would be more skeptical of who they lend to, and that would put start quenching demand.


You’re describing monetization, not a pyramid scheme.


infinitely rising house prices are impossible, so a housing market where everyone expects them to do that is a pyramid scheme, someone will be left holding the bag




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