I think you’ll find the real problem is that younger homeowners face the same incentives as old ones

I am a younger homeowner and am aggressively YIMBY. YMMV. Could not care less about value appreciation, it is housing, not an investment.

That’s the kind of claim people often make at the end of act 1

If you own a SFH, you might even make a bundle someday by selling your land to a developer who puts in denser multi family.

Additional wealth does not appeal to me, affordable housing does. That bundle has very little value if I’m a contributor to the problem.

By selling your single family home to a developer who puts many homes on the same lot as your former SFH, you will be helping solve the problem.

Only if those multi family units are sold at a reasonable price, or rented at a sustainable rent. There is no guarantee this happens if I sell to a developer. It is guaranteed if I develop the property.

It doesn’t matter a whit what price the developer tries to sell them at or what a landlord tries to charge for rent. There is something called ‘supply and demand’ and it applies to housing as it does to everything else. More units expand the supply and put downward price pressure on existing units.

The reason housing costs are so high is that there are too few homes and thus landlords and homeowners charge outlandish prices because people have little recourse but to pay since they are so few options.

yeah but you have to move to realize the value. put the money into the stock market instead and you can sell off the stock to realize the gains without having to move. except for the hottest areas (eg you bought in san Francisco in 2009), the sp500 beats real estate.

housing _is_, unfortunately, considered an investment for many people that cannot make relatively-significant money otherwise. (note: i am also against the housing-as-an-investment school of thought.)

The federal government through various tax mechanisms encourages home to be viewed as investments: 1. Mortgage tax deduction. 2. Sales tax exclusion on the first $500,000 3. Capital gains tax rate on the remainder.

Local government through zoning codes act as cartel limit the supply of homes which work to increase prices.

The financialization of homes is a direct result of government programs.

If you allow private ownership, it's gonna be a significant financial asset that people work to optimize (which is not very distinguishable from an investment).

Personally, I like the problems you end up with in market system that has sufficient supply (which we don't particularly have).

Expansion of housing vouchers at the US federal level would significantly address the needs of those who can’t afford market rate housing. Vouchers are more flexible, time-limited, and face less political opposition than local subsidized housing options.