The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate climbed this week to its highest level in more than 20 years, grim news for would-be homebuyers already challenged by a housing market that remains competitive due to a dearth of homes for sale.
Rates shouldn’t have been so low in the first place. Home loans have basically been free money for the wealthy to acquire houses as assets in a sick fucking get-rich-quick scheme, where the consequences have been no one being able to afford homes. Now all we need is a tax on unoccupied homes.
I am so glad we have a fixed-rate mortgage, but I don’t know how we’re ever going to be able to afford to move out of this town.
cries in 1980s mortgage
No sympathy. Vote away zoning laws if you want to buy a house.
Zoning laws have a small part to play. The biggest issue is the privatization of the housing market. The government needs to get involved in building single family homes.
Zoning laws absolutely play a huge part. They are the main tool of NIMBYs to prevent new construction of affordable housing.
I think we are saying the same thing. Even without zoning, now all that would change is chemical plants and dumps popping up around working class communities. Wealthy people will snap up rezoned land close to their houses. The housing crisis goes way deeper than just zoning laws, to the point they are just a tool of many.
The tldr version: zoning was initially used to keep minorities out of areas and was changed into it’s current form once the majority of money had already pooled in to too few hands.
The alternative to shitty zoning laws is not abolishing zoning laws, you know?
