Timothy Birdnow

Housing is in short supply across the nation and particularly in the Southwest and most particularly in California.

According to the Wall Street Journal: "Some 22 states and the District of Columbia have built too little housing to keep up with economic growth in the 15 years since 2000, resulting in a total shortage of 7.3 million units, according to research to be released Monday by an advocacy group for loosening building regulations.

California bears half of the blame for the shortage: The state built 3.4 million too few units to keep up with job, population and income growth."

End excerpt.

So, California has far too few housing units. Why did that happen? Two reasons; California has some of the strictest eviction/foreclosure laws in America and it is extraordinarily difficult to remove someone once they are in (making landlords and lenders reluctant to invest) and because - you guessed it - California has invited so many illegal aliens to colonize there and those numbers were not counted when builders project4ed into the future.

Also contributing to this would be environmental policies promoted by the Obama EPA that restricted development as well as draconian safety regulations.

The article blames the shortage on retirements and labor shortages - no surprise given the Wall Street Journal's open borders position seeking cheap labor:

"Arizona and Utah are among the states that have built too little housing in the 15-year period, according to the report. The shortage in these places likely reflects strong demand as they become top destinations for retirees and people priced out of the Northeast and California.

At the same time, it is becoming more difficult to build all across America due to shortages of land, labor and materials."

End excerpt.

If people are retiring to these western states because they are being priced out of the northeast, why is that? The article fails to address the reasons for high eastern prices. And land is not scarce - just land that can be develooped since the U.S. government owns so much western land and won't allow development on privately held land. Nor is there a material shortage, except where we are not allowing the production of materials for environmental reasons aka cutting down trees. And labor is only in short supply if you demand below fair market wages - meaning invading aliens.

The fact is, we have at a minimum 22 million people here illegally, and all of thsoe people are taking up housing and driving prices up. They're doing it in the east and in the west. Couple that with the millions of legal immigrants allowed in each year and it should surprise nobody we have a housing shortage - fully 60 plus million people here are immigrants. That is the size of a good sized nation. All of those people have to be housed.

Reasonable environmental policies, land sales and deregulation, and a rational immigration policy would put an end to this problem and would lead to deflation of the artificially overpriced housing industry. It's just a matter of our government doing what it should, rather than what it wants.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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