2012年(464)
分类: Delphi
2012-05-11 10:32:40
Before we can answer what would be the effects of large future home price
increases relative to rents, we would have to ask why those increases would be
happening. Let us consider why they increased the last time, in the early 2000s.
The reasons are basically the same in both the US and the UK.
What would
happen if, as so many people are hoping, home prices were to go up dramatically
again as they did in the early 2000s? Would such a change really benefit
society?
People who most ardently desire this are homeowners who are
underwater on their mortgages, who took out mortgages at the peak of the boom
and now find that their homes are worth less than they owe on them. And besides,
the relative industries will certainly benefit from the raising home price. The
and
manufacturers may be the biggest beneficiary.
Thinking that large
home price increases would be a good thing seems very widespread. But the
effects of any such future price boom would not be so clearly beneficial, and
would depend on the causes of the price increase and the financial arrangements
that were made for them. The issues are much more complex than most people seem
to imagine.
Note that in the latest bubble home prices in the US and
the UK rose rapidly relative to the cost of renting. It was not a rental boom.
It was thus financial in origin, not caused by a rise in the real scarcity value
of housing services that people want to consume. It was instead a change in the
investment demand for ownership of a claim on a stable flow of
rents.
We should also hope for some fundamental change in our mining
machinery fields so that the problem that got us into this housing crisis will
not be repeated. I talk about new types of construction cement equipment that
would go a long way towards preventing the kind of financial crisis we have just
been through. The construction of such
equipment will be in effect lead a more progress in machinery technology and
innovation.
Ultimately, what we really should be hoping for is not
home price increases but democratisation and humanisation of the financial
infrastructure. Such improvements are unambiguously good, and are things we can
make happen. It need not be just a hope.