[laterium]

The reason housing is extremely expensive in the US is the current old NIMBY home owners. The country has 66% home ownership rate thanks to the long term policy of US government to promote homeownership. But this has the undesirable side effect that for most Americans, their house represents all their wealth and they will fight to the bitter end to protect that from anyone else, especially newcomers.

It's nice to think of newcomers as Airbnbs, investment firms, and Chinese immigrants to justify this NIMBY stance to themselves and sleep well at night. But in fact the newcomers are their own children. Left likes environment as a reason to block construction and right neighborhood character (racism). This ensures that nothing gets built and the home prices stay high, exactly what the electorate, majority homeowner and majority old desires.

From the voter's perspective it's not a housing problem. It's a housing bonanza where it's old people complaining about a problem supposedly others created while wiping their tears with dollars. There's so many red herrings in the housing debate that they can sleep sound that it will never change thanks to the next guy blaming Airbnbs for why housing is expensive.