Image of the day: time spent at home is way up
People want more space
From The Anti-Social Century. Derek Thompson, Atlantic, January 2025.
Why the demand for housing floorspace has risen
I'm of the view that the pandemic was a huge positive shock to the demand for floorspace, which is only slowly and partially unwinding.
And the systematic failure of planning policies to recognize and respond to this shock has greatly exacerbated housing affordability problems.
"People want more space as their incomes rise" is the key statement to me. Having to spend more time at home didn't make Hong Kong start building larger condos, to my knowledge. You can want more space all you want, if you can't afford it.
I'm coming 'round to the concern that maybe the "housing crisis" is just income inequality more than anything else. I live in a condo where I think a quarter of the residents have a second place to live.
When the pandemic hit, lots of people wanted more space; but despite those soaring costs, a lot of people could afford to buy it - after all, their $20K/year vacation budget was just sitting there, not to mention their $20K/year restaurant budget and $10K/year clothing budget. Re-prioritize a few other luxuries, and presto! down-payment.
We rattle on about the 1% and "billionaires" a lot ... but the whole top 20% of the population are a lot richer than when I was a kid; then, there were no "destination weddings", except for celebrities. More that a few of my white-collar professional friends have done those now - and ALL their kids are housed very comfortably, via "bank of Mom and Dad".