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NickRick t1_jbqoofo wrote

Reply to comment by realbadaccountant in Fane Tower project in Providence is dead by Ph886

Does the city need more luxury apartments? I thought there were plenty of unsold units. They put some up at station row like 15 years ago and it's full pretty empty and was used for dorms for a while.

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realbadaccountant t1_jbqp8t9 wrote

So do you honestly believe housing stays empty forever if they’re considered “luxury” and nobody can pay that price? Or do they eventually reduce the price to whatever the market will allow, get filled, the new occupants old houses become vacant, and so on. Because that is how economics works my friend.

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NickRick t1_jbqq008 wrote

Hasn't worked in the last 15 years, but sure man let's build a bunch more and I'm sure they will drop the prices annnnny minute now.

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MahBoy t1_jbrcuvi wrote

The median income in Providence is less than 30K/yr.

Yes, they do stay empty.

Things like this are not built because units get filled. They get built so they are hard assets on somebody's books. They get built because they're expensive tax write-offs that can be used as a 30-year asset class. They get built due to real estate speculation. None of those reasons provide any real benefit to anybody except the developers and the construction unions.

Considering that public land is being used here, there should be measurable public benefit for any development that occurs on it.

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meme-scraperr t1_jbtijg3 wrote

The public benefit is that the rich kids who are buying up all the housing downtown and in fox Point can live there and open up housing for poor people it’s not hard to understand

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relbatnrut t1_jbuipei wrote

And then more rich people from Boston and New York are attracted to a perfect little gentrified city and more luxury housing is built and rents are still sky high but it's okay because the filtering effect will probably kick in sometime around 2045 and housing will finally be affordable.

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MahBoy t1_jbubhak wrote

Right, because the rents they were paying elsewhere are magically going to go down because they found somewhere else to live /s

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meme-scraperr t1_jbubu9s wrote

Your understanding of basic economic principles is laughably bad, but actually not so funny because I share the same city with you

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lightningbolt1987 t1_jbsl5pc wrote

This just isn’t true. Developers do not want empty buildings and risk default if they are empty. You’re talking about luxury condos bought by rich investors. What you’re talking about doesn’t apply to apartment buildings.

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realbadaccountant t1_jbsp3mn wrote

This person doesn’t understand basic economics, nevermind accounting tricks. My god. So ignorant.

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relbatnrut t1_jbqtf8l wrote

In practice what this has done is shift the demographics of Providence, attracting rich people from Boston and New York who can afford higher prices. It's not that no one can pay these prices (see: Providence's population growing even as housing prices rise exponentially). It's that the people who can pay those prices aren't the same people in Providence who need housing.

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realbadaccountant t1_jbspyoy wrote

Not how housing prices work. The market is whatever people can pay, not what developers want to charge. That’s basic economics.

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