blatchcorn

blatchcorn t1_j5zexnn wrote

That's an interesting angle, but the premise of the OP is different. The OP is saying remote work will lead to greater home ownership, where as you are saying materials innovation will reduce housing costs and increase ownership.

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blatchcorn t1_j5y4vmg wrote

It's fair to say technology has some impact on housing. Technology impacts everything to a degree. But it's not the main input of housing availability.

To go back to my '80% of who' point. Somalia hasn't got remote workers living in condos. The technology all exists for Somalia to have condos, trains, and cars but they don't. That's because the main constraint is money and politics, not technology.

If we focus on the USA, consumer technology improved massively from the 60s and that coincided with the rise of suburbs with affordable housing. But that doesn't mean technology delivered affordable housing. Correlation doesn't guarantee causation right. Instead the housing was briefly affordable while the economy was booming and demographic trends didn't put strain on housing.

Even if you do believe that consumer technology did make housing accessible, you need to acknowledge that somehow that it didn't stay accessible for long. Despite all of those technologies you listed, housing became inaccessible again. It seems naive to think that technology will lead to a permanent change in housing because of this. Again it just keeps boiling down to the fact the main limiter of housing is not technology

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blatchcorn t1_j5y1p84 wrote

For starters you need to define 80% of who and by what time. I am guessing 80% refers to just the USA because I doubt people living in Somalia will ever be living in small condos doing remote work for tech firms.

Your thesis is based on observing that as technology advances it becomes cheaper and therefore becomes more accessible. Housing isn't limited by technology - it is limited by politics and finance. This means that your examples do not provide evidence housing will also become more accessible.

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blatchcorn t1_iuh5wpu wrote

Who is seriously up voting this comment?

The OP is not correct and wrong at the same time. He is just correct.

We have higher levels of debt which increases the pain felt by interest rate increases.

Another factor is that some of this inflation is cost-push which should resolve itself eventually irrespective of interest rates, which only deal with demand pull inflation

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