We actually need to build more shells he insists. .y friend who is a shell developer says the red tape is what’s slowing down access to homes.
More like lack of investment because Republicans refuse to tax the rich in order to fund infrastructure and welfare.
A little bit of both tbh. Many US cities have ridiculous zoning laws that require you to build nothing but single family homes in huge suburbs. No medium density and no mixed zones (think grocery store next to your home or even downstairs from your condo unit). Liberal areas have it too. It’s about as universal as healthcare is in my country. The origin is, of course, racism.
There’s other forms of red tape too, like building codes, but the inability to build like a 6 family 2 or 3 story condo complex is costing the US a lot. Lost productivity, forced car dependence, higher infrastructure costs, etc. And of course higher real estate prices because you get fewer units per unit of land area.
BREAKING: slugs have begun salting snails with more than one shell. This has been a net positive for everyone.
Hypothetically, if the snail with 2 investment shells were forced to sell them then do you think the slug would thereby be able to buy them? Because in all likelihood the slug would be forced to take out a loan in order to purchase a shell but clearly there are already shells on the market so if the slug could do that then they would already be doing so.
Furthermore, the costs of building shells might as well be higher than the actual listed price of the shells in some places, rural areas in particular, and the total number of vacant/unused shells is 10%. Without subsidies, the shell market will not come down in price to the point that people wouldn’t be unshelled from a number of shells suddenly entering the market.
So clearly, the ideal solution would be a needs based welfare program to provide homes to those who most need and benefit from them, and providing other necessary care and treatment to those who would do better in a specialized facility, all of which would have to be paid for via taxation of those who have the most assets and least need.
Shells are artificially inflated because they aren’t valued as a “home” but rather as an “investment”
And investment makes money, so snails with money can afford to pay more than the shell is worth as a “home”
If a shell were not allowed to be used as an “investment” the prices would go down substantially, even if they weren’t forced to be sold.
If they were forced to be sold, the prices would drop even further as all of a sudden there would be a flood of *people" trying to sell their shells to a limited number of slugs, who would then only choose the best deal for themselves.
The slugs may not have been able to be approved for a loan for a $500k shell but only for a $300k shell, but there were no $300k shells available and if they were, they were complete crapheaps In a bad neighbourhood so renting a shell was the more logical choice.
If a shell were not allowed to be used as an “investment” the prices would go down substantially, even if they weren’t forced to be sold.
If shells were not allowed to be used as an investment then nobody would be allowed to rent shells, meaning demand to buy shells would rise and the market values wouldn’t fluctuate except for the fact that the slugs still cannot buy shells.
It’s a complete non-solution only ever attempted by Asian Trampsnails under their brutal dictatorship which killed millions and still has shell-lessness problems to this very day.