So there’s a ton of countries that I’ve heard have had truly unaffordable housing for decades, like:
- The UK
- Ireland
- The Netherlands
And I’ve heard of a ton of countries where the cost of houses was until recently quite affordable where it’s also started getting worse:
- Germany
- Poland
- Czechia
- Hungary
- The US
- Australia
- Canada
- And I’m sure plenty others
- It seems to be a pan-Western bloc thing. Is the cause in all these countries the same?
- We’ve heard of success stories in cities like Vienna where much of the housing stock is municipally owned – but those cities have had it that way for decades. Would their system alleviate the current crisis if established in the aforementioned countries?
- What specific policies should I be demanding of our politicians to make housing affordable again? Is there any silver bullet? Has any country demonstrably managed to reverse this crisis yet?
I see, yes I definitely agree that AirBnB is part of the problem (it’s happening too here in Prague), although I think it can’t be the main cause because the price rise is also being felt in other parts of the country where there are practically no tourists…
Whilst I would be wary of saying AirBnB is the main cause (more likely it’s a big one but not the only one), keep in mind that when realestate prices go up in major cities, that pushes out people who go to cheaper places, pushing prices up in those places which in turn might push some out from those places and into even cheaper places.
So housing bubbles centered in main cities do naturally spread out from there to places were the original causes of the bubble are not present.
That is certainly a good point