Frum.Finance

<https://x.com/levelsio/status/1926627459929096424>

&gt; It's funny, if you buy a:
&gt; - car
&gt; - furniture
&gt; - machinery
&gt; - laptop
&gt; - washing machine
&gt; - oven
&gt; - most things really
&gt; 
&gt; You expect it to depreciate and lose value, because why wouldn't it?
&gt; 
&gt; But when buying houses, the banks and government created this artificial system where they NEED house prices to always go up to make it a good investment for people
&gt; 
&gt; And people get elected for keeping this system, or else social revolt would start
&gt; 
&gt; This entire system relies on a perpetual housing shortage
&gt; 
&gt; Which is why most people now can't afford to buy a house and many can't even afford to rent
&gt; 
&gt; No politician is gonna risk changing that because it'd probably be a career ender, that is until the people that can NOT afford a home become powerful enough to elect some revolutionary politician into power

&gt; created this artificial system
Really? Real estate tending to increase in value is totally artificial? Without government intervention the value trajectory would naturally follow that of a car or a washing machine?:thinking_face:
I have a hard time accepting that

i guess the difference is in קרקע vs מטלטלין

however one thing is true...if you're buying a house to live it, it's a terrible investment

Yes. Housing supply is artificially limited by zoning and other regulations.

Let's separate the physical house, which depreciates over time, from the land rights, which do not. So a washing machine is completely incomparable.
Accounting 101: we don't depreciate land

Separately, this sounds like a conspiracy theory. Why would this be the case? Where is the evidence?

Interesting, is this actually true? Aren’t there natural elements that contribute to housing price increases, people wanting to be close to city center or infrastructure (in our case, Shuls and schools) 