EXCESSIVE HOUSE PRICES—HOW THEY LET IT HAPPEN

[of course it’s the price of LAND that is boosting the price, so in this extract I’ve added LAND to housing]

Here are four ways the State reinforces the hyper-commodification of housing LAND to make the price of housing so expensive.

—First, the state deregulates mortgage lending, ends rent control, and privatizes public housing LAND in the U.S. and U.K.

—Second, the state allows financialization of housing LAND by the banks pooling mortgages and selling them as “liquid assets.”

—Third, the state allows globalization of housing LAND with foreign investors speculating in U.S. housing or buying luxury housing as an investment which were never meant to be lived in.

—Fourth, the state allows gentrification to increase landlords’ profits with huge rent increases.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/19/the-myths-of-housing-policy/

In a review of David Madden and Peter Marcuse’s thought-provoking book In Defense of Housing asks us to rethink the U.S. housing crisis.