Building More Housing Makes It Cheaper. Really.
The new mayor of Los Angeles and about a third of her fellow Americans think new construction causes prices to rise. The evidence suggests otherwise.
Building a lot of new market-rate housing would almost certainly put downward pressure on regional prices.
Photographer: Allison Dinner/Getty Images
In a recent interview with the new leader of America’s second-largest city, Los Angeles Times reporters Liam Dillon and Ben Oreskes ran through a “lightning round” of statements that Mayor Karen Bass was supposed to declare true or false. It led to this exchange:
What Bass says at the end rings true. The value of a “typical” single-family house in Los Angeles is just more than $1 million, estimates Zillow. In the neighborhood of Baldwin Hills, where she used to live, it appears to be a bit higher than that. Build a new market-rate single-family house there, and her estimate of a $1 million price tag seems conservative.