We should focus on building "unaffordable" housing, Scott Sumner | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

Save for DMCI the rest of the condo builders of our country are either high quality and expensive or low quality and expensive or low quality and afforable.
DMCI is in my opinion the only one in the good quality and affordable group.

Many left-wingers start with the false assumption that society needs to build more “affordable housing”. In fact, in any well functioning society the vast majority of the new housing being built would be “unaffordable”, that is, out of the price range of the median income.To see why, consider the nature of economic progress. During the Middle Ages, most people lived in miserable hovels. Today, most people in America live in nice houses and apartments. This transition occurred because the new homes being built tended to be superior to the existing stock of homes, at any given point in time.Moving to higher quality homes is an important part of economic progress. Because one year’s worth of new construction is only about 1% of the existing stock of homes, it’s difficult to rapidly upgrade the quality of our housing stock. But if we are to make any progress at all, it’s essential for new homes to be of much higher quality (and hence more expensive) that the average of existing homes. New houses should be unaffordable to average people.

Source: We should focus on building “unaffordable” housing, Scott Sumner | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty

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