The Fight of the Condo
Posted by
Clark Williams-Derry
04/17/2007 01:45 AM
Condos are a consequence, not a cause, of expensive housing.
Let's leave the vitriol aside for the moment. In his most recent Mossback column, condo-critic Knute Berger makes the following claim about Seattle's gradual move towards denser housing:
"We know that these green-backed policies [i.e., the ones promoting dense development in Seattle] are making the city more unaffordable."
No, in fact, we do not know that.
Of course, it's a common complaint. Apparently, lots of people view condo development as the root cause underlying the runup in Seattle housing prices.
But as we've argued before, this gets the relationship between condos and housing affordability completely backwards. Condos do not make housing expensive. Expensive housing makes condos.
