From Crash Davis You’ll hear it all the time, especially from pundits and politicians: “The solution to the housing crisis is simple. Just build more.” It sounds nice. It fits on a bumper sticker. But it’s not the full story. Not even close. We’re not just short on homes. We’ve built an entire system where housing has become the best way to build wealth, and where insiders control access to that wealth. I was talking to a friend the other day, and he mentioned a few people he knew who were doing very well financially. Every single one of them had made their money in real estate. That says a lot. Here in Colorado, you see the distortion everywhere. In Lakewood, homes are sitting on the market. The “supply” is technically there, but prices still start around $500,000 and go well past $1.4 million. That’s not a starter home. That’s not attainable for most working families. And it’s not just because we didn’t build enough. It’s because we’ve flooded the system with easy money for decades. It didn’t start with the pandemic. That just poured fuel on a fire that had already been burning since the financial crisis, the dot-com bust, and even before. Every time the economy hiccups, we inject liquidity, drop interest rates, and do whatever it takes to prop up asset values. The result is a distorted market where real estate becomes a magnet for cash, speculation, and institutional investment. Now we’re sitting on the flip side....
