<story><title>The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015 [pdf]</title><url>https://economics.harvard.edu/files/economics/files/ms28533.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pascalxus</author><text>Why is the real rate of return on real estate anything above 0?  If so, it means we&amp;#x27;re getting significantly worse at producing housing&amp;#x2F;shelter.  Sure, some of it can be chalked up to land value increase.  But, much of america is not land locked in any way.  If real estate really is returning greater than 0 real returns (not including rent&amp;#x2F;dividend) then that is quite concerning for society.  It means we haven&amp;#x27;t achieved any progress in housing for 150+ years (sure electricity&amp;#x2F;sewage&amp;#x2F;pipes, but that goes in a different category, more like utilities). If this trend continues, greater and greater percentage of people&amp;#x27;s incomes will go towards housing and more and more families will need to live in a given living space: the complete opposite of progress.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I&amp;#x27;m talking about ONLY the capital gain portion, not the rent port.  The rent portion of course should be greater than 0.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zemo</author><text>... it&amp;#x27;s literally the first sentence of the second paragraph of the introduction. The rate of return on real estate is the appreciation in its value plus the amount of rent you can charge for using it versus its cost to purchase. If you can buy a property for $100k and it yields $5k of yearly income, that&amp;#x27;s a 5% rate of return. You can&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;not include rent&amp;quot;, that&amp;#x27;s literally the function of a lot of real estate purchase.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Rate of Return on Everything, 1870–2015 [pdf]</title><url>https://economics.harvard.edu/files/economics/files/ms28533.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pascalxus</author><text>Why is the real rate of return on real estate anything above 0?  If so, it means we&amp;#x27;re getting significantly worse at producing housing&amp;#x2F;shelter.  Sure, some of it can be chalked up to land value increase.  But, much of america is not land locked in any way.  If real estate really is returning greater than 0 real returns (not including rent&amp;#x2F;dividend) then that is quite concerning for society.  It means we haven&amp;#x27;t achieved any progress in housing for 150+ years (sure electricity&amp;#x2F;sewage&amp;#x2F;pipes, but that goes in a different category, more like utilities). If this trend continues, greater and greater percentage of people&amp;#x27;s incomes will go towards housing and more and more families will need to live in a given living space: the complete opposite of progress.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I&amp;#x27;m talking about ONLY the capital gain portion, not the rent port.  The rent portion of course should be greater than 0.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>purple-again</author><text>It turns out people have this strange obsession with living within x miles of their family.  While the number of people living in New York City has greatly increased the amount of land has not. The more people demanding the same thing, the more it costs. Hence real estate in desirable areas continues to return a significant rate. Well unless you invested in Detroit of course.</text></comment>