Daryl Fairweather

single family zoning is behind why there's a scarcity of housing in cities like Seattle and many cities across the country.

But there's actually been a lot of progress to get rid of that and replace it with multifamily zoning.

It's been a very slow moving progress.

And just because you change the zoning doesn't mean the housing changes overnight.

The housing has to get developed.

But in the last five years, there has been a big movement.

The Yimby's, yes, in my backyard, as opposed to the NIMBY's, no, in my backyard.

The Yimby's

seem to be winning this ideological fight, which is really encouraging to see because it is based on economic principles, supply and demand, and it's finally starting to click in politicians' minds and voters' minds that this is how you get more affordable housing.

Yeah.

So I think a good metaphor for the housing market is musical chairs.

Like the people who already own houses are sitting in their chairs.

And whenever there's a new spring housing market, some people get up and they move and they select a new chair.

And if you're not adding more chairs in, you can't get first-time homebuyers into the market so easily.

But if you were to add some luxury, plush, nice chair, yes, it's probably going to go to a very wealthy person.

But then that wealthy person is not going to be sitting in the folding chair anymore.

And that chair opens up for a first-time homebuyer.

Hopefully they rent it out.

Yeah, my frustration with the way that housing works in this country is that it's usually determined by local residents, usually people who are homeowners themselves, who go to their local town halls or local city halls and advocate for less housing because they don't want to see their neighborhoods change.

They don't want to see new condo buildings or apartment buildings going up.