International Real Estate Investments - Essay Example

The city would have to buy this land from the private investor, for which it would pay a premium, and then build homes on this land and sell or rent them for less than market value. This would not be a smart business practice for a city and it would lead to an outcry from citizens when taxpayers’ money was spent on something that most taxpayers were not even benefiting from. Also, other social programs would have to suffer because of this practice, which would also hurt city planners and the city in general.

There are bigger needs in many cities than affordable housing since people will find a way to pay for housing before they will do other things. In addition, most major cities have run out of room within the city and the residents have now begun retreating to the suburbs. The problem with this is that low-income housing units are not welcome in these regions. The people that have moved out of the city have moved there to get rid of the stereotypical problems that occur with low-income inhabitants and, therefore, affordable housing units would not be welcomed in this region.

An example of this is James Vacca “making sure that developers do not evade the new restrictions. He said he recently noticed someone building a three-family house, something not allowed under the new rules. He complained to the buildings department about it, and about subsequent adjustments until the builder agreed to construct a one family house with two parking spaces instead”1 Gotham Gazette. 21 October 2005. The amount of private property ownership, combined with the escalating price of real estate, has made it very difficult to provide affordable housing for the population in or around any major city.

London, in particular, is having a major affordable housing crisis because of its booming economy and drastic population growth so it needs to look at the examples that are provided by other cities.