This might have the opposite effect. Permits and building codes are there for the lender. They want assurances that the property is going to last for at least the duration of their loan. If lenders decide these deathtraps aren't worth the risk, and they have no way of offloading that risk to someone like the government, they aren't going to bite.
The entire housing industry is designed around lending. If policies are make that screw with the status quo, the industry is going to collapse then reform around the new one, and that could take decades.
We have regulations for a reason. When you blindly get rid of all of them, history repeats itself. We find ourselves looking to solve the same problems. It wasn't that long ago in the USA when entire cities would burn to the ground because a cow kicked over a lantern because lack of building codes meant buildings weren't built with safety in mind.
> Permits and building codes are there for the lender.
Aight, so if I'm the lender for myself let me nix them. If they're for some third party lender, let the lender and lendee solve that through private market rather than government. Surely someone can be trained to inspect a house.
> [ mention of Great Chicago Fire ]
The classic "make hundreds millions of people work for decades to afford a house, costing tens of millions of lifespans of work so we can save 300 people once a century from the great Chicago Fire". The calculus there is way way way off.
I'll take my chances.
>It wasn't that long ago
It wasn't that long ago housing was far more affordable.
> because a cow kicked over a lantern because lack of building codes
You've fallen victim to a big tale, like santa clause. No one knows the cause of that fire. We do know that many of the conditions were completely unsubject government, such as a windy dry spell.
>We have regulations for a reason
They're there for good reasons, unfortunately the worst tyrannies and misdeeds happen at the gunpoint of those who purport to be acting for the common good. Building codes in practice are as much about taking your life away as they are as preserving it.
Building codes aren't nearly so bad as zoning and the NIMBYism that is strangling the country. There's certainly room to liberalize building codes, but I don't think the impact would be as large as one might hope. Liberalize land use please.
Everything you just wrote sounds like a good thing to me. The fact that housing is structured around lending in the US is part of the problem. It should not require a loan to get a roof over your head, and combined with zoning making basic housing illegal, there's a lot of perfectly sound shelter that cannot be legally constructed in the US.
The entire housing industry is designed around lending. If policies are make that screw with the status quo, the industry is going to collapse then reform around the new one, and that could take decades.
We have regulations for a reason. When you blindly get rid of all of them, history repeats itself. We find ourselves looking to solve the same problems. It wasn't that long ago in the USA when entire cities would burn to the ground because a cow kicked over a lantern because lack of building codes meant buildings weren't built with safety in mind.