There is a guy online who I find in equal parts entertaining and educating, which is a rare mix. His name is Rory Sutherland, the Vice-Chairman of the advertising group Oglivy, and in the words of The Guardian, “One of Tik Tok’s most unlikely stars”1 .
His whole spiel is that he teaches lessons about business and advertising through stories which are often very funny. There are quite a few that have stuck with me, but the one I wanted to share today was his theory on housing.
For Mr Sutherland, the issue with the housing market is that way too few dwellings are for sale. This is largely due to the fact that 99% of people only put their house up for sale when they intend to actually sell it. That makes complete logical sense, but what if it was done differently.
Imagine a society where everyone was required to have a price attached to their house that they would be willing to sell it for. There would be no rules about this; if you were adamant you weren’t selling, you could easily say you won’t take anything less than a billion dollars for your two bed one bath. But MOST people probably have a price; they think to themselves “I’m not planning on selling, but if someone offered me X, then I would probably take it.” Then, you just let everyone choose what number X is.
There are a ton of advantages to this, and we already know that this happens already. Although usually confined to hyper-desirable areas, people do send letters to homeowners asking if they would be willing to sell. Most of the time people say no, but occasionally (and you only need it to be this frequent), people say yes.
Selling your house is a chore and a drag, so people only do it when they have to. By smoothing this out and giving people far great visibility, I think you would make the whole experience far better for all parties involved, and it would take very, very little effort from the government to make a reality.
Food for thought.
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