Illegal aliens are the granite countertops of immigrants. Illegal immigration (or undocumented citizens as some more enlightened people call them) have been in the news a lot lately. I try to avoid discussing hot button political issues on this blog because the only ideology that interests me is capitalism and the only political party I belong to is the green party (green as in cash, not drugged out tree hugging hippies). However I feel a need to speak up on this issue because illegal immigration concerns housing prices. To put it bluntly, illegal immigrants add value to an area. They are, as I said earlier, the granite countertops of immigrants. Why? All one needs to do is look at the areas with the highest immigration rates and what do you see? That's right, the highest prices. Let me explain all of the reasons why:
1) Lincoln didn't free these people. Every successful nation needs a core group of poor, hardworking, easily exploited people. Let's face it Americans don't want to work hard. And why should we? We want to live a life of ease, comfort, and luxury. And that's hard to do on a middle class salary. However, we certainly don't want to spend our days toiling in filth for low wages. No my friends, we want to sit at some desk, cruise the internet or chat on our cell phone all day, and drive home in our H2 or BMW to relax in front of our big screen tv. In order to afford the lifestyle we deserve we need nannies, cooks, gardeners, etc willing to work for low wages. And you ain't gonna get Americans to work those kinds of jobs for those kinds of wages. Hence, these workers free wealth by allowing us to spend our money on important things like cars, boats, housing, instead of trivial expenses like childcare or salaries.
2) Diversity is good. Let's face it, white folk are boring. Other cultures add variety to our society. We want to have 200 different restaurant choices instead of just 10. We want our children to be able to date a rainbow. People crave diversity and they're willing to pay a premium to be able to have it.
3) Creative destruction. Let me tell you the famous parable of the broken window. A shopkeeper's window is broken by a little boy. But soon people realized that the broken window makes work for the window maker, who will then buy bread which benefits the baker, who then buys shoes, benefiting the shoe maker, etc. Eventually everyone concludes that the little boy was not guilty of vandalism, instead he performed a public service by creating jobs for everyone in town.
While people crave diversity, they also crave separateness. They love diversity, just not in their neighborhood. A few miles away is about as close as people really want it. So what happens when millions of our undocumented friends flood a city? Scared white people sell their homes and move somewhere else. However this causes a smaller and smaller area of "habitable" land to be bid up by more and more people. And remember the prices of even the "uninhabitable" areas go up too because their prices are based on these rising prices. So the destruction of whole areas of the city cause all the areas to go up in price. Often dramatically.
Do you really think prices would be going up this much if there were not these demographic pressures? And these changing immigration patterns are permanent. We will be getting 1 million or more illegals every year from now on. This will "destroy" more and more parts of the country causing prices to soar (the invisible hand of 20% appreciation rears its beautiful head).
4) New paradigm of financing. Smart lenders realize that these hardworking undocumented citizens are prime customers for our sophisticated financing packages. They are clamoring to own houses here and the lending standards will accommodate them. These millions of illegal alien housing investors will bid up prices even more. Remember Darwin's laws of supply and demand. We have limited supplies and ever growing demand. Put these two together with the lighter fluid of easy credit and you have a mushroom cloud inferno of price escalation.
So my friends, don't oppose our guests from the south. Instead, welcome them with open arms because every illegal alien is money in your pocket. And everyone loves money in their pocket -- even renters.
