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Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#61

Post by jedberg »

j33zusjuice wrote: post #54
jedberg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For #1, just knowing it is private isn't enough. I may have a claim to the land, and need to know who owns it. For example it's really handy to know who owns the land that borders mine. For #2, the owner is ultimately responsible. If there is a lease or any other contract, that is a civil matter. But all that matters to the police is who owns it. For #3, your income and taxes you pay should probably be public too. Wh…

The public employee thing is irrelevant in this discussion. We get to see their salaries because we pay them. Whether or not salary should be public is a tough topic, imo. I can see it creating security concerns for some people who have enough to be targets of those who have very little while not having enough to pay for protection (i.e. most of the people who frequent this site, given IT workers are some of the best…

It's very relevant, because it shows that we already have a precedent for public salary disclosure.

And I'm not sure that concern is very warranted. You already know who gets paid a lot, because they live in nice houses in nice neighborhoods. Where they pay for protection through increased police presence due to their higher property taxes.

Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#62

Post by brewdad »

giantg2 wrote: post #40
cpursley wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this is available (including names of owners) from your typical government assessors web portal. Or via consolidators where the ownership, zoning, acreage, tax assessments and other data is available via an api call.

Yeah? But what benefit is the name to buyers; and does providing the name in that context violate any fair practices? Those are the real questions here.

Only a single data point but if you tried to make assumptions about my wife based on her name (married or maiden) you would likely be very, very wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#63

Post by Tagbert »

vlovich123 wrote: post #35
benlivengood wrote: post #19

Why wouldn't ownership be public? See the recent uproar[0] over the semi-anonymous purchase of land near Travis AFB. This is a clear case where market inefficiency is bad; individual sellers need to know when markets are changing and a single entity is willing to pay above assumed market rates for a large contiguous region. Anyone in favor of strong markets should favor full transparency of real estate ownership and…

Why should disclosure be forced upon the vast majority of people at significant harm when you can enforce disclosure only if you own more than X properties or some % of an area?

What is the significant harm that is being forced on vast numbers by open records? I could see harm to a small number of people but for the true “vast” number, there is no impact.

Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#64

Post by lxgr »

jltsiren wrote: post #46
lxgr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a property register is much younger than a few millenia, though, so that's not a good argument for its default privacy level. The United States are also younger than even a single millenium.

I would guess that the idea of a property register is about as old as the idea of formal land ownership. Ancient Rome definitely had property registers, and it was probably not their original idea. After all, maintaining records of land ownership for purposes such as taxation and military service was one of the core functions of many ancient states.

Yes, but not all property registers in the world are public (or at least web-accessible).

Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#65

Post by Tagbert »

lxgr wrote: post #15
beardyw wrote: post #5

Because people have been living in houses for millennia and such an idea of privacy would only have emerged in the last few decades.

The idea of a property register is much younger than a few millenia, though, so that's not a good argument for its default privacy level. The United States are also younger than even a single millenium.

Among the few documents that we have of the “dark ages” period in Anglo-Saxon Briton are the property deeds and grant documents. It gives us a little glimpse into the lives, politics, and language of the period that we would not have otherwise. Consider future historians before we hide more records needlessly.

Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#66

Post by paleotrope »

wizofaus wrote: post #39
13of40 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, only two or three decades ago it was standard for the telephone service to print everyone's name, address, and phone number in a big book, distribute it to every house and charge you $5 a month extra if you wanted to opt out of the list.

I still remember those days quite clearly. Including the fact we virtually never got spam calls.

Local calls were free, long distance calls were not. The likelihood of spammer being in your local area was really really small.

The result of being able to call millions of people from anywhere in the country for essentially free is why we have spam calling.

Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#67

Post by postingawayonhn »

kshahkshah wrote: post #31
postingawayonhn wrote: post #27

Probably the biggest reason would be so that when you buy a property you can independently confirm the vendor actually owns it.

That’s what title is for

I'm not totally familiar with the system/s in the US, but where I'm from (New Zealand) title records are publicly available to anyone for the payment of a USD $4 fee per property.

Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#68

Post by elliotto »

scarface_74 wrote: post #45
kanbara wrote: post #30

you want your ownership of multiple properties that you dont contribute value to but earn equity in on the backs of renters to be private so you don’t get spam? or is there another reason?

Yes because everyone should own their home and landlords shouldn’t exist?

Accidentally based

Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#69

Post by morkalork »

noarchy wrote: post #38
izend wrote: post #32

In Canada the MLS Canada and title ownership is gated by realtors and expensive fees which gives them all the power to control the narrative.

In my Canadian town the owners of a given property and the taxes they pay are available to the public. But indeed that doesn't mean we have access to sale prices, which are often very different from assessed values for purposes of taxation.

This. My municipality you can look up any property but they do rate limit you. It's interesting when you pass by an old looking farm house, look it up, and see it was built in the 1790s!

Re: Ask HN: Why is home property information so public?

#70

Post by vel0city »

furyofantares wrote: post #55
13of40 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, only two or three decades ago it was standard for the telephone service to print everyone's name, address, and phone number in a big book, distribute it to every house and charge you $5 a month extra if you wanted to opt out of the list.

I can't remember street addresses being included in the 90s. So maybe 4 or 5 decades ago for that? Is a phonebook with just numbers that different than a facebook search, which afaik you can't opt out of? It feels like it is, but I think only because having a phone became a basic necessity. Structurally the phone network seems very similar to signing up for a social network and the phone book very similar to being ab…

There were addresses in the books I got in the 90s and early 00's.
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