Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 456 posts

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#121

Post by astura »

lisper wrote: post #107
opportune wrote: post #14

When will we learn that a "strong" housing market is not necessarily a good thing? High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses but terrible for everyone else (e.g. the entire generations born after prices became inflated). Not to mention people are greedy and will over leverage themselves when interest rates are good. No country should let the "landed gentry" hold them hostage over interest rates…

> High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses Not really. Rising prices (not high prices) are great for people holding houses as investments . But for owner-occupied houses, rising prices are as bad for the owners as they are for everyone else. my wife and I own a house in Northern California, which we bought during the sub-prime crash. Since then it has nearly doubled in price. It is also too bi…

Do you have to pay capital gains tax on your primary home? I was under the impression you didn't if you lived in it for X number of years.

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#122

Post by woah »

ptaipale wrote: post #100
GarvielLoken wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to pay for health insurance in Sweden.

Or more accurately, you cannot avoid paying for it (as it is collected in employment taxes). The employer has to pay 4,35 % as sjukförsäkringsavgift , as well as other payroll taxes that total 31,42 % of nominal salary (2017). https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbetsgivaravgifter_i_Sverige

Is that in addition to income tax?

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#123

Post by pjc50 »

eikenberry wrote: post #95
opportune wrote: post #14

When will we learn that a "strong" housing market is not necessarily a good thing? High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses but terrible for everyone else (e.g. the entire generations born after prices became inflated). Not to mention people are greedy and will over leverage themselves when interest rates are good. No country should let the "landed gentry" hold them hostage over interest rates…

> High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses... Not unless you are ready to sell, otherwise it kind of sucks to have your property taxes go up 10-20% every year.

This is very location-dependent. Here in the UK, the nearest thing to a property tax is the "council tax", which is based on the estimated value of the property in 1991.

There is also a tax on property transactions which can be considerable.

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#124

Post by lisper »

astura wrote: post #121
lisper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses Not really. Rising prices (not high prices) are great for people holding houses as investments . But for owner-occupied houses, rising prices are as bad for the owners as they are for everyone else. my wife and I own a house in Northern California, which we bought during the sub-prime crash. Since then it has nearly doubled in price. It is also too bi…

Do you have to pay capital gains tax on your primary home? I was under the impression you didn't if you lived in it for X number of years.

There's a 500k exemption, but our house has appreciated more than that. The more it goes up, the more we lose if we move.

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#125

Post by votepaunchy »

kgwgk wrote: post #87
marvin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but landlords also pay taxes on profits. As a homeowner, you won't pay tax on the difference between rental cost and your mortgage interest payment.

In some countries you get taxed on the imputed rent (the amount of rent that you would be paying gets added to your taxable income). https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/taxing-homeown...

In the US home sale profits are taxed as capital gains with an exemption based on marital status. It's hard to compare, though, since homeowners are not permitted to write off routine maintenance as would a landlord.

Would be interesting to simplify tax codes and handle homeowners as both renter-landlord on their own home.

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#126

Post by graedus »

saosebastiao wrote: post #108
tom_mellior wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The article isn't very clear on what the problem would be, though it does mention deflation. Deflation is bad by axiom, and we must be pathologically afraid of it. If housing prices sink enough, that may mean that the overall inflation rate turns negative, which is deflation, and thus bad. Even if this "bad" thing, in this case, would just mean that people could consume, save, and invest more.

The fact that you take that as an axiom is frightening. Moderate deflation is no more scary than moderate inflation, and the idea that an "overall inflation rate" determines people's behavior is laughably wrong. I mean, which of the thousands of inflation rate definitions are you talking about? The FRED database tracks 34,000 different series of some 10,000 inflation measures. More importantly, people don't sense ove…

I think the post you're responding to is being critical of the unexplained/unexamined axiom that "deflation is bad", which is usually an underlying assumption in the financial press.

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#127

Post by lisper »

Retric wrote: post #112
lisper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses Not really. Rising prices (not high prices) are great for people holding houses as investments . But for owner-occupied houses, rising prices are as bad for the owners as they are for everyone else. my wife and I own a house in Northern California, which we bought during the sub-prime crash. Since then it has nearly doubled in price. It is also too bi…

#3 is real, but more a sign of California's disfunction than an inherent problem with high property values. PS: #1 only consumes a percentage of profits, so it can't make a sale unprofitable.

> #1 only consumes a percentage of profits, sit it can't make a sale unprofitable.

Yes, that's true, but it makes a move less efficient. If we sell our house and buy another one of equal value, the higher the price, the more we lose in capital gain tax in the transition. If our house had not appreciated, we would pay zero cap gains. The higher prices go, the more expensive it becomes to move locally.

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#128

Post by lisper »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #114
lisper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses Not really. Rising prices (not high prices) are great for people holding houses as investments . But for owner-occupied houses, rising prices are as bad for the owners as they are for everyone else. my wife and I own a house in Northern California, which we bought during the sub-prime crash. Since then it has nearly doubled in price. It is also too bi…

That's more because prop-13 is a garbage fire than any other factor.

The cap gains is also a big factor. Even if prop 13 were not a factor, the higher prices go, the more expensive it becomes to make a lateral move, or even to downsize.

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#129

Post by lisper »

sigi45 wrote: post #119
lisper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses Not really. Rising prices (not high prices) are great for people holding houses as investments . But for owner-occupied houses, rising prices are as bad for the owners as they are for everyone else. my wife and I own a house in Northern California, which we bought during the sub-prime crash. Since then it has nearly doubled in price. It is also too bi…

'nearly doubled' is more like gambling than investing. Investemnt would be fine if your money is little above inflation. 1-8% with renting it out.

Just to be clear, we didn't buy this house as an investment, we bought it to live in. We're actually hoping for prices to come down so we can downsize without taking a huge financial hit in the process.

Re: The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency

#130

Post by [deleted] »

lisper wrote: post #124
astura wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have to pay capital gains tax on your primary home? I was under the impression you didn't if you lived in it for X number of years.

There's a 500k exemption, but our house has appreciated more than that. The more it goes up, the more we lose if we move.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN