Berlin approves 5-year rent freeze

> Can you clarify what problem you are trying to solve with this proposal?

Say we live in a town where we make all the decisions and our word is law. Our imaginary town needs 2 garbage men, one to pick up the bags, one to drive the truck. We need a truck, fuel, some place to dump, our garbage men need some cloths, a place to sleep and they need to eat.

We take some city land, build 2 house and a garage.

With them serving tens of thousands of customers we can both pay them a nice salary and make the service cheap.

Now we can add a 3rd person who does nothing and pay him a huge sum for his services. We can make fancy documents dressed up with powerful geometry and invent some fancy title for this 3rd person. Say we call them Lords.

With tens of thousands of customers it seems like it doesn't matter. They can pay an extra 100 bucks annually and we could easily finance the 3rd or perhaps a 4th person who also doesn't work. They could live in great wealth without anyone getting upset over it. We could lower the salaries from the first 2 and make room to add a 5th.

Then one day the plumbing starts to leak. It might be portrayed as if the Lords repair the plumbing but the reality is that it requires a plumber.

What I'm trying to say is that however complex we make the bureaucracy, the way stuff works hardly changes. At least not until the bureaucracy becomes so important than there is no more room for the work.

I think that problem can be solved long before.

> No one is obligated to rent a property from someone else. You rent if you believe it's in your interest to rent, instead of buy. Why stop two consenting people from entering into rental agreements, both of whom believe it's in their interest?

In the existing formula our 2 garbage men are obligated to rent a property. The citizens will have to pay whatever the greedy unproductive landlords want them to pay.

That people can afford this only makes the problem worse.

It's consent only if the other voluntarily agrees. Individually they could chose not to be garbage men but that doesn't mean we no longer need garbage men.

Sure, we can have a thousand applicants and the winning one could be someone willing to drive 2 hours to get to work.

On a personal level that might seem like a reasonable way of doing things, as a town or city trying to organize it self its just poorly done. The citizens pay more than it costs and they are not getting anything for it.

We've sacrificed efficiency for exploitation. Or we've collectively done a half ass job organizing our shit and now we have to pay for it.

>Some people prefer to rent: they don't want to be obligated to live somewhere for 10 to 30 years. They prefer to be free of commitments and loans.

There is never any obligation to live some place. That would be inefficient. If rent contracts are replaced by lease buy contracts you don't need credit. You can pay rent 12 months then leave. The land lord would be obligated to buy back your share of the house or he has to sell it.

> Landlords also provide useful services to their tenants: they are responsible for all upkeep associated with the property.

I don't want their services because they are madly overpriced. I want the actual market to do these things.

> Property owners are forced to tie up their assets in the real estate.

no no no, they chose to do this because it makes a good investment. We can regulate it to be highly undesirable to own property which will drown out everyone except those who really need it.

> Lastly, landlords assume risk. If they can't find a tenant for their property, then it sits idle and they take a loss.

This would be the desirable mechanism. Sadly there is so much demand they would have to ask absurd amounts of rent to be able to not find anyone.

> When you own property, you can lose a significant amount of money if the property depreciates, as happened during the last recession.

This can only happen if the market value grows beyond the new value. Don't feel sorry for investors. We are currently forcing people out of their home to satisfy all that greedy exploitation. Investors only risk losing part of their investment. Its not like they are out on the street like tenants during the great recession.

> When you're renting, your risk is capped - you owe the rent but that's it.

I'm perhaps a lot older than you. I've seen many cases where people died and the relatives had to pay rent, clean out the house and return it into the claimed original state in less than 30 days OR pay some truly insane amount of money.

Say the previous owner build a garage, do you want it? Say they moved some walls around, put in a fire place and got a fancy kitchen? Say there are 20 trees in the back yard?

Mum died, you get 30 days. Don't forget to dig out the swimming pool as well.

Greedy unproductive cruel dictators they are AND they own you. Its a much to attractive scheme, it should be heavily discouraged in favor of economic activity, efficiency and quality of life.

I've paid the construction cost of my house 3 times now but every year I have to work more hours per month to live there???

Maintenance involved 1 phone call every 2 years and roughly 0.005% of the value of the place.

Almost every house on the block has the same owner. A decade ago we were allowed to buy it. Now they only sell houses to investors with the tenants still in them. The market value is about 7 times the construction cost.

They take 10 times the value of the house and not do any work.

If rather than me paying them they paid me the rent they would still be making crazy money without lifting a finger.

I work, other people have to pay for my work. Half of their money goes towars lazy greedy unproductive dictators. 1/3 of their money went to lazy greedy unproductive dictators too.

Then add taxes and they have to work 8 hours to get 1 hour of my labor.

And that my friend is ruining economic activity. Cut them all out and you will have an explosion of enterprise. Let the ponzi people take a risk and invest in that.

I didn't start pondering what is wrong until I see people having to pay rent for flooded houses.

Without risk it is not investment, it's pure exploitation and we are forcing people into it.

What's wrong with the housing market in Sweden?

That sounds absolutely awful for anyone who wants to rent.

I've heard this change (the definite shift in desirability from suburbs and small towns to cities, which admittedly you seem to have somewhat blinkered out) attributed to the vast improvements in air quality / waste management / crime / public transport in cities, and that explanation seems reasonable to me.

Country living can be great, but your experience some number of years ago doesn't speak to the current data.

That will only push prices even higher. The cost will be pushed to the consumer, like every tax.