251–260 of 278 posts
Eastern European countries have a racial homogeneity that the United States doesn't have.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20485568 and marked it off-topic.
Also see account vwdhx.
If you ban me for pointing this out, then I really am done here.
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> Unfortunately, rent control will have the opposite effect of what Oregon thinks, and only make housing scarcity worse. It depends on the kind of rent control. Housing has important asymmetries it's reasonable to address through legislation. One is asymmetry in scale: you have one unit; landlords have many more. This gives them stronger negotiating power. Another is cost of change. It's much more expensive for me in…
> One is asymmetry in scale: you have one unit; landlords have many more. This gives them stronger negotiating power. This is one of those theoretical arguments that sounds good but have no empirical foundation at all. If it was true the gigantic Walmart could completely dick me around when buying socks and toilet paper. In reality prices are very competitive. It also completely ignores that fact that most landlords…
The point of the whole mechanism is to force out less wealthy people and/or with smaller income and replace them with more wealthy ones and/or ones with more income.
If this is a nice thing to do or desirable aside, there are better formulas to accomplish the same. You could for example tax housing heavily then burn the money on live tv. That way you will at least have the advantage of configuring how wealthy the citizens need to be.
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Really an appalling point of view. There is absolutely nothing wrong with single family neighborhoods; in fact, they are greatly desirable to most.
Sure, nothing wrong at all except for: -sedentary car-dependent lifestyle -inefficent use of arable land -carbon intense lifestyle contributing to the collapse of ecosystems -materialistic lifestyle enforced -impossible to serve economically with public transit making car ownership mandatory -energy inefficient buildings -encourages racial and economic segregation -anti-social lifestyle decreases face to face contact…
Sedentary? So you think you’re going to legislate exercise? Let me tell you what’s sedentary: helpless urban dweebs ordering dinner from Postmates, who’ve never mown a lawn or used a table saw or planted a garden. Pasty-handed yuppies who call for help at the slightest adversity instead of learning to fix things themselves.
Racial and economic segregation? HOW? By not reducing EVERYONE to a cow parking herself in a pathetic stall every night, chewing on the processed feed from the overpriced corner specialty food store?
Anti-social? I know more about the suburban neighbors I grew up with than I do about people in my urban apartment building. Don’t project your antisocial behavior on everyone else.
Materialistic lifestyle? Fuck you. I want to grow vegetables and fix my own car. Too bad if you’re threatened by that, urban dandy.
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Really an appalling point of view. There is absolutely nothing wrong with single family neighborhoods; in fact, they are greatly desirable to most.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with single family neighborhoods Do they not, by their very nature, enforce low-density housing? Is that not a bad thing to enforce in places with too few dwellings?
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Sure, nothing wrong at all except for: -sedentary car-dependent lifestyle -inefficent use of arable land -carbon intense lifestyle contributing to the collapse of ecosystems -materialistic lifestyle enforced -impossible to serve economically with public transit making car ownership mandatory -energy inefficient buildings -encourages racial and economic segregation -anti-social lifestyle decreases face to face contact…
> anti-social lifestyle decreases face to face contact and increases barrier to connect with others This cannot be overstated enough. My pet theory is that the suburbification of America led to our current division and political strife. You cannot expect great results when those with the most combined political power and wealth in the nation sequester themselves individually away from others and even each other. This…
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Really an appalling point of view. There is absolutely nothing wrong with single family neighborhoods; in fact, they are greatly desirable to most.
How is the desirability of homes in single family neighbourhoods inconsistent with the fact that they tend towards creating haves and have-nots in the market for housing?
Instead of depriving everyone of houses, we should be addressing any injustices that prevent people from acquiring them.
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That means a landlord can extract money well above a true market rate. The market rate IS what the landlord extracts from it, which is what the market, you, is willing to pay.
Why is this being downvoted?
As an example, I live in one of the US's few competitive ISP markets. I pay $40/month for gigabit fiber, no limits. Comcast, which is often a monopoly or a duopoly, charges $90-140/month [1] for gigabit service, and they have assorted restrictions that I don't have to deal with, like data caps and limited upload speeds.
So what's the true market price for full gigabit? The person you're responding to, bassman9000 would apparently say it's $140, because tautologically that's what people pay. I'd say it's much lower.
Further evidence to support my position is that when you measure actual speeds delivered on gigabit, many of the ISPs are local providers, not the big nationals. [2] Customer satisfaction with my ISP is hugely higher than Comcast as well [3], with Comcast's Net Promoter Score actually being negative. [4]
Those are not signs of a competitive market, and if the market isn't competitive, I think it's a 101-level mistake to say that the price people pay is the true market price.
[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/comcast-offering-1-gigabit-per-sec...
[2] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xgne9/locally-run-isps-o...
[3] https://www.sonic.com/care
[4] https://npsbenchmarks.com/blog/best-internet-service-provide...
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Older buildings should sell for less, to compensate for this risk. If the mortgage payments eat up too much of the rental income then the owner overpaid, and should sell at a price that's more appropriate for the risk associated with the building.
Problem is that laws change even when homes don’t change ownership. Your building might be worth$2M, then a rent control law is passed and suddenly it’s worth $1.5M.
That is unless the $2m valuation is based on a speculative estimate of how much rents will go up in the near future?