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Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

theatlantic.com

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Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

#41

Post by seoaeu »

aeternum wrote: post #19
berdario wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People cannot actually choose the location, without giving up their work. "You can only find work in a big metropolitan center that demands 60% of your salary in rent? Though luck..." Let's say that you work in London... if you are 1h away from your work, you're still likely in zone 3 or 4, which is pretty expensive. Your choices then are: a 1h30/2h commute (each way) or giving up on having a place only for yourself,…

Yes, we should probably treat land as much more of a public good, especially in cities. The true value of land has much more to do with the services nearby: jobs, shops, parks, emergency services. The majority of tax should be based on the land value, independent of the cost of structures built on that land. A single-family home (whether it be a shack or a million dollar mansion) in a city center with high land value…

Land values are already captured in property taxes. There's certainly places where property taxes are too low and not doing enough to encourage better usage of the land, but that's straightforward to solve (though admittedly often not that easy politically)

Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

#42

Post by drewmate »

prox wrote: post #33
drewmate wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might find Georgism [0] interesting. Its tenets include a (steep) land value tax that proponents believe would sort out the 'best use' of land in city centers. It's a compelling idea, but unfortunately the driving force behind American government seems to be once you have something (property, a business, etc...) nobody can do anything that adversely affects it. And Americans (over age 40) already own a LOT of pro…

This falls in line with the old economic school of how value is created, which fell in disfavor because it didn’t sit right with the upper classes, for clear reasons.

It seems reasonable enough to me, but I don't own any land. I think I'm realistic enough to admit that if I had been born 35 years earlier and had two homes that I paid off in my 40's and had appreciated 350% since then, I would probably feel differently about it. It's a tough nut to crack, for sure.

Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

#43

Post by eplanit »

bennysomething wrote: post #6

"those losses aren’t equitably distributed, either: Nearly 2 million mortgages are underwater in the U.S., and they’re disproportionately concentrated in Black and Latino communities. Tenants in coastal cities, meanwhile, know the pain of forking over more and more rent every year, unable to save for a down payment and living at the mercy of sometimes unscrupulous landlords." What on earth does not equitable mean in…

It's how race is injected into the conversation; specifically, to paint the situation so that people of color are seen as victims (of white people). The story has to be told in terms of the Oppressed vs. the Oppressors, and race is the key dividing line.

It's too bad that the topic isn't covered from a non-racial, economic perspective. But, it's negative emotion that drives reader engagement.

Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

#44

Post by throwawayboise »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #39
nakedshorts wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name one career where rent is 60% of the income yet only exists in the largest cities.

> Name one career where rent is 60% of the income yet only exists in the largest cities. Suggesting that there are careers that only exist in the largest cities seems like an odd thing for you to introduce into the conversation.

I think the point is that paying 60% of income in rent is unviable. You need to find a different job, a cheaper apartment, or move somewhere else. Maybe all of the above.

Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

#45

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

fighterpilot wrote: post #32
ahoy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount you pay is set by the people who get it.

It's set mostly by supply and demand across the market. The owner and the renter can get together and negotiate a small deviation based on the property's idiosyncracies, but it's the market that's primarily driving it.

The term for an opportunistic escalation in pricing (of a critical commodity) due to a rapid-onset shortage is price gouging.

Like many US markets, local rental prices have ~doubled in the last two years. As in every case of price gouging, sufficient supply would have prevented the opportunism that is presently causing broad harm.

Huzzah for supply and demand, I guess.

Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

#46

Post by 1996 »

ahoy wrote: post #26
1996 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence is the cleanliness of public transportation, the derelict public bikes and other 2 wheel battery assisted devices, the derelict laptops in school that provide them to student... Maybe it's just a big anti communist plot, or maybe it's just human nature to not take care about things you do not own.

I live in a new york. Our subway is clean and regular, the bike share docks in my neighborhood are stocked and well-maintained. The busses, though sometimes crowded, run on time. Public transport works well when your city prioritizes it. I spent my youth living in places that don't and I literally cannot imagine going back.

> I live in a new york. Our subway is clean

Litteraly where I stopped believing you.

It's dirty. Only DC has a somehow-clean subway, which stands out as a nice exception to the rule.

Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

#47

Post by dredmorbius »

larsiusprime wrote: post #18

How does this contrast with more old-school approaches to the housing crisis, like say, Georgism & Land Value Tax? There was a big review on Progress & Poverty over at Astral Codex Ten recently on the subject: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progr... This proposal seems to address the same problem, but the mechanism is pretty different, and I'm wondering if it improves upon what the Georgists h…

I think you're on the nose here.

The public ownership rental option goes nowhere without a capability to acquire (and retain) properties for the programme, and the ability to move unproductive or underproductive real estate into same.

California's property tax situation (e.g., 1977's Proposition 13) makes this an all but unsolvable problem for that state. Short a countervailing proposition, a (state) constitutional amendment, or a state or federal supreme court reversal, that law is going nowhere, and is pretty much a Land Value Tax's antiparticle / kryptonite.

One potentially promising alternative is the growth of land banks, mostly in the Eastern and Midwestern US, notably Illinoios, Ohio, and New York, possibly elsewhere. Though not based off a land value tax, tax-delinquent properties are acquired by the land bank which then attempts to return them to productive use. Pairing the land bank and public ownership rental models strikes me as a potential viable route to expanding both concepts.

Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

#48

Post by thex10 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #28

I don't know why they're not talking about cooperative ownership too! Limited-equity cooperative ownership seems to me seems the real third option. (Full-equity cooperatives like say NYC's market-rate alternative to condos is not what i'm talking about, and is just a form of ownership rather than another option). https://shelterforce.org/2017/04/25/will-limited-equity-co-o... To make it accessible to all necessary in…

This is what I thought the linked article would be about!

Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house

#49

Post by ffggvv »

airhead969 wrote: post #10

Isn't this what terrible public housing is already? Could it be less terrible or would it always devolve into a housing caste system because middle-/upper-classes would never use it? Set-asides for "affordable housing" in new developments are an absolute joke because there are very few units, they often have separate "servant-like" entrances, and may not be treated equally compared to other residents. Also, the root…

it’s not terrible because the middle upper classes don’t use it. the middle/upper classes don’t use it because it’s terrible because of the people who live in it and do terrible things. sorry it’s not PC but it’s true
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