Much of Eastern Europe tried this between the 1940s through the late 1980s. The result was blocks upon blocks of cramped, drab apartments with long waiting periods to get one. If you were married, you could get one sooner, which resulted in unhappy marriages. It sounds good in theory, in practice it didn’t work.
Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
81–90 of 262 posts
Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
#82Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
#83There's a second third option (or first third, as it already exists) -- community land trusts. The basic idea is that you own the house but the land under the house is owned by a non-profit.
https://slate.com/business/2016/01/bernie-sanders-made-burli...
Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
#84Isn't this, what a housing cooperative are about? They are very common in Germany and seen as valuable cultural heritage.
Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
#85Much of Eastern Europe tried this between the 1940s through the late 1980s. The result was blocks upon blocks of cramped, drab apartments with long waiting periods to get one. If you were married, you could get one sooner, which resulted in unhappy marriages. It sounds good in theory, in practice it didn’t work.
I don't think that what this article is describing is similar at all to Eastern Europe-style public housing. The US also had a big experiment in public housing in the 20th century, that also had a lot of bad results.
Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
#86Earlier 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,…
At what point can we acknowledge the harsh reality of “adapt, move, or perish”? If your choices and circumstances can’t add up to a positive cash flow, there is no obligation for others to sacrifice their net productive choices so others can enjoy their net unproductive choices. We don’t live in a post scarcity Utopia; why do some strive so hard to cancel this truth?
We need people to live where the jobs are. Yes you can also move jobs but that’s basically the why. Also you have a higher probability of advancing from poverty to middle class or even high income living in the Bay Area.
Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
#87I didn't quite glean a thorough understanding of the model from the article. It sounds like it's: 1) Public funds provide capital to build a new dwelling; individuals move in at rates similar to market rent. 2) Rather than rents paying a landlord, rents act like principal payments on a personal mortgage - e.g. I own $10,000 worth of shares of the property after paying $1,000/mo for ten months. 3) Eventually, I own en…
The author's proposal is laid out in his book, The Affordable City. Unlike many policy books, the table of contents, available at the publisher's site, is both detailed and descriptive, and does convey the outline of his proposals:
https://islandpress.org/books/affordable-city
The ebook is a $5 download, which I'd strongly encourage for the curious.
Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its simple - tax landlordism out of viability.
How do people who can't afford to buy then survive? I'm in NZ and we've just seen laws introduced that makes being a landlord more expensive and unsurprisingly it's seen rental increases as a result.
Yeah, I guess that's the logical conclusion. I'd naively expect that the decreased profitability of an asset would decrease its market value, but the owner, banks and government are all interested in keeping the prices high, so instead of offloading less lucrative properties at cheaper prices, the rents get increased :/
I've rented most of my adult life, never did the landlords not be assholes. There must be a better way.
Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
#89Isn'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…
The housing market is FUBAR because the people who already have a house absolutely 100% need prices to go up indefinitely to fund their lifestyle.
The government can't do anything either besides tell banks to lend starters more $ because the system cannot be allowed to collapse.
Re: Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The root cause is way too little development relative to demand, orchestrated via zoning regulations. Wikipedia spells this out in detail for San Francisco [1]. > Since the 1960s, San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area have enacted strict zoning regulations. Among other restrictions, San Francisco does not allow buildings over 40 feet tall in most of the city, and has passed laws making it easier for neighbors to…
> The root cause is way too little development relative to demand, and zoning regulations. Trying to mimic 1960s TV neighborhoods thru single use zoning regs has not served our country well.
I’m pretty sure a lot of people enjoy living in those neighborhoods. Surely if no one actually liked living in those neighborhoods it wouldn’t still be the ideal people strive for.