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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

#101

Post by Spivak »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #89
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…

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.

You say “fund their lifestyle” like people’s houses appreciating is paying for their summer home or m5 when in reality it’s funding their ability to move with work and not get their equity eaten by inflation.

People need their houses to not deprecate and to roughly increase by value of the work put into the house during their time lived there.

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

#102

Post by Pfhreak »

DavidAdams wrote: post #85
thinkski wrote: post #81

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.

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.

The US had a history of spending capex on flashy high rise housing. Then failing to spend the opex necessary to maintain what they built.

Large buildings are harder to maintain and require more specialized labor.

Means testing and segregation also impacted public housing in the US. (Better not make too much money or you'll have to leave!)

There are several instances of successful public housing efforts in the US and Europe, typically more low rise or mid rise distributed properties.

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

#104

Post by blacksmith_tb »

Spooky23 wrote: post #67
don-code wrote: post #63

I 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…

My dad administered a similar program for getting historically disadvantaged people owning multi family homes. Basically, folks would sign up for home ownership education, do a bunch of stuff related to maintenance, etc and shop for a two family. The housing authority (through a grant) would essentially provide a loan for 20-30% of the purchase price for down payment and some repairs. The loan would be forgiven in 5…

Habitat For Humanity[1] works in a similar way. At least in my town, families help to build or renovate the home they move into, and their mortgage payments are capped at a reasonable percentage of their income (I think 30%).

1: https://www.habitat.org/about/faq#homeownership

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

#105

Post by celticninja »

don-code wrote: post #63

I 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…

When you sell the outstanding loan is paid off by the purchase price, the lender and owner take their respective share of the price

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

#107

Post by Nasrudith »

berdario wrote: post #16
fallingknife wrote: post #7

> A third option is necessary: a way to rent without making someone else rich. I care how much I pay. I don't give a shit who gets it.

If buy-to-let is profitable, people will do it as a business... If people do it as a business, it'll drive the price of housing up even more, and since businesses have more capital than workers, the latter will be priced out (if lucky, they'll be able to afford a 90% LTV which will take decades to repay, but most workers cannot afford it on their own) If you care how much you pay, you care about who is extracting mon…

That does not follow - they are still fulfilling housing demand by renting it and more capital means more ability to build houses.

The whole premise appears telological - landlords are intrinsically bad ergo everything they do will make the housing situation worse.

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

#108

Post by bradleyjg »

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…

> 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.

I’ve lived in 80/20 buildings. None of the things you list make them a “joke” except the number of units.

Yes, the 20% apartments aren’t as nice, don’t get to use the gym for free, and in a couple of cases had a separate entrance.

So what?!? They were still massively subsidized and had giant lotteries for people that would have loved to get them.

No, outrage mongers notwithstanding, the real issue is that the programs are incredibly inefficient. The builders get millions of dollars of tax benefits for each of those lottery units.

Why house one lucky family in the most expensive part of town, and give four families nothing, when you could get rid of the program, not waive any taxes, and use the tax money from the luxury building in the fancy part of town to house all five families in a working class part of town?

Like so much of contemporary upper-middle class driven leftism it’s about the appearances—-hence the outrage over poor doors—-rather than actually helping people.

Privileged people want curated poor neighbors (bonus points if they are “diverse”) as an amenity.

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

#110

Post by imtringued »

don-code wrote: post #63

I 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…

Exactly, the problem is that the government is supposed to own the property, but somehow the tenant should also retain a share. If the government buys the share back, then the government basically ended up gaining net 0 dollars, the full mortgage is still due.

The only way this could work is if the property was sold to a third party and the profits of the sale were distributed according to how much you paid in, the obvious problem with this is that the government won't own the property anymore.

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