Public-ownership rental as a third option to renting or owning a house • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by jshen » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:27 AM UTC

rsj_hn wrote: post #170

toomuchtodo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HfH typically provides the mortgage with a 0% interest rate also. They are a tremendous program that should be scaled up.

All these programs that subsidize the cost of borrowing merely drive up the price of houses. This is why things like the mortgage interest deduction or zero percent financing are not in the long term interests of home buyers when they are "scaled up", and when they are niche programs they are basically a convoluted form of charity. There is nothing wrong with that, some people like their charities to be convoluted an…

Not if they help generate new housing, which it seems some of them do.

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

#222

Post by Proven » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:41 AM UTC

[dead]

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

#223

Post by tareqak » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:45 AM UTC

rsj_hn wrote: post #220

Spooky23 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not always. The program I described was really a way to transition folks into a sustainable lifestyle. Rents in this place are more than property values, so training to let working class people afford a home and rent the downstairs bring stability to the family and he neighborhood. Real estate is insane because we’re in an era where wealth is being shoveled into a few peoples hands, and we are literally printing mone…

I am not saying Habitat for Humanity (or any charity) is bad, nor am I trying to discourage anyone from giving to charity. I'm pointing out that what works in a small scale charity does not work for addressing social problems at scale, and in fact is often (more often than not) harmful when done at scale. This is because the specific things that charities are good at: giving stuff to small groups of people, is not re…

> There are many people who have no business owning a home but who feel they must do so in order to not be left behind in this game of leveraged bets.

Who has no business owning a home?

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

#224

Post by _nalply » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 8:13 AM UTC

In Switzerland many people rent and many landlords are pension funds. In a way this is public-ownership rental in the sense that it is a common rent relationship (as a tenant you pay a monthly rent and the landlord is responsible for the upkeep of the property) but that the landlord is a quasi-public organization (quasi-public because the pension fund is a private company working in a heavily regulated market helping people saving for their retirement).

This is just an example how this might be solved in other countries. I think however the private pension fund system in Switzerland has many problems: firstly the employer selects the organization for you and not you yourself (Chilean system), and secondly for some people working in the trade it is a secure get-rich scheme, and that's not all.

(A note: both arms of the systems, the private pension fund system and the public pension, are mandatory.)

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

#225

Post by MomoXenosaga » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 8:21 AM UTC

mastax wrote: post #158

vineyardmike wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's fine, people can like what they like. One of the best parts of my life was living in a duplex built in the 1930s close to downtown. It's hard and increasingly expensive to live in those around here because they have been illegal to build in most of the city for almost a century . We do not have to ban single family homes. We do have to stop banning everything else .

Yeah this is a big problem. Demographics have changed. There are more old people who don't need 3 bedrooms and a big garden. Single person households have increased- in the 1960s everyone married and started a family in their twenties and divorce was pretty rare.

We shouldn't build houses for a society that doesn't exist anymore.

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

#226

Post by MomoXenosaga » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 8:35 AM UTC

haram_masala wrote: post #94

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn’t this depend on whether those homeowners have borrowed against their (rising) equity? I wonder what fraction of homeowners actually do so. Personally I wouldn’t dream of it, so rising prices don’t really affect my lifestyle at all.

I think a lot of people see their family house as their pension plan. A house is an asset now.

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

#227

Post by zimpenfish » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 8:40 AM UTC

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…

Sounds vaguely similar (but not identical?) to the UK's shared ownership scheme:

https://www.sharetobuy.com/guides-and-faqs/what-is-shared-ow...

"The purchaser pays a mortgage on the share they own, and pays rent to a housing association on the remaining share. [...] The purchaser has the option to increase their share during their time in the property via a process known as ‘staircasing’, and in most cases can staircase all the way to 100%."

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

#228

Post by closeparen » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 9:20 AM UTC

tareqak wrote: post #223

rsj_hn wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying Habitat for Humanity (or any charity) is bad, nor am I trying to discourage anyone from giving to charity. I'm pointing out that what works in a small scale charity does not work for addressing social problems at scale, and in fact is often (more often than not) harmful when done at scale. This is because the specific things that charities are good at: giving stuff to small groups of people, is not re…

> There are many people who have no business owning a home but who feel they must do so in order to not be left behind in this game of leveraged bets. Who has no business owning a home?

* Won't stay long enough to break even on transaction costs.

* Price to rent ratio very high, just need somewhere to live.

* Achieving ownership requires moving to sprawl and taking on a ruinous car commute.

* Ownership used to justify overspending on housing because "it's an investment."

* Need to go broke to scrape together the down payment.

* Don't reliably earn enough to pay the mortgage, and no savings.

* Don't have the temperament or the means to do maintenance.

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

#229

Post by zhdc1 » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #212

zhdc1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expanding on this, there are already similar schemes out there, and they've done nothing to stop property price inflation. Abstracting away ownership from the property to a collective legal entity ignores the main reason why people 'own' property in the first place - property needs to be actively maintained, and when it's not, those affected need to be able to identify and movitiate a responsible party. Even when you…

> ignores the main reason why people 'own' property in the first place no, the main reason people own property is to extract profit from it (or extract utility - essentially the same thing). Maintenance is merely a hinderance that they put up with in order to maximize said utility/profit extraction. If it were possible to create a property with no need for maintenance, the owners would opt for that!

Ownership is a legal fiction. In the context of common law countries, the state originally held final "ownership" over all land. People largely weren't allowed to own property in the modern sense of the term until after the Statute of Westminster (1290), which was passed after it became too difficult for courts to resolve who, exactly, was responsible for what (and for how long, and what was owed in return) under the older feudal system.

I'm sure a lawyer or someone with a better understanding of the history behind all of this can chime in, but the concept of ownership is very much tied to the state's need to know who is responsible for each piece of land, whether for taxation, ensuring upkeep, or for resolving court disputes.

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

#230

Post by lofi_lory » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

In Europe there is Mietshäuser Syndikat https://www.syndikat.org/en/

Their model seems to work well. I think this is the way. Capitalism seems to be oddly unprepared, if you just drop the profit drive in the middle of things. Seems like you can make the system sell itself out.