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Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

economist.com

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Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#241

Post by luckylion »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #207
luckylion wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Germany, and I can assure you, the state does not do a great job in this regard. I don't know about France, but seeing the satellite cities surrounding Paris, I have some doubts. Where are they doing a great job in Europe?

I have lived in Germany, France, UK and US, and I can assure you that Germany does a comparably great job. No structural homelessness problem (beyond the rare addiction victim), new social housing being built rather than relying on housing built 60+ years ago, no/few state subsidies to a private rental sector preying on social tenants etc etc. Just because it is not perfect doesn't mean it isn't better than 95% of th…

> No structural homelessness problem (beyond the rare addiction victim), new social housing being built rather than relying on housing built 60+ years ago, no/few state subsidies to a private rental sector preying on social tenants etc etc.

I'm not sure what you're referencing -- most social housing is done by private entities with state subsidies. Many local governments have set a minimum amount of social housing for new projects, so e.g. 30% of apartments (or by square meters) have to be done as subsidized housing. That aside, I'm sure that it's possible to do worse, but that doesn't make it great.

If Vienna has found a way to make the state work efficiently, I'd love for them to export it. So far, I've not seen that happening in any of the industries it is involved.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#242

Post by [deleted] »

yrgulation wrote: post #78

Property ownership is bad. Rent for life, dont leave inheritance to your children so they can rent for life too. All you need in life is clothing, entertainment, a bit of travel to distract you from your tiny living space, maybe a gadget or two and of course onsite work. Oh and praise from you manager to add meaning to your daily grind. Or so “they” say while “they” amass thousands of properties and massive fortunes…

[deleted]

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#243

Post by chii »

scambier wrote: post #186
dgudkov wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...doing nothing This is unfair. There is nothing wrong with passive income. Owning shares or bonds, or having a bank deposit is also "doing nothing" yet no one would blame anyone for it.

Are you seriously comparing owning shares with taking advantage of the need to have a home to take ~30% of someone's monthly income?

they are very comparable. Owning shares in a company that takes money to provide essential services? That has been the model of capitalism - fee for service - for a long time, and it has worked. The service gets provided, at the right price that the market can bear ,and still produce a profit for those providing the service. The alternative is to not have that service provided at all!

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#244

Post by tlarkworthy »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #73
tlarkworthy wrote: post #68

Next up, living in families shown to be inefficient, newborns should be matched in a skills based auction at birth. => There is more to life than supply and demand, and home ownership has a hidden effect on societal responsibility, wellbeing and a life milestone

Actually who you are born to is probably the number 1 driver of inequality. If you really wanted something more equitable, you would probably require that no children be raised by their parents and be turned over to a state run children's home at birth.

So you want to drag the majority down in order to reach a level of lowest common denominator of "equity". Pure insanity.

Yes the life you are born into is not "fair". But you must also appreciate that the family unit is one of the strongest forces of altruism and inter human bonding for the majority.

Break the family and you break the parts of society that are not run on finance. It's would truly cause an incredible amount of damage undermining the family bond. We are not robots!

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#245

Post by deepstack »

yrgulation wrote: post #78

Property ownership is bad. Rent for life, dont leave inheritance to your children so they can rent for life too. All you need in life is clothing, entertainment, a bit of travel to distract you from your tiny living space, maybe a gadget or two and of course onsite work. Oh and praise from you manager to add meaning to your daily grind. Or so “they” say while “they” amass thousands of properties and massive fortunes…

Upvote!

Private property ownership and intergenerational wealth transfer is the foundation of middle class, and bigger middle class leads to better education for the masses, and a more democratic society!

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#246

Post by luch »

jorvi wrote: post #221
tuukkah wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In comparison, in Finland the stamp duty is 0% when you buy your first home while you are under 40.

> while you are under 40 This seems such a weird condition to add. Someone who doesn't earn much but saves up over 22 years for a house has to pay stamp duty on his first house, but someone privileged who can buy a house when 30 years old doesn't?

I agree, it's better to differentiate based on revenues rather than just age.

In my country, if you're poor and if it's the first house you buy, you can ask a 0% tax loan from the government and use it to pay your stamp duty with it.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#247

Post by janekm »

yrgulation wrote: post #78

Property ownership is bad. Rent for life, dont leave inheritance to your children so they can rent for life too. All you need in life is clothing, entertainment, a bit of travel to distract you from your tiny living space, maybe a gadget or two and of course onsite work. Oh and praise from you manager to add meaning to your daily grind. Or so “they” say while “they” amass thousands of properties and massive fortunes…

Having to pay >60% of monthly salary on a mortgage for the next 25 years isn't exactly my definition of financial freedom. If the market crashes you have no freedom to move for opportunities elsewhere.

Here in London, rent is <50% of mortgage payments on an equivalent property.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#248

Post by bovine3dom »

bsenftner wrote: post #224
bovine3dom wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people didn't own houses then someone would, and that someone is still incentivized to constrain the supply. Yes, but constraining the supply is done through political means: planning laws, green belts, individual objections to developments, voting etc. All of those in theory are based on "one man one vote", so if you concentrate ownership of supply you drastically reduce the number of votes it gets. > the middl…

At the risk of sounding racist, Asian culture respect their commons to a significantly larger degree than non-Asian cultures. If the Singapore residential skyscrapers where in the United States, for example, the space between the buildings would be a no-mans zone of graffiti, illegal trade, and youth gangs.

I hear that a lot about Singapore. The thing most people don't seem to realise is that in 1960 Singapore was essentially a giant slum.

All these "collective" behaviours have appeared since then helped along by government campaigns: https://remembersingapore.org/2013/01/18/singapore-campaigns...

(Note that one of those campaigns - speak Mandarin - was encouraging people to abandon their native languages and learn a completely different one. It was highly successful. I think by comparison "don't throw litter" would be extremely easy.)

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#249

Post by kwhitefoot »

harperlee wrote: post #111
Traster wrote: post #48

I don't think this article makes a logical argument at all. It says house ownership is bad because it gives people a vested interest in constraining the supply of housing. That's true but that's not a problem. If people didn't own houses then someone would, and that someone is still incentivized to constrain the supply. I'm also not sure that reducing home ownership is a good idea - "let's make everyone poorer" doesn…

> the middle class who used to be able to live in a nice semi/detatched house are now living in flats in a skyscraper that is a massive detriment to their quality of life Higher density has pros and cons. Living in higher density areas can increase quality of life significantly, if you can walk to work, groceries, pharmacy, restaurants, friends, etc. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/paris-mayor-un...…

I can walk to all those things even though I live in a 130 m2 house with an 800 m2 garden full of mature fruit trees.

There are four supermarkets within 2 km, the doctor and chemist are 1 km away.

In many countries it isn't necessary to sacrifice living space for convenience. It is largely a political choice for the country as a whole even though it is an economic one for most of the individuals. Even in densely populated countries like the UK the population is very unevenly distributed resulting in huge conurbations.

Countries like the US have no reason at all any more to have people live in dense cities unless they really want to, after all there is a lot of empty space there and good physical and electronic communication.

US mean density 36/km2, UK 275/km2, Norway 15/km2.

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