If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund • Hacker News Board

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#311

Post by plank_time » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #273

plank_time wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re saying that old people should be driven out of their houses because younger, richer people deserve to live in their houses. I’m sure your feelings will change as you get older.

Something like prop 13 isn't the only way to avoid that. Some jurisdictions allow you to defer property tax indefinitely in the form of a lien against the house which seems like a reasonable way to do it.

Some of my neighbors are seniors who are on social security. Their houses were bought for about $160k in the 1970s. Which is expensive back then. Now they are worth $2M but they have no intention to move. Where would they live? And how can they afford the $30k/yr property tax?

What stops people from selling their homes isn’t prop 13, it’s the ridiculous rise in house prices in the last 15 years. It creates no mobility. Stop bitching about Prop 13, that is a lazy and short sighted and wrong explanation for house prices. Look at the inventory these days. It’s low because no one wants to sell their homes because where are they going to move to?

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#312

Post by tachyonbeam » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

datavirtue wrote: post #277

tachyonbeam wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe? They are a luxury for the upper middle class, and you could easily rent one the same way you rent an airbnb. Those holiday homes do need to belong to someone though, so I suppose it makes no sense to outright ban own multiple homes, but we could structure it so that resale is more highly taxed, particularly resale after a short time (i.e. people "flipping" properties).

Ok...we need more houses so tax the hell out of developers?! You need people to be able to build and flip properties without being taxed at all. The current taxes are carving a modest profit down to "not worth it" for a lot of people who could otherwise build and revitalize affordable housing. More taxes on home sales results in less homes for sale.

IMO we should probably reduce taxes on house builders. Maybe even give them tax exemptions. Do what we can to increase supply.

Speculators wanting to buy a house, redo the kitchen, and mark up the price 20% 6 months later though? We could just let older, unrenovated houses be cheap. That opens up deals to new home buyers. You can redo the kitchen after buying the house if you really care. You don't need some middle man to do it and mark up the house.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#313

Post by ceres » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

p_j_w wrote: post #182

duxup wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah what the heck happened there. "same cabal" Everything is a grand singular conspiracy to someone these days. Happens on HN too, every few bad news type post has some accusation that whatever outcome was because of a conspiracy.

The crazy thing is that no grand conspiracy is required, this is just a function (and an entirely predictable one) of the ever increasing levels of wealth inequality that we see. No political "pincher" movement required, it's just people with money finding ways to use that money to make more money. As an aside, this isn't a username I expected to ever see again.

>this isn't a username I expected to ever see again

Mind if I ask what you mean by this?

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#314

Post by sidlls » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

world_peace42 wrote: post #288

sidlls wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, having views that divorced from reality is crazy, plain and simple. It's also dangerous, as the ongoing insurrection against the US government shows. It's not bigotry to call them out for how outlandish and insane their beliefs are.

Nothing is bigotry if there are enough bigots. And, as everyone knows, HN is a one-party site, so I'm not expecting many upvotes.

Yeah, democratic partisans are terrible, too, and just about as divorced from reality.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#315

Post by StandardFuture » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

anthony_romeo wrote: post #298

xdennis wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What conspiracy? “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.” is something they said.

Who is "they"? Some article in a newspaper? A handful of researchers and futurists? Edit: Got it. It's from a list of unsurprising predictions from [at least] the marketing department of the World Economic Forum. Thanks.

I believe it was a video that the World Economic Forum put out on their YouTube in 2020. I am not sure if they took it down or not since then.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#316

Post by mattmcknight » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #224

plank_time wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re saying that old people should be driven out of their houses because younger, richer people deserve to live in their houses. I’m sure your feelings will change as you get older.

Paying taxes on unearned gains is not "driven out of your house". You can keep the house and pay taxes on the gains. > I’m sure your feelings will change as you get older. Yes, this is the problem. Extreme self-interest and entitlement to massive windfalls.

It's not a tax on the gains, it's tax based on the estimated current market value, which could go up or down.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#317

Post by _brnu » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

anthony_romeo wrote: post #298

xdennis wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What conspiracy? “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.” is something they said.

Who is "they"? Some article in a newspaper? A handful of researchers and futurists? Edit: Got it. It's from a list of unsurprising predictions from [at least] the marketing department of the World Economic Forum. Thanks.

Generally speaking, I think it's a reference to this video with predictions of the future. Whether or not it was advocacy for that outcome is the subject of debate, but it does appear to be an actual WEF video. https://www.facebook.com/worldeconomicforum/videos/101539205...

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#318

Post by briefcomment » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

anthony_romeo wrote: post #298

xdennis wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What conspiracy? “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.” is something they said.

Who is "they"? Some article in a newspaper? A handful of researchers and futurists? Edit: Got it. It's from a list of unsurprising predictions from [at least] the marketing department of the World Economic Forum. Thanks.

WEF's official video [1]. They took down the article they had on this topic, probably due to backlash [2].

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBxWtKKQiA [2]https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/shopping-i-can-t-real...

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#319

Post by sethammons » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

sagarm wrote: post #110

dv_dt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why CA has prop 13 which limits increases to property taxes from year to year specifically because CA had seem property boom/bust cycles kicking people out of homes because of irrational real estate prices.

Towns normally set the property tax rate to meet their budget, so appraisals increasing across the board would not increase you property taxes. Prop 13 leads to perverse outcomes like subsidizing slums and trust fund kids while penalizing new homeowners and people improving their property. It's also simply unjust for two neighbors with similar properties to pay different rates based on their age or even ancestry.

I say it is unjust for a fixed income senior citizen or disability insurance recipient to have their property tax base grow to a point where they must flee their home of decades. The callus answer is to force the person to sell and take their gains and move so a younger person with higher wages can afford their once-home. I think it is unjust to remove an older, less abled, and less employment-opportunitied person from their environment.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#320

Post by throw737858 » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

plank_time wrote: post #258

throw737858 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone who owns a house in cali is a milionaire. I am not sure it applies to immigrant who just moved to California.

The old person would have sold the house a long time ago because of the rise of their property tax. They wouldn’t be millionaires. They would have to sell their home for a small gain and then rent for the rest of their lives. And since they are old they have no income so they need to keep moving to cheaper and cheaper apartments. Sounds like a great way to live a life, just because younger people feel like they deser…

> just because younger people feel like they deserve to live in their house.

Well, they do deserve those houses. If we expect young people to work, pay taxes and raise new generation. This is yet another middle finger to young people. No wonder birth rate is in toilet.