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Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

nltimes.nl

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Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#101

Post by mytailorisrich »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #75
csomar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Let's fix a housing crisis by completely breaking up laws, society and order.

It's not uncommon for cities to pas laws that aim at the reduction of unoccupied spaces amid housing crisis. Actually, most European capitals do this either by raising taxes on empty housing or by partially legalizing squatting. Londongrad is an exception to what is otherwise a rule.

Houses that are vacant for a long period attract higher council tax in London and the whole of England.

Of course you may argue that the difference is small in relation to multi-million pounds properties, but that is a more general issue with the council tax's range.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#102

Post by Aeolun »

csomar wrote: post #46
anothernewdude wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those empty homes should be torn down or squatted in. I imagine an organisation like a squatters union could be set up to manage protection for them.

Sure. Let's fix a housing crisis by completely breaking up laws, society and order.

Hmm, I’m fairly certain we have some laws giving squatters rights if they live in some housing long enough without opposition.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#103

Post by 988747 »

jhgb wrote: post #66
988747 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because that’s what every family dreams about: having a stranger living in their house. Also, if there was enough space in dorms for everyone there wouldn’t be those students camping in tents, as OP wrote.

There's no need for every family to sublet. Usually a small minority of residences house subletters. I'm not quite sure how worsening the situation for everyone by property investors hoarding houses would make it better for students, either.

Property investors are not "hoarding" houses. They buy them and then rent them out, thus increasing the supply. It is actually better for students this way: an investor that does not live in their property can rent out it whole. If a house can fit 5 people that means a living space for 5 students. If the house gets bought by a family, that family moves in, so 3 out of 5 spots are now occupied, leaving only 2 available for rent. I don't know, maybe that's the hidden goal of this policy: push the students out, and bring in more families.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#104

Post by em500 »

pigeonhole123 wrote: post #74
mcv wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's an issue of inflation. Inflation has been super low for the past decade or more. Everything else is cheap, it's just housing that's expensive. It's a combination of scarcity and speculation leading to more artificial scarcity. Make it less attractive for speculators and build more houses.

How is the CPI a useful measure of inflation if it ignores the things people actually have to spend money on like housing and healthcare?

It wouldn't be, if it did that. Fortunately it doesn't ignore those. In the US CPI calculation, housing has around 42% weight, medical care around 9%. Source: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2020.htm

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#105

Post by toomanybeersies »

dmje wrote: post #25

Amen to this. Two case studies from the UK I've been thinking about recently: 1) Visiting London and spending time in South Kensington - walking back to hotel at night, only about 30% of houses had any lights on. Suggestion is the others are effectively uninhabited, and a search on RightMove shows properties sell for £20-£30m for a 4/5 bed. This isn't normal Londoners, it's outside investment. 2) Cornwall, where I li…

Has it ever been possible to buy a house on minimum wage?

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#106

Post by makomk »

ed_blackburn wrote: post #87
dmje wrote: post #25

Amen to this. Two case studies from the UK I've been thinking about recently: 1) Visiting London and spending time in South Kensington - walking back to hotel at night, only about 30% of houses had any lights on. Suggestion is the others are effectively uninhabited, and a search on RightMove shows properties sell for £20-£30m for a 4/5 bed. This isn't normal Londoners, it's outside investment. 2) Cornwall, where I li…

Another Cornishman here (Par). The financial destitution and how much harder they have to work for the same things I do in the South East is unsustainable. Cornwall has Luther to the right politically and that’s because there’s been some useful scapegoats. Now those scapegoats have been slain and things are getting worse not better I hope we’ll see policies that are focused on root cause issues instead of ideology (l…

Unfortunately, the British press and all the wealthy people with second homes still have Brexit as a scapegoat for why cafes and shops in tourist destinations can't find staff. Never mind the fact that AirBNB and second homes have pushed up house prices and rents to the point that it's impossible to live there on the kind of pay those jobs have, according to the media it's all the fault of Brexit driving away the foreign workers who had to do the jobs because all the Brexit-voting morons who were brainwashed into blaming the EU are too lazy to do them.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#107

Post by traceroute66 »

dmje wrote: post #25

Amen to this. Two case studies from the UK I've been thinking about recently: 1) Visiting London and spending time in South Kensington - walking back to hotel at night, only about 30% of houses had any lights on. Suggestion is the others are effectively uninhabited, and a search on RightMove shows properties sell for £20-£30m for a 4/5 bed. This isn't normal Londoners, it's outside investment. 2) Cornwall, where I li…

> spending time in South Kensington - walking back to hotel at night, only about 30% of houses had any lights on.

South Kensington is a bit of a curiosity.

It is predominantly bordered by Chelsea and Knightsbridge.

Chelsea is Russian country, if you are a wealthy Russian, Chelsea is the place to be. Unless you are a Russian oligarch, in which case there are one or two spots a bit further away where you can splash super serious cash on rarer properties.

Knightsbridge is wealthy Arab country, when it gets too hot in the Middle East summer, they flock to Knightsbridge with their imported Ferraris to stay in their London houses.

But South Kensington is a bit different. Its not attractive to the Russians or Arabs. Not many of the properties there remain single occupant, they've been mostly subdivided in to individual flats or re-purposed for office (or educational use ... there are lots of cram-schools, colleges and nurseries round there).

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#108

Post by zihotki »

mercy_dude wrote: post #39

There is a better way - raise the real rate. Cheap loans along with endless printing has basically made fiat useless as a medium to store value, the only reason fiat exists now is as a medium to exchange goods/services. Here the Fed has been buying over 100B of mortgage based securities a month. This got to stop. For all the talks about Wealth inequality, I don’t understand how politicians fail to understand this bas…

The main problem which this won't solve is the lack of space. There is a little land in NL so you can't grow endlessly and new districts would also put additional burden on infrastructure. People want to live close to major transport connections and/or big cities. You just can't build more and faster without considering the whole picture.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#109

Post by timwaagh »

sverhagen wrote: post #30
jhgb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do I understand correctly that they want to kick out all the students from the cities? Presumably not, unless those students are property investors.

I suppose the implied question is: who's going to rent to students if the landlords' investments get penalized for them not living there themselves. There's presumably too many students in these cities for all of them to find some family who have a spare room to rent.

There are some very hard limits to taking students in too. You don't want to be a student after the covid induced decline in demand is over. Especially not if you are not from here. The regulation exempt SSH will put you in a room with another student or two and charge you 800 or so.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#110

Post by mercy_dude »

wsc981 wrote: post #97
mercy_dude wrote: post #39

There is a better way - raise the real rate. Cheap loans along with endless printing has basically made fiat useless as a medium to store value, the only reason fiat exists now is as a medium to exchange goods/services. Here the Fed has been buying over 100B of mortgage based securities a month. This got to stop. For all the talks about Wealth inequality, I don’t understand how politicians fail to understand this bas…

In The Netherlands I don’t think this would make a big difference around the major cities as there is a huge housing shortage and this will stay the same at least for the next 10 years, probably more much longer.

Scarcity was always a problem. Even in 90s and early 00s there was a lot of posters about housing shortage. But prices we’re rather stable. In a healthy housing market, you expect the property values to not grow over real interest rate. Which was the case back then.
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