Live data from Hacker News

Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

nltimes.nl

151–160 of 598 posts

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

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some greed might be innate, but what we're seeing today with billionaires is not normal greed, it's extreme greed, something me (and many others) don't think is innate. And where does "communism" come from? No one mentioned it here on HN nor in the article. People are so quick to label things, even if they are not even related. In this case, Dutch people seems to had enough of expensive prices so now they are on the…

> what we're seeing today with billionaires is not normal greed, it's extreme greed No, it's normal greed and, if anything, inequality is lower now than it has been in the past. What we have today is fat, comfortable people looking at billionaires and screaming greed because the billionaire has a yacht while they only have 3 cars and one massive house. Who's the greedy one here?

> What we have today is fat, comfortable people looking at billionaires and screaming greed because the billionaire has a yacht while they only have 3 cars and one massive house. Who's the greedy one here?

This is the weirdest straw man, isn't the entire point of the issue that no one can afford housing? What are you even talking about?

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

#152
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 for…

And driving wages down is the answer to what, exactly?

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

#153
post #42

In the long term, the ethically right answer seems pretty clearly to me to be a land value tax [0]. But due to encouragement of home ownership [1], that's not going to democratically tenable in a lot of countries for 20+ years. Unfortunate situation. [0] In 1879, a man asked "How come all this new economic development and industrialized technology hasn't eliminated poverty and oppression?" That man was Henry George,…

Wouldn't a land value tax encourage urban sprawling ? Current ubran policies in the western world, coupled with the normalization of remote working already do this to some extent.

It would probably encourage less urban sprawl by driving more efficient use of city center land and housing.

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

#154
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it better in neighboring countries?. There was a discussion [1] about controlled rent market few days ago, it seems that the problem is related to growth. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58317555

IANAE, but I'm guessing part of the problem is also that housing is not part of inflation (i.e. not in the indexation).

It is, but it is mixed in with housing that people do not want, such as due to location, size, quality, etc.

The US CPI figures have no resemblance to your expenses if you live in one of the desirable and booming regions of the US.

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

#155
post #42

In the long term, the ethically right answer seems pretty clearly to me to be a land value tax [0]. But due to encouragement of home ownership [1], that's not going to democratically tenable in a lot of countries for 20+ years. Unfortunate situation. [0] In 1879, a man asked "How come all this new economic development and industrialized technology hasn't eliminated poverty and oppression?" That man was Henry George,…

Homeownership is a great ideal. Letting people work towards having a place to live without paying rent is great for independence.

What is stupid is promoting Homeownership as a personal investment for the individual home-owner. A home is already a great thing to own financially, because it 'produces' not having to pay rent. There is no need to also have it pay 5% a year for people who have 100% leverage (which is very common in the Netherlands for mortgages).

But politicians get lots of votes by making the current middle class richer for owning homes. Nevermind that it is bad long-term as people have been saying for the last 20 years.

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would it encourage urban sprawling?

Preosumably the closer to the city centre the higher the per square fot value so to minimise costs you move to the edge of town, thus sprawl.

Or you buy an apartment in a high rise and share the cost with the other residents.

It would certainly discourage the building of houses in the city centre.

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

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what we're seeing today with billionaires is not normal greed, it's extreme greed No, it's normal greed and, if anything, inequality is lower now than it has been in the past. What we have today is fat, comfortable people looking at billionaires and screaming greed because the billionaire has a yacht while they only have 3 cars and one massive house. Who's the greedy one here?

I was looking for data for inequality per country ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_... ). What location and timeline are you thinking of for now being less inequal? Do you have a data source I could look into? Cheers Edit: grammar

Data of current inequality isn't very useful. I don't have any data, but I wasn't the one claiming things were more extreme now than they have been in the past. If I look at the UK I see even the poorest people have shelter, food and free access to healthcare. In the past the poorest people were literally starving and in very poor health while the richest lived in huge manor houses that would make even a billionaire blush today.

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

#158
post #142
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…

Note, this targets anyone buying houses to rent out. It does not (like london considered) tax un-lived-in houses. This is just a weird bandaid. Mostly trying to blame landlords for this housing crisis when mortgage tax credits, and scarcity due to weird eco regulation shenanigans are to blame.

There aren't mortgage tax credits in the UK, and I have no idea what you mean by "eco regulation shenanigans"

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

#159
post #62

So investors buy the homes then rent them out? What’s the problem? In some asian markets investors buy homes then sit on them unused for years. That’s a problem.

The problem is that these investors have raised rents nationally to a point where there is no affordable housing outside of social housing (8-15+ year wait lists). And this happened in a very short time period. If I'd want a 60-80m2 apartment in the city I currently live, I'd have to pay 1000-1200+ Euro for that; three to four years ago, that would have been half. Just over the border in Germany the same apartment go…

Is that because Germany had banned property investment or because supply keeps up with demand in Germany?

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

#160
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…

> Round here in Cornwall the jobs are things like surf instructor, supermarket worker, barperson, etc. That's not gonna stretch to the local house prices. That was the case. A colleague of mine, originally from St Just, moved to London for work as so many have to do. Another from near Cockermouth did the same. Both now work remotely full time from their 'home towns' on decent wages. Covid has done wonders for local c…

The real problem is how much the bank earns off the interest it charges you throughout your life while it had to do what?... create new money from nothing into the money supply with special permissions given to it by the government. This is why housing is so expensive to begin with. This bullshit needs to stop.
Post reply on HN