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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

#291

Post by arp242 »

rusteh1 wrote: post #165

I don't understand how this would work. How do people rent? Obviously many people can't or do not wish to own their house for any number of reasons. Who will own houses that are rented? I used to live in Amsterdam as an expat, and rented from a landlord who owned several homes in Amsterdam. Would she not be able to own and rent these homes under this scheme? The social housing system seemed to be abused when I was th…

This is called scheefwonen – which roughly translates to "crooked living" – and has been a point of attention for several decades at least, more or less as long as I can remember.

It's a bit of a difficult problem, because you don't really want to kick people out of their house just because they have a better-paying job, and especially in the current climate these people don't really have anywhere to go; €7k people will probably manage, but €4k/month will have a harder time finding something affordable.

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

#292

Post by jlokier »

chrisseaton wrote: post #253
jlokier wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just buy a house the usual ways and live in it. With cash or a mortgage. If you live in it, it's not called "property investing". "Property investing" refers to buying property to benefit from price speculation and use as a store of value, without actually using the property as a home. The property may sit there empty most or all of the time, or it may be rented out, with a combination of rent and price speculati…

Since houses don’t wear out or get used up, like clothes or food, and you can sell them when you’re done with them, they’re inherently an investment.

Sure, they're an investment too, but properties bought primarily to live in, with investment as a handy side effect, do not have the same effect on housing availability and affordability. Each such purchase reduces supply by 1, but also reduces demand by 1, and gives someone relative stability.

So purchasing to live in is not what "property investment" refers to in this context. It has a narrower meaning than "anything you could conceivably think of as an investment".

Aside, houses do in fact wear out, need regular repair, and eventually most get demolished because regular repair isn't good enough.

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

#293

Post by FridayoLeary »

If the price of properties fall dramatically won't that have an adverse affect on property owners? Imagine shelling out £1M on a house, and spending 20 years paying it off. Now, at the end of that time period the house is worth half of that. I'm not an expert but is closing off an entire section of Capitalism going to work flawlessly?

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

#294

Post by arp242 »

akudha wrote: post #100
reacharavindh wrote: post #76

I may be biased because I moved recently to the Netherlands and looking to buy our first home and stop paying rent. But, the house prices are crazy out here. I work in tech and my wife is an academic. We earn what is definitely above market average, and it looks like we cannot afford most houses we find in the area where we are renting now(well outside Amsterdam). At this juncture, at least temporarily, investors who…

This is becoming a problem in farmlands too. Young farmers are unable to buy farmlands, they are forced to lease from huge landowners. It is zero risk investment for these big landowners. Farmers do all the work, put in all the investment like tools (except the land) - landowners simply collect rent. Some of these people own hundreds of thousands of acres (Bill Gates, for example). This is an ugly situation. This is…

This kind of system was sustained for thousands of years in many different cultures, so I wouldn't exactly call it unsustainable. I would very much call it ugly and undesirable though.

My point here is that there is no guarantee that this will be solved just because it's "unsustainable". I don't understand why people aren't literally protesting on the street; we did so in the 70s and 80s ("geen woning geen kroning") and the situation was a lot less bad back then.

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

#295

Post by Dayshine »

iso1210 wrote: post #149
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…

> 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…

Median post-tax household income in the UK is £30k. So, £25k each is roughly £20k post-tax, so you're looking at the top 30% of households.

Admittedly this includes households including people who are "retired" but I think that's reasonable as plenty of people have to keep working even though they're receiving a pension.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personal...

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

#296

Post by ianai »

I’m reminded of behavioral studies showing that other primates have an instinctive concept of “fair” and will choose against cooperation if a deal seems unfair to them. I think this was covered in Freakonomics.

How about making a civil law where anybody can sue the owner of a home if it’s not occupied in a way that benefits the community around the home - say with a $10,000 plus court fees and 10% of any residual income minimum for anyone in the community who sues and wins?

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

#297

Post by polytely »

keewee7 wrote: post #80
turbinerneiter wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it gets harder and harder for normal people to own anything (build up wealth), while building wealth is the best retirement startegy there is. I myself, for example, live in a city where owning the place I live in is just barely getting in reach for me, although I am in the top 30% income bracket of my country. I therefore have to put my savings into the stock market, which is at an all time high.…

>The problem is that it gets harder and harder for normal people to own anything One of the reasons is that people insist on living and working in some of the wealthiest and most expensive cities in the world. I live a cheap town and my commute to work in the 2nd biggest city in my country is just 25 minutes.

But the Netherlands is small enough that the unaffordable prices in the big cities has pushed most people to the rest of the country basically increasing prices everywhere.

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

#298

Post by lotsofpulp »

amelius wrote: post #283
lotsofpulp wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Netherlands (where the article is about) is relatively small, so I'm wondering if the whole country has more or less the same "booming" factor (?) How does housing affect inflation in that country?

I think EU citizens have the right to live anywhere in the EU, so while not exactly the same as the US due to language and cultural differences, it might still have a noticeable effect. But I am not well versed in the topic, so I would only be able to guess.

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

#299

Post by arp242 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #247
Griffinsauce wrote: post #185

This is really necessary. I'm a senior engineer, my wife is a neurologist, we are currently not able to afford a pretty normal house in the city. Even if we did, buying now is a enormous waste of money. The market has been bad for years and it's absolutely out of control now.

> I'm a senior engineer, my wife is a neurologist, we are currently not able to afford a pretty normal house in the city. I don’t understand why people think having a certain job means it’s more of a travesty that they can’t get a house. Everyone should be able to get a house. Whatever your jobs are is irrelevant.

Of course, but I think the point the previous poster was making that even with well-paid jobs well above the average it's very hard to find something reasonable that fits in your budget, which underscores the point that for people at the average it's damn near impossible.

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

#300

Post by HelloNurse »

emodendroket wrote: post #281
aikinai wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think those small business owners are packing away substantial profits they could use to pay staff significantly more?

If a business can only exist by having serfs it wildly underpays then maybe it deserves to lose out to the big chains.

Compared to a small business the "big chains" might be able to operate with smaller profit margins, or have lower non-labor costs, or profit from owned real estate, but it isn't enough for long term viability. Excessive rents are going to turn any neighbourhood into a desert like South Kensington.
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