Live data from Hacker News

Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

nltimes.nl

541–550 of 598 posts

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

#541
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you are part of the top 1% of the globe when it comes to wealth. So what, what do you want the person to do, go live in a hut? How is that person greedy compared to people with multiple houses?

>How is that person greedy compared to people with multiple houses? They're greedy because they think the world owes them cheap housing just by virtue of being born. The person who owns multiple houses actually did some work to earn the money to pay for them, they're not the one eyeing other people's property with envy.

> They're greedy because they think the world owes them cheap housing

People want affordable housing not cheap housing.

> The person who owns multiple houses actually did some work to earn the money to pay for them

So if I hide my income in tax havens and evade taxes or if someone uses their wealth from a foreign country which they got using shady methods and then use that money to buy multiple properties, is that ok in your books?

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

#542
post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a dead comment later in this thread which using directed abusive language towards another commenter while linking to a Louis Rossmann video. The video [1] was interesting, although the dead comment seemed to completely ignore the video's [1] main point, where Louis talks about a hypothesis [2] where in New York City there may be an incentive structure between real estate investors and banks which is creating…

I am not a housing investor, but I see many misguided articles claiming housing investors are driving prices up. The factors that primarily control pricing in the housing market are supply and demand. In Seattle, London, Los Angeles and elsewhere demand has risen steadily but supply has not. This causes prices to increase sharply. The solution is to increase the housing supply. If the government removes regulations p…

While this is true for supply, the same can be said about demand. Foreign investors drive prices up by seeing some other county's housing as an investment. If taxes were increased for these investors, or some other disincentive was in place, demand would fall driving prices down

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

#543
post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a dead comment later in this thread which using directed abusive language towards another commenter while linking to a Louis Rossmann video. The video [1] was interesting, although the dead comment seemed to completely ignore the video's [1] main point, where Louis talks about a hypothesis [2] where in New York City there may be an incentive structure between real estate investors and banks which is creating…

I am not a housing investor, but I see many misguided articles claiming housing investors are driving prices up. The factors that primarily control pricing in the housing market are supply and demand. In Seattle, London, Los Angeles and elsewhere demand has risen steadily but supply has not. This causes prices to increase sharply. The solution is to increase the housing supply. If the government removes regulations p…

Exactly!

Here in Australia we are seeing remarkable growth in property prices over the last quarter!

Sydney prices grew at $AU1200 per day!

In the residential housing market there just isn’t enough supply!

I can say anecdotally that’s younger buyers are being accompanied by their parents, who are assisting with finance.

Its well observed that people are queuing down the street to inspect properties, and literally writing offers out on the kitchen table!

Properties are selling on minutes, with prices being pushed up by desperate buyers with access to finance from loans with low interest rates with deposits from their parents!

When you take a 20 or 30 year mortgage, what’s $20 or $30k here and there!

That’s what’s driving prices up!

Supply and demand!

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

#544
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,…

It seems to me that a LVT eventually leads to 100% of the land being owned by the super wealthy in dense areas. It's a state sponsored transfer of wealth. It still results in a middle-man that leeches money from renters, and the taxes would most likely be passed onto them.

In this case, why not just be direct and have the land owned by the state, and have density requirements for use of that land based on population of the area?

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

#545
post #401
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renters would pay the same rents they do now. For some landlords that would cover their tax bill. Others not so much. It would precipitate a collapse in property values, but not a rise in rents.

I must sincerely ask you if you read my original comment and the person I am replying to: As population density increases, desirability increases, and people may try investing with the goal of renting, which with an LVT will more sharply decrease the desirability of population density. An LVT can incentivize sprawl because all else equal the LVT would ultimately be passed on to renters.

But all else isn’t equal – denser places have less land per house.

With a property tax, the total tax bill increases when you build upward and make the apartment block. If you take a lot with a single home on it, and then stack 9 identical homes on top, the resulting property might be worth 9x as much. That’d mean the renters of that bottom home still have to pay 90% of their old property tax.

With LVT, the tax bill is based on whether you could build up productively, whether or not you actually choose to do so. So if you stack 10 family homes on top of one another, the renters of those homes would pay 1/10th the land tax.

This shifts the relative tax burden toward lots which are less dense than their surroundings. Encouraging infill and discouraging sprawl. If it pushes some to build their single family home in the exurbs so that an apartment block can be built in the suburbs, that’s a net win.

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

#546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTB is a disastrous policy that did nothing but to increase the prices of properties. People could borrow much more than they could because the government covered 40% in London and 20% outside of it. Look at the new developments in London, the price is well just under the HTB limit for the handful of HTB flats, then there is the shared ownership racket too. And commuting towns aren’t that cheaper either, and that is…

> HTB is a disastrous policy that did nothing but to increase the prices of properties. It let me buy a property which I wouldn't be able to without HTB, therefore your statement is objectively wrong. > And commuting towns aren’t that cheaper either Plenty of 2 bed houses in daily commuting distance for £250k - easily affordable on a London wage.

> It let me buy a property which I wouldn't be able to without HTB

Possibly you're taking the wrong counterfactual here?

"If I hadn't HTB but everyone else did" vs "If no-one had HTB".

It's possible you're quite right about the first, but it tells us little about the second. Possibly in the presence of HTB, prices just rise again until they reach their equilibrium of just-barely-affordable.

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

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately “community barbecues” oftentimes meant “barbecues with people who are exactly like me and who think exactly like I do”, an attitude which has had a pretty corrosive effect on democracy in the near past.

Otoh we’re self sorting more than ever aren’t we?

I would bet that the people in your neighbourhood (weak self selection) are going to have greater diversity of opinion than whatever bubble we currently exist in (strong self selection).

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

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just that most people would prefer owning a house over owning stocks. Because when the economy tanks and you lose your job, you have to sell your stocks at the low point to make rent. When you own your house, losing your job still sucks, but at least you still have a home. Thats also the reason why the low interest rates, although nice for homebuyers, also aren't a great levy of the situation: I have to pay back…

I do not understand your comment, as it started off sounding like there was a downside of renting vs owning, but then later on in the paragraph, you say that the risks of not being able to pay rent and not being able to pay a mortgage result in the same consequences during an economic downturn. > Because when the economy tanks and you lose your job, you have to sell your stocks at the low point to make rent. You shou…

I do think renting has a downside compared to owning, but that due to the high prices and resulting very long timespans of paying back credits, buying is getting riskier.

Owning has lower risk than renting, but you have to buy to own and when you can't buy outright, then there is a phase where you are still exposed to a risk of losing your home.

And keeping 24 months of expense is a good idea, but if I want to buy a house, I want to put down as much as possible. 24 months of expenses is about 80% of my savings. And the majority of people do not have any kind of savings at all.

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

#549

This move is well appreciated. Currently, I own a house in oudegracht, Utrecht. It is very terrible situation here. All the apartments in and around me are all the time rented out as airbnb. During peak of pandemic, it was pretty much a ghost town. The housing prices have skyrocketed due to covid, but all these all-cash investor are jumping and swooping in the apartments, holding it for a while and passing it to the…

It's not just the investors. It's literally everyone.

I saw a bus ad yesterday in NL that looked straight out of They Live - it just said "INVEST REAL ESTATE" with a website link on a blue blackground.

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

#550
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ver…

Just a note that 100% leverage would mean that you’re borrowing against 100% of the portion of the asset you bought to purchase more of the asset. I.e. you put 50% money down and borrowed to buy the other 50%. A typical 20% down-payment in the US gets you 400% leverage (you used your 20% ownership 4 times over in order to purchase the other 80%). 5% down gets you 1900% leverage. If you put $50000 down (5%) on a $1M h…

True, my bad. In that case, Dutch mortgages allow "infinite" leverage.

There are some fixed cost: transfer tax, mortgage fee, notary fees, etc. (It used to be you could also finance these). But the full amount that will be transferred to the seller can be financed.

Post reply on HN