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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

#571

Post by merrywhether »

pessimizer wrote: post #540
refurb wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described someone forced out of their home.

And very precisely, too. They can't afford to keep their home because since other people want it, the taxes rise. The only solution is to sell to one of those people who wants it, and to move to a less desired home. 1) The buyer is pricing the house at its worth minus its future tax liabilities (which is what the seller receives), and the seller will use that money to purchase another house which also has tax liabili…

Re: 3, you can’t apply non-LVT outcomes to an LVT scenario. The tax situation would eventually force the redevelopment of the lot (outside of a few super-rich owners who want a trophy SFH and are inelastic to tax pressure), bringing more density and opportunity for people to live in valuable space.

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

#572

Post by merrywhether »

refurb wrote: post #469
merrywhether wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who’s getting tossed out of homes? If they own any part of it, they can sell their land at its new higher value and pocket their share of the gains. Then the can either move into a nearby newly redeveloped multi-unit building (increased efficiency as incentivized by LVT) or they can move further out to land with the same low value on which they used to live in a detached home. This same type of thinking drives me cra…

You just described someone forced out of their home.

This happens now anyway, except currently people are priced out by an increasing cost of goods and services and then forced to leave the area entirely. The idea/hope/whatever behind LVT is that it would force redevelopment into more density, allowing more people to live in valuable areas while keeping cost of living flat and manageable. Density is the end-goal of LVT proponents.

I admit I don’t have a lot of attachment to a given plot of land, and understand some people place more value on that. But it’s also pretty selfish for one person/family to claim a plot in a productive market to the exclusion of ten others by standing in the way of densification. It’s a question of singular good vs that of the collective, and there is no right answer there at which point I guess it’s agree to disagree?

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

#573

Post by IkmoIkmo »

brnt wrote: post #437
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why the amen is applicable to Dutch cities. I'll take the local perspective from Amsterdam as an example, but it applies more broadly to the other cities as well here. Regarding point 1: There's no real issues with long-term vacancies (the municipality already has laws in-place which fine owners of vacant homes), typically sits between 1 and 2%. That should obviously go down to 0 as much as possible, but it'…

Show your sources. I've read the exact opposite of what you claim. The CIA even lists the Dutch housing market as the largest risk factor in the stability of the Dutch housing market.

> Show your sources. I've read the exact opposite of what you claim.

For example: https://www.kadaster.nl/documents/1953498/3407456/Onderzoek+...

Happy to read your sources as well.

> The CIA even lists the Dutch housing market as the largest risk factor in the stability of the Dutch housing market.

I don't understand?

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

#574

Post by IkmoIkmo »

luckylion wrote: post #409
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those terribly myopic and symbolic policies that the Netherlands (despite generally one of the best governed countries in the world) keeps falling for. Studies have shown over and over again that investors aren't causing the price increases in the Netherlands. Prices won't improve much. Renting is going to take a beating, which is already an extremely small sector in the Netherlands, among the smallest…

> It seems like the least controversial thing that the left and the right should have agreement over: rich people not getting subsidised social housing. The argument I've heard in Germany is that it's a good idea to have more socially mixed housing projects, so people who moved in as students are allowed to stay when they work full time. Initially they had to pay an extra fee ("Fehlbelegungsabgabe" = erroneous occupa…

Our social housing stock is already intended to be mixed (although the balance is often not great). You'll often find social and non-social housing units in the same apartment building, and definitely in every neighbourhood there will be a mix. I agree and think that mix is super important. But achieving it by giving rich people subsidised housing when there are poor people on a waiting list for these units, is one of the least optimal solutions, compared to alternatives.

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

#575

Post by IkmoIkmo »

gpvos wrote: post #518
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those terribly myopic and symbolic policies that the Netherlands (despite generally one of the best governed countries in the world) keeps falling for. Studies have shown over and over again that investors aren't causing the price increases in the Netherlands. Prices won't improve much. Renting is going to take a beating, which is already an extremely small sector in the Netherlands, among the smallest…

Means testing would force medium-rich people to live on the streets (or with their parents), since there are no rental houses available between 700 and 1200 euro/month (that is, between social housing and the liberalized sector), and not all of them will be able to buy a home with the current prices.

We're talking about rich people occupying social homes intended for the poorest people. However bad it may be for 'medium-rich' people, it's much worse for poor. Any extreme outcome (like living on the streets) would have a much higher chance with poor, than medium-rich, who tend to have options. There's plenty of housing stock at 1200 a month that can be shared by two 'medium-rich' persons within a 45m commute from their work. No such options exist for poor people for whom social housing is intended. Of course means-testing will create issues for medium-rich, that's not the question, the question is if it's fair to protect them from these issues at the expense of the poor, by giving the rich subsidised housing intended for the poor. The answer is obviously (to me) no.

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

#576

Post by IkmoIkmo »

skybrian wrote: post #487
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the claim. There's waterbed effects. Buy-to-let is done for the purpose of renting. If you take that rental supply away, rental prices go up, and demand for homes go up. Taking away buy-to-let demand thereby creates other demand that buy-to-let was supplying. You're just replacing the demand, not removing it.

Could you spell out why this doesn’t just move demand around? Aren’t the same number of people as before looking for a place to live? (I also don’t know what you mean by “waterbed.”)

It does just move supply/demand around, that's the waterbed effect.

If you remove buy-to-let investors, then buying a home becomes easier, but not necessarily any cheaper, because the rental supply (from buy-to-let) drops and therefore the prices of rentals go up, thereby increasing the demand for buying a home, countering the lower demand from buy-to-let investors. Demand has been moved around, the shortages are still as big, and there's no significant effect on prices.

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

#577

Post by IkmoIkmo »

missedthecue wrote: post #513
yread wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foreign investors account for more than half of total real estate investment flows in the Netherlands, see page 8 https://www.bouwinvest.nl/media/4305/bouwinvest-dutch-real-e...

That is real estate investment flow. That's not the same thing as housing. The graph you linked shows the majority of the investment going into things like office space, industrial real estate, retail, hotels, healthcare, etc...

It must also be noted that the vast majority of these deals aren't homes on the market for locals, they're existing investor real estate.

Sometimes you see articles stating '25% of all homes last year were bought by investors', but failing to mention that 20% of that 25% were homes sold by investors, too. i.e. company A selling to company B, an apartment block fully rented out. Sometimes company A and B are part of the same group structure, and they're simply restructuring. And so really the percentage of investors buying homes that could otherwise be bought by citizens, is actually only 5%.

Secondly, there's a lot of international capital flowing in because capital is extremely mobile and knows no borders. It doesn't mean foreigners own the real estate. Everytime a Dutch investor (e.g. a Dutch pension fund) buys real estate, it typically finances it with a combination of its own money and borrowed money, and the borrowed capital is typically raised on international financial markets.

I find the news is quite unsophisticated in detailing these nuances, and typically chooses the most incendiary headline that they can get away with.

e.g. "25% of homes bought by foreign investors." or hell even "50% of real estate bought by foreign investors", instead of 5% of available homes bought-up by Dutch pension funds", all three statements could be based on the same data-set.

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

#578

Post by R0b0t1 »

simonh wrote: post #311
R0b0t1 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home prices are up because there is no supply. There's no supply because people can't afford to build houses. The issue isn't home ownership, it's the lack of it. An LVT might work but I think it is only ethical if you advantage primary residences with a complete lack of tax.

It can’t simultaneously be true that people are paying huge sums fir houses, driving prices up, and they can’t afford to build new houses. New construction is generally much cheaper than buying an existing house. The lack of new house building is reluctance to grant planning permission due to NIMBYism. One of the points of an LVT, among other things, is to encourage little old ladies living in 4 bedroom houses to mov…

People aren't paying huge sums for houses or paying for new construction, property developers are.

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

#579

Post by timwaagh »

belter wrote: post #210
timwaagh wrote: post #84

I'm very unhappy about this. It won't be possible to buy a reasonable retirement income anymore and all the profits of the property sector will flow toward those deep pocketed property firms who have the right political connections to get permits. I think the governments just want to work us till we either reach a much extended retirement age or die from depression (which you can be euthanized for here). I'll be figh…

If you are buying to rent in the Dutch market, and you are not part of the royal family, or a Black Rock fund you are making a big mistake. You are in a legal environment where you will not be able to evict a non paying tenant for several years. If there are children in the picture or a divorce you will have even more serious problems. The Belastingen will come after your earnings plus, you are likely to be victim of…

My grandparents and my brother already rent out property. There's risks to it of course but that's the case with all investments

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

#580

Post by R0b0t1 »

systoll wrote: post #545
R0b0t1 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Overly optimistic. If you stack 10 family homes the land is now 10x more valuable and gets taxed accordingly.
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