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Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

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Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#211

Post by jseban »

rini17 wrote: post #179
nivenkos wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the neoliberal governments have opted for mass immigration to suppress wages and maintain property prices. Here in Sweden the population has increased by almost 30% in the last 15 years. Similar story in the UK (but a smaller proportion by %, as the base population is higher).

How comes in eastern Europe where fertility is low, immigration is practically non-existent and wages much lower than Sweden, the property prices keep rising too?

From what I hear, salaries in some eastern european countries, like Romania, are higher than western europe, in local purchasing power.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#212

Post by sokoloff »

jelly wrote: post #203
sokoloff wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basic needs really shouldn't be investment material. Companies providing and selling food, energy, and consumer staples are investment materials. I don’t get why housing should be a special carve-out and don’t see a workable answer to how to provide food for everyone while banning all investment in companies that grow or sell food. These companies are invested in precisely because these are basic needs. The company…

>Companies providing and selling food, energy, and consumer staples are investment materials. >companies that grow or sell food. House builders would be the analogous party to that. The parent comment is describing landlords, specifically part-time landlords who buy up family homes and turn them into rental properties. Your analogy doesn't apply to those landlords.

A supermarket is in the business of buying food in bulk and then offering portions of food suitable for a shorter time period. A gas station buys 8000 gallons of gas from a tanker and offers it by the gallon at retail. Target/Walmart buy pallets of jeans and offer them individually to consumers. The supermarket didn’t grow the food, gas station refine the fuel, nor did Target manufacture the jeans.

A landlord is in the same business but for housing: buying in bulk (in this case in the time dimension) and selling a shorter time period’s worth of housing.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#213

Post by kubb »

easytiger wrote: post #135
torben-friis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The main issue is that there is just nowhere near enough housing to keep up with population increases, seemingly anywhere in the Western world. Not sure about Sweden but at least here (Spain) housing being bought for investment is much more of a problem than physical unavailability. And I don't mean it as a store of value: People (and companies) buy houses to rent them and have the rent payments pay for the mortgage…

If it's so easy, do it yourself then? Who do you think funds the building and maintenance of property?

The people who rent it after its built, duh?

Not everyone can buy property because not everyone is sitting on unallocated capital.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#214

Post by jseban »

the__alchemist wrote: post #126
fsloth wrote: post #8

Fantastic cultural divide. This is one of the reasons why I read HN. Most of Europe is more or less walkable - one reason is that the largest urban centers predate cars, but intentional design AF (anno ford) is also a factor. I can bike or walk everywhere, and the only reason I have a car is that it makes grocery shopping much, much easier. I am not very green or anything, I just like to keep things simple. You can c…

Related: Most European cities are comparably beautiful compared to North American ones. Pick a random European city, and it's probably more aesthetically interesting than any in NA. I'm curious why this is the case (Older / less centrally-planned? A subjective difference in tastes?)

Probably only the old parts, turn of the century apartment buildings. Construction from the 50-70s looks like communist dystopia even in western europe, and newly constructed buildings are also not at all ornamented or colorful

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#215

Post by kubb »

eaxix wrote: post #182
torben-friis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The main issue is that there is just nowhere near enough housing to keep up with population increases, seemingly anywhere in the Western world. Not sure about Sweden but at least here (Spain) housing being bought for investment is much more of a problem than physical unavailability. And I don't mean it as a store of value: People (and companies) buy houses to rent them and have the rent payments pay for the mortgage…

The role of investors in the economy is ultimately to finance new development. It's easy to see how this works when an investor is the first owner. If it weren't for the initial investor with the required capital and/or credit to make the purchase, the housing likely wouldn't have been built in the first place. Now you may ask, what is the role of investors who buy up older properties? They provide valuable liquidity…

Supply and demand is the simplistic view of economy taught to middle schoolers, it's disappointing that people use it for reasoning about the world after completing that level of education.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#216

Post by mrep »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #201
eaxix wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The role of investors in the economy is ultimately to finance new development. It's easy to see how this works when an investor is the first owner. If it weren't for the initial investor with the required capital and/or credit to make the purchase, the housing likely wouldn't have been built in the first place. Now you may ask, what is the role of investors who buy up older properties? They provide valuable liquidity…

I think you're locked into a Capitalist view there. What you say amounts to "without rich people to pay every time they do some work poor people wouldn't be able to build houses". I don't buy it. I think it's perfectly possible to organise society without the driving force being "how can we as a society benefit this tiny cadre of super-rich people without pissing-off everyone else enough that they revolt". Of course…

Who are you suggesting to build houses for rent then? The government? I would love some examples of where that actually went well.

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#217

Post by twelvechairs »

sokoloff wrote: post #116
torben-friis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The main issue is that there is just nowhere near enough housing to keep up with population increases, seemingly anywhere in the Western world. Not sure about Sweden but at least here (Spain) housing being bought for investment is much more of a problem than physical unavailability. And I don't mean it as a store of value: People (and companies) buy houses to rent them and have the rent payments pay for the mortgage…

> Basic needs really shouldn't be investment material. Companies providing and selling food, energy, and consumer staples are investment materials. I don’t get why housing should be a special carve-out and don’t see a workable answer to how to provide food for everyone while banning all investment in companies that grow or sell food. These companies are invested in precisely because these are basic needs. The company…

The real difference (surprisingly not mentioned yet) is land for housing in cities is incredibly finite. Food, energy and consumer staples can be produced endlessly

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#219

Post by MisterTea »

> Every advocate for making urban design more [pick one: walkable, bikeable, beautiful, lovable, inviting, human-scale] has at some point or another faced the charge of elitism.

No. That's not how that works. You're not an elitist just because you want a nice neighborhood. You're faced with charges of elitism when you advocate for this type of stuff after you've moved into a space once inhabited by low income people who were chased out by developers who artificially beautified the neighborhood thereby inflating its value overnight.

Those low income people would love to have a beautiful neighborhood too. Instead they spend most of their day toiling at shitty jobs and riding public transportation. They have so little money things like tree shaded bike paths and flower beds are a fantasy.

The real issue is no one wants to spend money making low income peoples lives better. How many beautiful housing projects have you seen vs luxury condo towers?

Re: Our self imposed scarcity of nice places

#220

Post by White_Wolf »

eaxix wrote: post #182
torben-friis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The main issue is that there is just nowhere near enough housing to keep up with population increases, seemingly anywhere in the Western world. Not sure about Sweden but at least here (Spain) housing being bought for investment is much more of a problem than physical unavailability. And I don't mean it as a store of value: People (and companies) buy houses to rent them and have the rent payments pay for the mortgage…

The role of investors in the economy is ultimately to finance new development. It's easy to see how this works when an investor is the first owner. If it weren't for the initial investor with the required capital and/or credit to make the purchase, the housing likely wouldn't have been built in the first place. Now you may ask, what is the role of investors who buy up older properties? They provide valuable liquidity…

The role of investors in the economy is ultimately to finance new development. ===> False. The role of investors is to make money.

If you build more, rents will go down. ===> In theory True. In practice self builds lower the pricing. The barriers set by bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy are the problem and they cause property prices to go up. EDIT: Restrictions set by bureaucracy is what creates artificial scarcity(think diamonds market)

"They provide valuable liquidity to the market" ===> False. It's long term value storage and/or speculation. The same properties would be bought by new families if they were closer to a realistic price. You'd get the same if not more cash movement if it would be affordable. By affordable I mean: A young couple with minimum wage should be able to pay it off in 10-15 years with no problems. Not in 35-50.

As a sidenote(IMHO): Ideally, property ownership should be limited to 1/+18 year old to prevent/reduce speculations. Maybe 2 if we're talking about adding a holiday home(yeah. I know it's a strech). Companies should not be alowed to own residential properties unless they are a developer. In that case, they can own the newly developed properties for up to ?5? years.

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