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The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

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Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#121

Post by Ozzie_osman »

plankers wrote: post #55

>I lived in an illegal rental to save up for a home, then decided to buy out-of-state properties and drive up the rent. I'm aware of how this will be perceived, but I want to feel good about myself despite knowing how what I'm doing hurts others. lol

Here's a person who worked a working class job, lived frugally, saved up, took a few risks, and was able to buy a couple out of state properties.

How this will be perceived? Very positively, at least by me. Good for them. We're not talking about a slumlord here.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#122

Post by bosie »

VRay wrote: post #84

People are fighting the wrong fight when they attack this guy (or attack the people attacking this guy, for that matter) It isn't SF Bay Bros'/foreigners'/companies' fault that houses are too expensive. It's because of strict zoning laws and a lack of building enough housing to match supply with demand[1]. Demand keeps going up way faster than supply, nationwide, and we're all feeling the squeeze [1]: A great example…

Increasing housing increases demand on alot of other resources (medical, kindergarten, streets, public transport, schools,...). how do you orchestrate such a rise in demand in a densely populated city like san francisco quickly (dense in the sense of non-used land, not by population)?

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#123

Post by MomoXenosaga »

colechristensen wrote: post #107
djbebs wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they don't. Ifbyou want control over who can move in somewhere, or what can be built somewhere, you have a simple solution, buy the land in question.

Lots of people on the outside seem to only like self determination for a population when their decisions agree.

When you realize that in a democracy the poorest don't vote at all and that we are represented by millionaires, it all seems so pointless to vote. Self determination my ass.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#124

Post by beebmam »

bosie wrote: post #122
VRay wrote: post #84

People are fighting the wrong fight when they attack this guy (or attack the people attacking this guy, for that matter) It isn't SF Bay Bros'/foreigners'/companies' fault that houses are too expensive. It's because of strict zoning laws and a lack of building enough housing to match supply with demand[1]. Demand keeps going up way faster than supply, nationwide, and we're all feeling the squeeze [1]: A great example…

Increasing housing increases demand on alot of other resources (medical, kindergarten, streets, public transport, schools,...). how do you orchestrate such a rise in demand in a densely populated city like san francisco quickly (dense in the sense of non-used land, not by population)?

City planners have a wide variety of opinions about this, and all of them are pretty useful. Most of them will mean a decline in effective property values, which is almost ALWAYS strongly opposed by the public.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#125

Post by dazc »

refurb wrote: post #105
plankers wrote: post #55

>I lived in an illegal rental to save up for a home, then decided to buy out-of-state properties and drive up the rent. I'm aware of how this will be perceived, but I want to feel good about myself despite knowing how what I'm doing hurts others. lol

Drive up the rent? “We are renting to willing tenants at the fair market price.” Landlord’s cant “drive up the rent” any more than employees can be unfairly paid too much.

Renting below 'fair market price' would be one way?

In the UK we have a lot of private landlords - some have borrowed heavilly and are merely expoloiting their ability to obtain a mortgage where their tenants can not and are making marginal amounts of money in the process (often much less than if they simply invested what cash they have in a tracker fund). Some have inherited a property or are renting out buildings they bought twenty years ago where the amount of rent they charge is multiple times out of sync with their actual costs.

So long as all of these people can say they are only charging 'fair market' prices then the problem persists.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#126

Post by rahimnathwani »

bosie wrote: post #122
VRay wrote: post #84

People are fighting the wrong fight when they attack this guy (or attack the people attacking this guy, for that matter) It isn't SF Bay Bros'/foreigners'/companies' fault that houses are too expensive. It's because of strict zoning laws and a lack of building enough housing to match supply with demand[1]. Demand keeps going up way faster than supply, nationwide, and we're all feeling the squeeze [1]: A great example…

Increasing housing increases demand on alot of other resources (medical, kindergarten, streets, public transport, schools,...). how do you orchestrate such a rise in demand in a densely populated city like san francisco quickly (dense in the sense of non-used land, not by population)?

I live in SF. The resources you mention are not currently a limiting factor.

Medical: is provided by private companies like Kaiser, who have proven their ability to grow as their customer base grows.

Kindergarten: the school district has excess capacity, as # students has shrunk from 70k+ to fewer than 50k. They will probably need to close some schools to increase utilization.

Streets: the streets in San Francisco are way less crowded than anywhere else I've lived.

Public transport: the last few times I've taken the bus, it's been easy to find a seat. The last time I took the BART it was nearly empty.

Schools: see comment above.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#127

Post by strken »

onion2k wrote: post #117
strken wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I'm suggesting that wants and needs are a sliding scale with no clear dividing line except subsistence, and that it's therefore a bad idea to argue for lowering your standard of living to only what you strictly need. This is pretty obvious if you don't take a deliberately uncharitable perspective on what I wrote.

Anyone who thinks the privacy to sleep in your own bedroom and the luxury to have a second kitchen to use for canning fruit because it'd make using your first kitchen a little harder are two points on the same scale is just plain wrong. They aren't. One is a point on the scale of "things you need for basic human dignity", and the other is a point on the scale of "amusing shit deluded rich people think is normal." Tho…

It seems like you're creating a scale of things you believe everyone ought to have and calling it "needs". If you're defining need in such a subjective way, then telling someone else to divide their life up by what they need vs what they want is telling them to live their life with only the luxuries they're unwilling to compromise on.

That's a great way to live and I approve of it, but I remain steadfastly convinced that it's good for humans to have some unnecessary luxuries.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#128

Post by colechristensen »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #123
colechristensen wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people on the outside seem to only like self determination for a population when their decisions agree.

When you realize that in a democracy the poorest don't vote at all and that we are represented by millionaires, it all seems so pointless to vote. Self determination my ass.

Democratic process isn’t coming to conclusions I agree with -> democracy is a scam -> an authoritarian solution is required because I’m more correct than everyone else

It seems like too many people only have ideals about politics when those ideals result in everyone agreeing with them. Otherwise the whole thing is a rigged scam and not worth the time.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#129

Post by nemo44x »

VRay wrote: post #84

People are fighting the wrong fight when they attack this guy (or attack the people attacking this guy, for that matter) It isn't SF Bay Bros'/foreigners'/companies' fault that houses are too expensive. It's because of strict zoning laws and a lack of building enough housing to match supply with demand[1]. Demand keeps going up way faster than supply, nationwide, and we're all feeling the squeeze [1]: A great example…

I think some people find it frustrating to see that the system does in fact work; that the narrative they’ve chosen to believe is just cynical and wrong. That a person on a house cleaners income can find a way to own property in SF as well as around the country. And be good about it by finding properties that need some love and investing in them.

I thought it was a great story about a person that saw the vast opportunities in front of them and used a bit of grit and smarts to make happen the future they wanted.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#130

Post by causality0 »

refurb wrote: post #104
causality0 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure. At the end of the day all land owners, and I speak as one, exist at the end of a chain that began with theft and likely violence. The surface of the earth is by nature no less a resource that should be common to all man as the atmosphere and the oceans. Neither the landlord with more than he can live on nor the renter with not enough to live on can exist without someone at some point having taken more t…

I don’t believe sin is inheritable and I didn’t steal land from anyone, I was just born into a system that I’m doing my best to take part in.

The sin isn't heritable but land, like artifacts in the British Museum, doesn't stop being stolen because we've had it a long time or traded it amongst ourselves. I'm not advocating anything radical; I'm just saying it's reasonable to be a little uncomfortable about it sometimes.
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