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Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

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Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#541

Post by endisneigh »

nivenkos wrote: post #524
bjourne wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden doesn't have social housing. What you are discussing is called rent control and means that landlords can't decide rents for their properties by themselves. Without rent control you'd get even more segregated cities as many areas would become too expensive for most to live. Landlords and their lobby organizations want rent control abolished though because doubled rents would greatly increase their profits.

The First hand contract inequality is terrible though. Just ban landlordism directly and let people buy their residences.

Where would you live if you cannot afford to buy?

I swear some of the policies people on here come up with are so poorly thought out.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#542

Post by sokoloff »

pj_mukh wrote: post #361
turtledove wrote: post #345

The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market, the better. We all need it, and we should figure out mechanisms to make it available to all. Practically that means paying to build and maintain housing stocks, changing tax incentives so developers are incentivized to build more housing and less luxury housing, charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people)…

I really think most of the solution is in the first part of your plan. There’s no need to micromanage tenant-landlord relationships or setup governmental panels on who historically deserves to live where, if the government can just make sure there is an oversupply of decent housing at all affordability levels. The rest really takes care of itself at that point.

I support government-owned housing at a variety of sizes and configurations, but I don’t want government involved in providing luxury housing. Government studios, 1BRs, 2/1s, 3/2s, 4/2.5s, and 5/3s for basic housing needs for singles and families? Absolutely.

Government 10 bedroom, 9000 sqft seaside mansions? Not just no, but hell no!

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#543

Post by endisneigh »

turtledove wrote: post #466
cycrutchfield wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“profit from rent is amoral”. Care to elaborate on this? Does this ethical standard also extend to other human needs as well? For instance should farmers not be able to profit from providing food?

A farmer and a landlord are different things. My family are farmers, I've been a landlord. (FWIW, before anyone calls me a hypocrite, I paid back every renter every penny of profit I made from them plus appreciation.) The labor that the farmer puts in should absolutely be rewarded. But the labor of a farmer is absolutely nothing like a landlord who makes money purely because they had enough money to buy housing. Plen…

Why should labor be rewarded but not capital? Seems like an arbitrary distinction. Does your family allow anyone to farm and extract value from their land? No? Then they're no different than a landlord.

People mischaracterize the ease in which landlords make money. Take the past two years and eviction moratoriums for example. Landlords in the United States in many areas had to allow tenants to rent without being able to remove them for non-payment.

Landlords inherently have to be well capitalized in order to properly maintain the house as most individuals are not experts in all trades.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#544

Post by endisneigh »

account42 wrote: post #445
cycrutchfield wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“profit from rent is amoral”. Care to elaborate on this? Does this ethical standard also extend to other human needs as well? For instance should farmers not be able to profit from providing food?

If the farmer disappears, the food will no longer be produced. If the landlord disappears, the house will still be there.

You think houses will stand for long without any maintenance?

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#545

Post by nemo44x »

thereisnospork wrote: post #347
majormajor wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this mean, exactly? They do have the right to purchase on at fair market value for structure + land - it's just they can't afford it. The land is crazy expensive. I'm assuming "have one commissioned" is suggesting something about supply/zoning, but it's not clear to me what, exactly - if someone could afford to build or buy a house 3 miles from Dallas, should they also have the right to pay the same price t…

Fair is the key word. The present government enforced scarcity is neither a free nor a fair market. A free market lets participants take the economically optimal choice[0]. A fair market cannot require kowtowing to the arbitrary and capricious whims of a planning board. Ergo I hold that the respective governments and their zoning/construction policies are trampling on the individual right to a fair market and worse a…

Who is going to build these structures? Tradesmen today are already overbooked. And they’re going to work on projects that pay the best. That’s probably not affordable housing projects at scale.

The point is between land, materials, and labor, a lot of people can’t afford what they think they deserve.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#546

Post by BlargMcLarg »

throwaddzuzxd wrote: post #531
turtledove wrote: post #345

The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market, the better. We all need it, and we should figure out mechanisms to make it available to all. Practically that means paying to build and maintain housing stocks, changing tax incentives so developers are incentivized to build more housing and less luxury housing, charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people)…

> charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people) Housed people need parking lots though. Tons of places are not, and never will be accessible with public transports. I live in a city with a great public transport network but I still need a car, as much as I'd love not needing one: I need to visit friends or family outside the city, I have to make bulk grocery shopping sometime…

The majority of places where housing is a problem are places where it makes far more sense to go through the short term pains of minimizing car usage in favor of long term space optimization. Cars take an obscene amount of space when combining everything required to keep individual car ownership afloat.

Almost all the problems you present can be solved by planning differently. You don't need bulk grocery shopping with a shop open nearby in walking distance, available at least once every 3 day. Big housing furniture is a rare occurrence and can be delivered, or you can rent a car capable of transporting it. Punctuality can be solved socially. The main problem is density, and cities certainly don't have a shortage of population density.

Car ownership is a huge luxury with a giant price tag, and it's finally catching up to society.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#547

Post by aqme28 »

kriops wrote: post #424
turtledove wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense? I mean, I'd love it if that were the case, but at least here in the US housing is extremely commodified.

Wikipedia: "A commodity is an economic good (...) that has full or substantial fungibility. (...)" On the basis of geography alone, housing can not be a commodity.

Eh I see your point but I disagree. Look for housing in a highly competitive city, and soon enough you stop caring about geographical specifics and instead look for some combination of useful attributes. In practice, that's fungibility.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#548

Post by cuteboy19 »

nivenkos wrote: post #524
bjourne wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden doesn't have social housing. What you are discussing is called rent control and means that landlords can't decide rents for their properties by themselves. Without rent control you'd get even more segregated cities as many areas would become too expensive for most to live. Landlords and their lobby organizations want rent control abolished though because doubled rents would greatly increase their profits.

The First hand contract inequality is terrible though. Just ban landlordism directly and let people buy their residences.

Damn all the people who live in a city temporarily then? College students, temp workers etc

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#549

Post by Ferrotin »

turtledove wrote: post #367
Ferrotin wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth would anybody build apartments or rent out property under your scheme?

The government would pay to do it. Or there would be taxes or rents paid to developers in accordance to the number of people housed x the quality of the housing. Or people like me would rent units because housing is important, and rent their space at cost. We can choose to pay for housing for everyone, we just have to adjust the formulas we use to decide who benefits.

We already have voters deciding how much housing gets built. The result is we have not enough of it.

We’ve also seen, during this pandemic, what happens to rental prices when landlords are powerless over tenants. They go up. And landlords discriminate harder against tenants who look like they’ll be bad tenants if they can’t easily evict.

And just as my ability to get sued is what allows me to enter contracts, my ability to get evicted is what lets me pay cheap rent.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#550

Post by aqme28 »

paisawalla wrote: post #390
turtledove wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy electricity from a monopoly provider in my area, run the government. Is that a market? I buy sewer and garbage service likewise. There are some commodities we choose to operate as natural monopolies because competition and profit seeking leads to bad outcomes for society. My argument is fundamentally that housing is the same.

How will you be deciding who gets to have a view of the ocean, and who gets to sleep next to the overpass? First come first serve? Birthright?

Is anyone in this thread proposing this kind of system? This is kind of an insane strawman.

You can have a regulated market that still has prices. OP only proposed incentives to build and disincentives to hoard. Homes would still have prices, there would just be less scarcity.

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