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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

#731

Post by headsoup »

turtledove wrote: post #603
agentgumshoe wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know this kind of leads towards communism... Which I think is the key problem with any kind of shared equality by force system, it will work nicely so long as no one running things decides they don't want it to, then it works really poorly.

Looking at any single step on a path and rejecting it because the extreme end of the path isn't desirable is a quick way to never make any progress. We can improve things, we can do social good, and never slide to authoritarianism. (I assume you are talking about authoritarian communism vs, eg, council communism.)

Of course we can, but doing it at a society scale is very difficult and you have to be vary careful about who is on charge - or ends up with most influence - as history has consistently shown.

I think it's easy (well reasonably) to do if resources are plentiful, but what do you do if there are more people than resources available to support them, who starts making the hard choices?

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

#732

Post by antisthenes »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #392
turtledove wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hundred percent. I have a personal ethos that believes profit from rent is amoral, but we could probably address housing concerns without meeting my personal ethics standards, which I freely admit are more extreme than most.

“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?

"Amoral" means neutral, without imposing a moral judgment. So it seems to me he doesn't particularly care about it either way.

If he wrote "immoral", then you could ask why he thinks that.

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

#733

Post by hackerfromthefu »

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.

This really is wrong. There's so many contracts the landlord has to keep up with, and pay, the council on various cases like rates, water, upkeep of lawns or council will and bill, keeping up with changing building codes and rules such a fire alarms which update every x years, then insurances, then maintenance of the house structure, the plumbing, electrical .. as well as that the 'money' represents their savings from other work they did. It's serious job and you're not seeing the reality of it if you think the landlord does nothing but profit. It's a bloody business, with work, responsibilities and risks, and if everything goes well the expectation of a profit but not the guarantee. It's also a business that provides significant real value to people - a modern house has so many features and meets so many beauracratic and safety rules beyond just a roof over your head.

Living in a teepee is looking more attractive by the day haha.

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

#734

Post by antisthenes »

fifticon wrote: post #503
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)…

In spirit I agree with some of your ideas, and I hate rent-seeking. However, where I live, I nearly ended in a situation where I was not allowed to sell an appartment I owned and had lived in for 20 years. I had moved to a different city to work and live with my girlfriend, and had rented out the apartment, because obviously it is expensive to both hold one apartment and pay for a second one in the new city. I had re…

Sigh

Rent-seeking isn't the same as collecting rent as part of being a landlord.

It's a pretty fleshed out concept:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

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

#735

Post by hackerfromthefu »

diordiderot wrote: post #608
endisneigh wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think houses will stand for long without any maintenance?

Landlords don't maintain the bloody house. They use tenant money to pay someone else to do it

This is just handwaving voodo - we expect better on hackernews.

Reality is landlords are in all different situations, some have spare money above costs of interest, rates, insurances, rental agent fees, etc etc and can use that to pay for maintenance. Many are putting in their own money to pay for maintenance, the same way they put in their own money to afford the deposit and purchase costs.

And when there's a problem a landlord can't just ring the first inflate-a-quote contractor and open up the unlimited checkbook you seem to be ascribing to them, they will be bankrupt very quickly if they did. Instead, they have to assess the issue, try to find a economical solution, get multiple quote and spend time finding a contractor who can do it reasonably well the first time at an affordable cost. That is not the same work as a farmer, but it sure is work. If it's not done the house quickly becomes unlivable with a broken toilet or whatever and being unlivable is also unrentable and produces no value to anyone. It's work, and it's important to keep the house functioning.

Really as you seem to think landlords do nothing but profit, similar to gnomes and underpants, perhaps you should give it a try yourself. If nothing else it will be quite a learning opportunity!

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

#736

Post by v-erne »

jacobr1 wrote: post #718
v-erne wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not like private sector is free from overspending and funds misallocation - most of money that flows in there is still controller by the jerks on top that are stroking their ego by investing in buzzwords. The invisible hand of market is myth as much as santa is.

The invisible hand is just the profit motive. Most people are indeed incentivized by (not solely) by money and profit. The advantage of a market in this context is two-fold 1) Private-losses, mispent investments should have the investors bear the cost of losses. Granted, we often bail out investors or banks, but that isn't a market phenomena, it is a political one. 2) Where there is more profit to be had (high prices…

>>The invisible hand is just the profit motive

I think You are underselling it - that's just the mechanic through which it works. But at the same time too mamy people treat it as idealogy and sell it as a silver bullet and not merly a tool which it should be.

My main point is that we should not see markets as an end game - this is just a primitive human made system that should be evolved.

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

#737

Post by [deleted] »

halotrope wrote: post #450

Everyone seems to agree that speculation in housing is a global problem with adverse effects on communities and societies. Toronto seems to be a good example of how the end-game will look like. People are priced out of owning a home for good and/or have to leave places where they might have been living for their whole life. Rent controls don't seem to work, and just cancelling (by whatever means) the market for real…

[deleted]

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

#739

Post by trasz »

jjav wrote: post #682
trasz wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the house for rent is an investment, it’s obvious who should be taking the loss: the investor.

> Given the house for rent is an investment, it’s obvious who should be taking the loss: the investor. That seems like a statement that feels good, but what should be the desired outcome for the benefit of society? If you make taking a loss being the norm for a landlord, the outcome won't be having landlords grin and bear it and a city full of happy renters. No, the outcome will be landlords will stop renting out sin…

They will keep their properties empty - and thus only making loss - instead of renting and thus having some (low) risk of making a loss?

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

#740

Post by trasz »

mrep wrote: post #690
trasz wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the house for rent is an investment, it’s obvious who should be taking the loss: the investor.

Which makes investing riskier and therefore it receives less investment (supply) causing rental prices to increase.

Except we don’t have problems with not not enough investment, quite the opposite.
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