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Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

#31

Post by mathgeek »

jacknews wrote: post #23

IMHO the land belongs to all of us, like the air, and the water. ie '(wo)man is born free' rather than 'born to pay rent to a private owner until such time as they can buy a freehold and pass on the condition'. That doesn't mean you can't have exclusive use of some part of it, how else would we encourage people to take care of the land and develop it. But you should continuously pay everyone else for it's exclusive u…

Do you believe this expands globally or only within sociopolitical boundaries as they mutate?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

#32

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

smt88 wrote: post #5

I definitely do. It's something that turns a basic necessity into a speculative asset, with a price distorted by the money poured into it. Airbnb is also a deeply harmful influence on housing prices. Imagine if we did the same thing with, say, water: privatized it and then "democratized" ownership of it. It's easy to get retail investors to buy things at inflated, speculative prices, so the price of water would go up…

> Imagine if we did the same thing with, say, water: privatized it and then "democratized" ownership of it.

We're watching this happen before our eyes.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

#33

Post by pca006132 »

Yes, but I don't think this is just a recent trend.

In Hong Kong, we spent over half of our income for rent [1]. Median per capita floor area for accomodation of 15 square metres, with some people living in subdivided flats with per capita floor area of 5.3 square metres [2]. The average waiting time for public housing is 6.1 years [3], note that public housing are government provided housing available with lower rent for low-income households, which are much cheaper and larger than subdivided housing mentioned previously. The median house price is about 20 times the median family income [4].

Yes, we know that this is a problem. But the government officials don't have incentives to tackle this problem. In fact, about 1/5 of the government income comes from selling land [5], so they probably can't fix this problem and keep the same spending without increasing tax. Let alone many officials are related to this sector or hold many properties.

[1]: https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/17694...

[2]: https://www.bycensus2016.gov.hk/en/Snapshot-09.html

[3]: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3177511/...

[4]: https://www.chinadailyhk.com/article/119131

[5]: https://www.budget.gov.hk/2019/eng/io.html

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

#35

Post by voidhorse »

But property, in its derivative sense, and by the definitions of law, is a right outside of society; for it is clear that, if the wealth of each was social wealth, the conditions would be equal for all, and it would be a contradiction to say: Property is a man’s right to dispose at will of social property. Then if we are associated for the sake of liberty, equality, and security, we are not associated for the sake of property; then if property is a natural right, this natural right is not social, but anti-social. Property and society are utterly irreconcilable institutions. It is as impossible to associate two proprietors as to join two magnets by their opposite poles. Either society must perish, or it must destroy property. - Pierre Joseph Proudhon

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

#36

Post by becquerel »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #28
sys_64738 wrote: post #14

People have been landlords throughout history and renters can only rent if they can pay. Plenty of other generations didn’t have an ability to have their own place so the current people who can’t aren’t special. Each individual’s ethics are not always aligned so there is no one rule to fit all.

There is nothing inherently wrong with landlords and rent. Anyone that says otherwise is a tankie. Landlords provide a valuable service. But there cannot be perpetual growth in rents like there is in say the growth of a startup. It’s the corporatization of landlords that is wreaking havoc by forcing them to maximize shareholder wealth. A simple solution is to bar corporations from charging rent for residential proper…

There are other kinds of communists than tankies.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

#37

Post by jrochkind1 »

sys_64738 wrote: post #14

People have been landlords throughout history and renters can only rent if they can pay. Plenty of other generations didn’t have an ability to have their own place so the current people who can’t aren’t special. Each individual’s ethics are not always aligned so there is no one rule to fit all.

> People have been landlords throughout history

Cite? In all parts of the globe or just some?

> renters can only rent if they can pay.

Well, I mean, where the word "landlord" European feudalism, this was not exactly the relationship. The landlord took a portion of the peasants production, but non-producing members of the community still lived on the land too.

I'm not sure what you mean by "special". But it's certainly not unusual for people to exploit other people, sure.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

#38

Post by becquerel »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #19

Yes. But I think that it’s just part of a larger unethical system: the financial system(and it’s incestuous relationship with government). I am pro capitalism, but this is not capitalism. This is corporatism. The whole system is based on growth at any expense to maximize shareholder wealth. Perverse incentives lead to perverse outcomes such as lobbying/bribing the government, destroying nature, poisoning people, war…

The prioritisation of the profit motive above all else is the defining characteristic of capitalism, so I think this distinction of corporatism is not meaningful. I would challenge you to find an era of capitalist economics where profit didn't lead to perverse incentives.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

#39

Post by oblak »

mamonster wrote: post #24

Well when you say "human right" and a government insists that home ownership is something they will focus on as a human right in their program, to a finance person what you are really saying is "this asset has a free put option attached to it". And having a backstop like that is a very sought after feature for speculators. It isn't the only area where speculators take advantage of it( for example energy generation is…

The poster above you (whittingtonaaon) proposed raising taxes on secondary, tertiary, etc. homes. That makes sense to me but "investors" looking for easy prey would surely hate on such solution. It's not like no one could have thought of this until now.

I do not say this with the US in mind.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

#40

Post by lr4444lr »

No, because governments' ability to procure it for the needy is a very separable problem. But let me play Devil's Advocate: agriculture, the foundation of the food supply, is one of the most commoditized markets that exist. Does this bother you too? Why not? If it's because food is generally a smaller part of income, highly responsive to market pressure to keep prices low in addition to some stabilizing subsidies from governments, why can't real estate work the same way?
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