"You'll own nothing; and be happy!"
In this sense, having no solution to the cost-of-housing problem, certain individuals have decided to make money by exacerbating the problem.
Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
81–90 of 764 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#82I already posted a comment on this, but forgot to answer the actual question. I don’t think it follows that it’s wrong to commoditize basic necessities. Take, for example, food: the reason just about everyone in the western world can afford food is BECAUSE it is commoditized.
I would like the barriers to home ownership to be lowered. On the other hand, I don’t think the rental market is evil. A lot of people can’t afford to buy homes, and without homes for rent would be out on the street.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
> agriculture, the foundation of the food supply, is one of the most commoditized markets that exist. And one of the most regulated and subsidized markets...
The US housing market is regulated and subsidised…the American dream of owning a home is socialist…US mortgages are guaranteed by federal government.. this doesn’t happen in most other countries..
It's not about regulation, it's about replace-ability. Food prices stay low because corn is corn, regardless of who grew it - it fills the same need. In many cases, even food that's not a direct match is still a perfectly valid replacement (ex: I need to eat 2000 calories, but it doesn't matter all too much what food is providing them).
This is utterly untrue for real estate, which is about as non-fungible as you can get.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#84I agree. Real estate isn’t a commodity. One house cannot be treated just the same as another even if they are the same price and sitting next to each other. There is too much variation in maintenance, initial construction, terrain, landscaping and presentation.
Essentially you have to treat each house as unique and self judge if the price given is worth it for you.
So trying to treat it as a financial asset is problematic. Landlords have to be intimately aware of their properties condition .
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#85Yes, 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 ren…
But how would you tackle it without making the problem worse?
No, I don't know. I major in computer science, not economics or public policy. I just think that it is ludicrous that despite every chief executive said that they will tackle this problem, the price just keep rising and statistics keep worsening. They propose some absurd plans like massive 10+ year land reclamation plan [1] to build more houses, despite that there are actually quite a lot of unutilized land in the New Territories.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#86Yes, 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 ren…
But how would you tackle it without making the problem worse?
A high land value tax moves the problem around (instead of young people not being able to buy a house, older folk can't afford to keep the large one they spent their lives in).
In the process, it makes land completely unappealing to rent-seekers while incentivizing high-density development of desirable locations.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#87Any commodization of a necessary resource for living is inherently unethical. I know this isn't a popular opinion on HN, but I need you to think about this not as the property owner but as the tenant
You should probably think about how food gets to the plate before saying commoditization of necessary resources is unethical.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#88Thomas Sowell - Basic Economics: Chapter 1: What is Economics? “The fundamental principles of economics are not hard to understand, but they are easy to forget, especially amid the heady rhetoric of politics and the media.” In Chapter 1 of Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell introduces the concept of economics, scarcity, and productivity: Economy – a system for the production and distribution of the goods and services we…
So what? OP made a question about ethics.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#89"I'm not doing any harm," you say. "I just want to keep what I own, that's all." You own! You are like someone who sits down in a theater and keeps everyone else away, saying that what is there for everyone's use is your own...If everyone took only what they needed and gave the rest to those in need, there would be no such thing as rich and poor. After all, didn't you come into life naked, and won't you return naked…
arguing against owning your home is arguing in favor of rent-seeking
The parable is very explicitly contrasting taking what you need / taking one seat at the theatre / owning a home to live in, with taking everything and depriving others of the use of what should be common / taking all the seats at the theatre / hoarding homes to extract economic rent, respectively. I'm 99% sure you understood the point too.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How do you propose we would — systematically — provide housing to people who, for whatever reason, are not in a position to buy? Should housing be bifurcated into government-provided housing for renters and privately-owned housing for those fortunate enough to have the money and stability to buy? Would you like to live in government housing, or would you prefer to keep the investor-owned rental option, but have them…
>How do you propose we would — systematically — provide housing to people who, for whatever reason, are not in a position to buy? Should housing be bifurcated into government-provided housing for renters and privately-owned housing for those fortunate enough to have the money and stability to buy?
So...council estates? Subsidized housing is a thing we have.
>realize that property rentals are a necessary service that is handled pretty well by the private markets and that landlords are no more or less deserving of earning a profit for the service they provide and risk they take on?
Landlords don't create added value. I'm skeptical that it is a necessary service; housing is necessary, but is renting housing necessary? Why would that be?