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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?

#151

Post by dmarlow »

ameister14 wrote: post #104
sudden_dystopia wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What valuable service do landlords provide, exactly? It's my understanding that barring regulatory requirements for standards of living, at their core a landlord is providing access to previously un-utilized monopolized space. That's not really a valuable service, in my mind; maybe it is in the way that 'we'll give you protection from ourselves coming back and breaking your windows' is a valuable service.

See my comment below to a similar concern. There are as many different kinds of landlords as there are people. The value the good ones bring are cared for, affordable places for people to live who prefer to not own a home. Repairing, maintaining, improving, insuring, all take a lot of costs and risks. The government does provide public land in which people can live for free. Why isn't that more popular?

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

#152

Post by dleslie »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #95
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…

Very simple. Any residence you don't live in as your only exempt residence for at least 2 years out of 5 is taxed at 100% pa. Any land with above median value is taxed at a progressive rate if you do live on it. Any commercial building you don't work in for a similar period is taxed at 20% You want to develop? Fine. Just have to make sure someone else owns or will own the land/strata before you start and charge them…

Most developers would not accept those terms. That's a proposal for predictable project losses. It's far less risk to own the project and land, seek institutional and similarly deep pocketed financing, then to suffer the fickle stinginess of a multitude of strata members. The developers who accept those terms will be looking to cut corners.

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

#153

Post by mkl95 »

I make ~4x my country's generous minimum wage and I'm struggling to find a decent flat I can afford - I'm not talking of something like a detached house, just a good flat in a non crappy urban area. I often wonder how people with an average job can stand the fact all they'll ever be able to own is a small flat in the middle of nowhere or in a run down area. The state of real estate is defeating.

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

#154

Post by paxys »

thepasswordis wrote: post #132

>a basic human right You do not have a basic human right to the labor of the people who build and maintain these houses. This is where this entire discussion collapses for me. Yes, I agree there needs to be more access to housing. And it’s frustrating to me that our government is too inept to simply provide it. For instance: we have committed to about 45 Billion to Ukraine. At a cost of $100k/unit (achievable at scal…

The actual cost of construction/materials of the house itself makes a negligible part of real estate speculation. A huge chunk of properties are bought with the expectation that they will not last more than a few decades.

We already face the scenario where people have to commute for over an hour each way to work in a city where they cannot afford to live. Let's not pretend that cost of constructing that shitty house a hundred years ago factors into the conversation. Should rich people be able to buy up land (and mineral rights underneath it) all over the country? What happens when there is none of it left?

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

#155

Post by nemo44x »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #59
perilunar wrote: post #8

"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds" — Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice , 1797

In the United States, we call that “property tax”.

I think a lot of people, especially lifetime renters, don’t understand that. Between property tax and maintenance/improvements, land ownership is a burden in many ways.

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

#156

Post by snapplebobapple »

It's a natural first impulse, but it's wrong. What is the correct impulse is to be concerned about how lopsided most cities zoning is towards single family, as that is what is driving the market power that makes real estate profitable as a financial asset. If most of a city was zoned to allow up to multi residential highrises rather than most of a city being zoned for single family it would cut the appreciation ability of the scarce and valuable land zoned for higher density already and would allow more people to live closer to where they want to live (i.e. close to work/wherever they daily commute).

The market isn't failing to function because someone realized they could buy up current stock and make a large profit over time, people noticed they could make a large profit over time because city governments zoned everything wrong for the actual demand.

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

#157

Post by roenxi »

Victerius wrote: post #137
roenxi wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's something that turns a basic necessity into a speculative asset I see some broad parallels in this line of rhetoric to "Zeus brings misfortune because people are impious vs good fortune when they are worthy". It presumes a difference and a drive that is not there. All assets are both speculative and non-speculative at all times. There are no assets that cannot be bought speculatively and a house is always goin…

> There are problems in the housing market, but they are not to be found by worrying about people acting speculatively. People are responding to the real problem, whatever it is We should do both. Build more housing and crack down on speculators.

Shooting the messenger has a bad record for making things better. Speculators don't drive markets, they just signal how the situation will develop as early as it is possible for predictions to be made.

Cracking down on speculators won't help people get roofs over their heads. Nor will calling them unethical. Speculators are the signal for whether there is going to be a housing problem in a few years time.

We should want a system that allows speculators and encourages them if there is going to be a housing problem so there is plenty of warning. Targeting speculators in particular is the old once-a-metric-becomes-the-target-it-becomes-a-bad-metric problem in a new guise.

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

#158

Post by metadat »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #59
perilunar wrote: post #8

"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds" — Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice , 1797

In the United States, we call that “property tax”.

Not really, property tax is based on the current value, which in theory includes all development.

"In theory" because in California there are strategies for doing renovations without triggering a reassessment.

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

#159

Post by hackerlight »

burnerburnito wrote: post #71
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…

>but you should continuously pay everyone else for it's exclusive use. So pay rent to the state instead of a private landholder? I found your first paragraph very agreeable and convincing, but this feels like it's just passing the problem on up to the state. Would you just be suggesting that any ownership of land outside of a a single home or apartment be heavily rented/taxed to the government, or literally all use o…

> So pay rent to the state instead of a private landholder?

You pay rent to the people (via the state, which acts as a layer of indirection) who no longer get to use the piece of naturally occurring land that you're monopolizing.

Think of it like finite natural resources. Who really owns that? It's a gift of nature. Nobody made it. So if one person wants to dig those up and sell them, part of the proceeds should be shared with everyone. Because it's not even their property, so they have no moral right to privatize 100% of the gains in the first place.

Now if someone puts effort into transforming those resources into something more useful, then they should own the fruits of that labor. The distinction is labor (the fruits of which I should own) versus naturally occuring thing I had no role in making (which I should not own).

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

#160

Post by IX-103 »

hackerlight wrote: post #140

Yes. The commons morally shouldn't be owned by anyone. They can own the building on top of the commons, because they built it, but not the commons (land) itself, which they had no role in creating. If we want to invent the concept of land ownership, then people should pay rent to society for the privilege of monopolizing a slice of the commons (and the privilege of soaking up a larger proportion of the benefit of pub…

George is that you?
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