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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?

#341

Post by ItsMonkk »

missedthecue wrote: post #263
pydry wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land is an asset. It needs to be a liability. Virtually every other problem is either a distraction or an indirect consequence (e.g. NIMBYs, too much luxury housing) of this core issue.

Can you explain how making housing even more costly houses the extra 50 people?

When people speculate on land it doesn't get used as much as it should. By having people pay for the value of the land, that either forces them to make use of it, increasing housing supply, or get rid of it, which then the next person who buys will make use of it. Even a partial land value tax like we see in certain PA cities[0] yields real results and after implementing the tax vacant land went away and current homeowners actually saw a tax decrease.

When you tax land value, the initial price of the property drops to offset, which makes it easier for less wealthy people to afford a down payment. A perfect land value tax would set the price of land at zero with a hefty month tax payment.

If this raises more tax money then the government can meaningfully spend, you simply give it back evenly to the community. Note that, just like the carbon fee and dividend system, still incentivizes that people use as little land as they can.

[0]: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/6/non-glamorous-g...

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

#342

Post by ly3xqhl8g9 »

andrepd wrote: post #61

Georgism is the idea that, although the improvements built on land can be owned by a private person, land itself cannot, being a part of the natural world which is by right the common property of all humankind. By this idea, anyone claiming exclusive use of a piece of land owes to the community a rent equal to the value of the unimproved land. This idea extends to all that is (or ought to be) the commons: natural res…

Georgism really shines when applied to energy [1], maybe even better than to land. How ridiculously appalling we will appear to our far-future successors with "our" companies making trillions of dollars burning scarce resources because they can be easily "owned" while the big fiery explosion in the sky is unspent and for all intents and purposes unspendable, alas, also naturally un-ownable. The sun is one of the few current "georgist objects" in our present capitalist realism.

[1] From Conclusion, "[t]he petroleum industry is a perfect example of the way a Georgian tax system can be used to enforce communal interests in limited natural resources", Leeson, Joseph (2019) "A Georgist Perspective of Petroleum Taxation," Indiana Journal of Global Legal, https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...

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

#344

Post by closedloop129 »

solatic wrote: post #133

It's unstoppable. The big difference between today and hundreds of years ago is that it's not enough to have a roof over one's head. Few people farm the land to make a living. One must live close to employment, family, friends, community; ideally in a neighborhood with low crime, close to commerce, and with access to quality affordable education for one's children. Not every neighborhood or property is equally appeal…

It's stoppable because we have the internet and social networks.

>To bemoan the securitization (not commoditization, for not all real estate is equally fungible) of real estate is, ultimately, to bemoan that certain properties are closer to employment, closer to community, closer to commerce. But this is inevitable.

It could be the other way round. Using social networks, communities could organize to move to non-established properties. That could make real estate much more fungible.

Instead of going all virtual, Meta should solve the real estate market first. Otherwise, this leaves space for a startup.

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

#345

Post by DAVer98 »

danpalmer wrote: post #324
thepasswordis wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you have a right to having a doctor help you? What if he doesn’t want to help you? Can the government force him to?

You clearly didn't read my answer. No individual is forced to help you, you don't know their situation, but you have a right to have society in general help you. Also using "he" to refer to a hypothetical doctor is somewhat exclusionary, I suggest "they" instead to be more neutral.

No post body was provided.

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

#346

Post by yasp »

josh_p wrote: post #330
yasp wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having a roof over ones head is a basic human right. Prove it.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma... Article 25

An organization saying X doesn't make X true.

Perhaps OP meant to write "According to the UN, having a roof over ones head is a basic human right."

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

#347

Post by drBonkers »

toss1 wrote: post #248
danpalmer wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Deregulate construction, get rid of unions, prioritize developer rights over tenant or homeowner rights. These all assume that the cost of new development is the building/development itself. It isn't. It's the land. The correct solution to this is a land tax based on the assessed value of the land.

That will merely increase the carrying cost of the land and ensure that only rich people can live there, and that's true even if you break it up into smaller units on each unit of land, it's just higher cost smaller units. There is NO one single point of influence that works the way we want it to, and that starts right at the 2nd-order effects, not even tertiary effects.

What is the difference between 2nd-order and tertiary effects?

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

#348

Post by UncleEntity »

paxys wrote: post #154
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…

> Should rich people be able to buy up land (and mineral rights underneath it) all over the country?

TFA is literally about giving people who don’t have the capital to outright buy a house the ability to invest in real estate. Like, you think real estate is a good place to put your money but you only have $5000 you can afford to invest. Or you want to spread out your investment across different markets but can’t afford to buy 20 homes.

I think if TFA was posted without the highly biased editorializing this discussion would be a lot different.

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

#349

Post by hideo »

at_a_remove wrote: post #319
_8j50 wrote: post #201

Unethical? Should be disallowed period. I do strongly believe that once a propery is yours what you do with it is your concern and nobody else's. However, the business practice of purchasing properties to profit from selling it again in the future should not be allowed. So, what should happen is the government should not allow the transfer of ownership when the seller has a) multiple properties and b) is selling a pr…

You've got this wrong because you're thinking about stable states, not state transitions . 1) "Multiple" here is wrong. What is the time when you own two houses? Well, when you're moving! You buy one, then you sell the other. During that time, you own two houses. That's multiple. Study the hermit crab. 2) Your three percent cap means that property renovation, repair, expansion, and so on is completely doomed. Why did…

> This stuff is complex. It requires some careful, thoughtful approaches.

Is this comment allowed on the internet?

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

#350

Post by _8j50 »

jefftk wrote: post #331
_8j50 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the first argument I usually get as well. I am very much saying end flipping. I don't know what is progressive about that at all. But to be practical, perhaps loosening the profit tax based on how long you owned it makes sense. Perhaps 1% for every year owned? That way you can flip it, live in it 20 years and sell it with inflation adjusted 20% profit?

That's not what people usually mean by flipping, and doesn't address your parent's point. They want to be able to buy property in good condition, and flippers are providing a useful service of increasing the supply of housing good condition. (I would actually like us to deregulate housing construction past the point where flipping is no longer economic.)

Sellers themselves would be incentivized to make their house in good condition to sell it at a profit. If all they do is renovate then that should be a service to the original seller. If your house is devalued by 20% when selling, you pay a renovator to fix it up and take 50% of profits so instead you only lose 10%. Like you said they provide a service, they could handle the sale as a real estate agent and get more pay as well. My suggestion just means the original owner will retain ownership until an actual person who wants to live in the house buys it.
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