>more people are looking at real estate as a financial tool, not a basic human right to have a roof over one's head?
When was this ever the case? I can't think of a time in human history where housing was seen as a human right
Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
381–390 of 764 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#382Like another comment here mentioned, housing is complicated. People don't want to live in a random house in the middle of nowhere ('roof over your head'). Some people prefer to be homeless on the street versus getting to a roof over their head that they don't like. People want to live where they want to live (near family, jobs, culture etc) Take NYC for instance. Politicians try to address the NYC housing crisis from…
> . But you have to make it cheap. Deregulate construction, get rid of unions, prioritize developer rights over tenant or homeowner rights.
What's insane is that we never consider the obvious alternative. GOVERNMENTS HAVE TO PAY FOR THE HOUSING THEY NEED.
It's true that developers will not build if they can't make a profit. So we raise money through taxes and treat housing like an investment in our future.
This American notion of "free market or nothing" has left us with unlivable cities of sprawling suburban houses because that's where the profit is. But that's not what's good for our long term future. It turns out you can't laissez-faire your way to good urban planning
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s property value + land value. Even if I make 0 improvements to my property my tax seems to go up every year. It’s because the property value has gone up even if the improvements haven’t.
Yeah that's a property tax, not a land tax. Far from ideal because it punishes people for improving the land that they're occupying, which is the opposite of what we want to be doing.
I guess the affect really depends on where you live. Where I am land is really expensive. So even if you owned an undeveloped piece of land, your taxes would still be significant.
But I see what you’re saying. In a lot of places the land and taxes are relatively cheap.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't that mostly just increase the rents? I.e. the landlords can offload the extra tax to their clients (renters).
That would be true if rent was a percentage on top of cost. But it is not, it is whatever maximum renters are willing to pay.
How come rents for high-end real estate in Paris are vastly higher than in London? Sales prices on the other hand are vastly lower.
Are the prices so high because people in Paris are willing to pay much higher rents more people in London? Or are they so high because renting in Paris is super risky for the landlord due to aggressive tenant protections?
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#385People 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.
Throughout history, people have smashed each other's brains for a place to live. Let's go back to that! /s
No, throughout history people have waged war over consumables (food, ore, oil).
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#386HN is getting worse with these kinds of posts.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#387We want businesses and entrepreneurs to try new things with real estate, just like any market. I strongly believe that our physical spaces can get better/cheaper, but only if you allow investment and risk taking. The main issue at the root of the OPs concerns is that as a society we have attempted to make real estate ON AVERAGE a good investment, which by definition means increase faster than inflation. There are dem…
There's definitely a need for creative ideas. But also thinking about AirBnb I don't think this can come from the private sector.
That said I don't get why people don't invest in something else. There are some many different assets, using real estate to squeeze out a few percent every year on average seems a very weird thing to do. If landlords feel they get screwed over it's exactly because the margins are so thin.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#388Like another comment here mentioned, housing is complicated. People don't want to live in a random house in the middle of nowhere ('roof over your head'). Some people prefer to be homeless on the street versus getting to a roof over their head that they don't like. People want to live where they want to live (near family, jobs, culture etc) Take NYC for instance. Politicians try to address the NYC housing crisis from…
> So, what instead? You want to build more housing in NYC? Great, that should work. But you have to make it cheap.
> because that's the only way a developer can recoup their enormous land acquisition,
There you go - in order to make it cheap you need a land tax, nothing else will work (alternatives have been rehashed over and over decades by georgists).
Without land tax the property market is stalled without market clearing and both tenants and developers get stuck. You won't find a solution by catering to either. The solution resides outside of this left and right dimension.
If you want the real solution, you go asks georgists. If you want to score politics points with YIMBYs or NIMBYs you keep beating the same dead horse forever.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest thing missed when proposals like that is that not everyone wants to (or does it make sense to) buy a property. Making it 4x more expensive to own a rental property means that rent will be 4x more expensive for those that have to rent. If I was moving to NYC for 6 months, or 2 years, there’s no way I want to spend tens of thousands of dollars buying-and-then-selling a property.
Not true, but I'm a Georgist so would be against the GP's targeting non-owner tax. Tax everyone according to the value of the unimproved value of their land. I can show you plenty of places with $3k+ rents in SF with prop 13 property taxes that have not changed their tax meaningfully in decades. Taxes have absolutely no effect on what the renter pays. The tenant is always paying the land value. It's just going straig…
"Taxes have no effect on what the renter pays"; by this I assume you mean "market rate is market rate regardless of cost". Sure, to a point. The tax situation of my individual property does not impact the market rate. Just like how the market rate does not change if there is a mortgage on a property, or paid-in-full.
If the entire market is faced by a new tax all at once, you will see rents rise. Costs across the board went up, and every property owner isn't going to operate at a loss.
> Tax everyone according to the value of the unimproved value of their land.
Sure. This is the exact opposite of what the parent post was suggesting, where they suggested taxing people different based on the use of the same land improvements.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#390Like another comment here mentioned, housing is complicated. People don't want to live in a random house in the middle of nowhere ('roof over your head'). Some people prefer to be homeless on the street versus getting to a roof over their head that they don't like. People want to live where they want to live (near family, jobs, culture etc) Take NYC for instance. Politicians try to address the NYC housing crisis from…
> Some people prefer to be homeless on the street versus getting to a roof over their head that they don't like. ... why is this the top comment?
Because there was far more to the comment than that single sentence. On the balance of the comment, I felt that it contributed to the discussion, so I up voted it.
If you consider it not helpful in the discussion, then please down vote it. This will help to lower its ranking.