Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical? • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by pydry » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #373

ItsMonkk wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 home…

This sounds like the quick way to create a nation of renters. Otherwise, people would be priced out of their homes in short order by the ever increasing LVT. Which of course, isn't a bug, but the feature of Georgism (a family of 4 living making a home there probably won't permanently be the most efficient form of land use on that plot)

Precisely. A nation of renters rather than a two tiered class system with land owners at the top of the economic hierarchy and elderly renters at the very bottom.

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

#392

Post by bamboozled » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:12 PM UTC

alfor wrote: post #338

bamboozled wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

housing is complicated My bullshit detector went off right here. Housing isn't complicated. It's only complicated by investment money being involved. Having a roof over ones head is a basic human right. In Australia, the market is so hot, very few young people can afford anything, if you're living in a nice place, you can easily be kicked out after your rent doubles. I know of good, professional people who migrated t…

But you need someone else to provide your ’basic human right’ Is housing expensive in popular cities or everywhere? What is preventing people (you?) from building cheap houses on cheap land? Is it regulation? We are headed for a massive population crash almost everywhere, the housing market will completely collapse in the next 10 years and will not recover. You can look at Japan and Italy as a head up, they are start…

> But you need someone else to provide your ’basic human right’

For many people, this isn't true.

A lot of people would easily be able to afford to buy or build in a nicer area if there wasn't so much competition for land or housing due to investment. I think if there was much much higher cost of non-owner-occupied housing, you'd just see people move into nicer areas with less financial pressure to do so. This sounds like a nice thing.

Interesting new problem Japan is facing is that even in the areas where they're giving houses away, they're starting to have trouble servicing the surrounding infrastructure, roads etc which I guess is from not enough taxes, administration and construction workers left to keep these areas a float.

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

#393

Post by tibanne » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:12 PM UTC

The problem isn't with housing. It's that private banks can create money on their books from nothing when they give someone a mortgage. This inflation of the money supply pushes up the housing prices and creates the speculative bubble. It also means that bankers can make interest on loans without actually doing much work for this profit.

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

#394

Post by ryanmercer » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

prvit wrote: post #315

andrepd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can renting from a middleman who owns it be possibly cheaper than owning it directly? Unless the middleman is a charity which rents at a loss.

Middleman maintaining 100 apartments can do so for less money per unit than the guy maintaining a single apartment.

Exactly. Economies of scale + the simple fact of things like a roof for 2+ story block of apartments is going to be far cheaper to replace than a roof for the same number of houses as units.

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

#395

Post by hprotagonist » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:14 PM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #245

hprotagonist wrote: post #17

"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…

>> "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" This theory is called communism and it is one of the deadliest ideas known to man. That said, there's an element of truth to the statement. There would be no such thing as rich and poor, there would only be poor.

that’s an extremely anachronistic reading.

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

#396

Post by pkrotich » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

nrmitchi wrote: post #308

pkrotich wrote: post #256

As others have mentioned the solution is to build more affordable housing… but where?! More unaffordable houses won’t solve the issue. I think decentralization of work (WFH) will counter it in the long term. If you can work from anywhere then your housing options become limitless. I’ve lived in the country the last 15 years - absolutely no way I’ll live in pricy cities. That said, people in the service industry will…

I think the “decentralization of work” will only lead to large scale improvement if it also comes with decentralization of other needs as well; having social, cultural, and other needs met outside of large cities. The decentralization of means that I could live in a flyover state or much more rural area, but there are many things one would still lose easy access to. You’re not going to convince most people to move to…

I absolutely agree - infrastructure and quality of life is an issue when it comes to small towns. Things like Starlink is giving me hope.

It’s not for everyone for sure - I’m more introverted than most. So I need to be close to airport for my twice a year flights - not at all.

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

#397

Post by ezconnect » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

Cheap mobility and remote working will solve the housing problem.

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

#398

Post by nrmitchi » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

elevatortrim wrote: post #374

badpun wrote: post #296

Earlier 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.

It's whatever maximum renters are willing to pay, combined with whatever minimum property owners are willing to accept and the availability of alternatives.

Applying a cost increase across the board, in a way where everyone knows it was across the board, will reset the market floor. If California (just as an example) can out and said "There will be a flat $200/month tax on all home rentals" you can be damn sure that every available property would align to +$200 over the course of a year or two.

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

#399

Post by bwestergard » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

targ65 wrote: post #172

Like 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…

"get rid of unions"

I am as YIMBY as they come regarding zoning, but this is a complete non-sequitur. It also shows a casual disregard for basic republican values: the right to freely associate and to withhold one's labor.

An international comparative perspective, as well as a regional perspective, do not suggest that construction union density can explain the widespread housing affordability crisis in the U.S.

Only 12.6% of American construction workers are union, and residential construction is a less union dense subsector than commercial real-estate or large-scale infrastructure.

Many countries have both dramatically lower housing costs and higher union density in the construction trades that the United States [1].

Within the U.S., it's clear there are problems provisioning housing where construction workers on residential projects are rarely if ever union (e.g. Virginia, Florida).

1. https://data.oecd.org/price/housing-prices.htm

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

#400

Post by kodah » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:17 PM UTC

targ65 wrote: post #172

Like 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…

I've struggled to buy a house almost my entire adult life. I'll add some nuance to things you said, and hopefully that can connect the dots for some folks.

I don't like looking at a house as an investment, but it currently is. I'm a very frugal person and I save as much of my money as I can. Nevertheless, at 33, when I first met with my financial planner one of the first things she told me was that I'd already maxed out and exhausted places I could legally stick my money for long term investment... besides a house. There are a couple alternatives, but they likely won't be around long. One was a life insurance market account that you push money into every month - turns out, due to it's tax free nature, it can rival the growth of a home. Historically, when houses were lower barrier to entry, they were the simplest and most effective form of saving money.

Next, location. I don't need to live somewhere fancy, but when I bought a starter home ($200k) in Dallas the only place I could afford was about 45 minutes north of the city. My commutes to any place I could work were long. Prior to this I had moved to the country to save money to buy that house. My commute was 2.5 hours every day. Even with mass transportation, my commute would be long due to the size of the DFW metroplex. This weighed on me every day. I was missing time with my dogs and family.

I was trapped in a scenario with a bunch of tradeoffs that all yielded similar results just as the Dallas market was heating up. Quite literally, the only reason I got my house is because no one bid on it. It had been hit by a tornado and leveled a year prior. People were very superstitious about buying the house.