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?

#421

Post by end_of_line » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #122

voidhorse wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s the problem. The housing market is becoming what the food production market would be without the pressure and government involvement. Right now the supply of those two good and their general dynamics are totally different. Landlords can effectively extract maximum profit from a property without doing anything to improve it or remain competitive thanks to zoning restrictions and other things that make incre…

A land value tax would solve this - you want to use that acre of American Land, you pay the American People for the priviliege.

Ah sure. Old lady living in the house she bought 50 years ago will have to pay insanely high land tax because now it's red hot city location, what 50 years ago used to be suburbs.

Very clever idea.

Taxation was never a solution to any problem. It was a way to mask the problem in a very populist way. Taxation purpose was a redistribution from 'evil crooks' to poor, unlucky people.

The problem with Taxation always was that the middle class was paying this because the rich ones had plenty of solutions not to pay including with moving to an another country

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

#422

Post by mythrwy » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

sershe wrote: post #415

There's no basic human right to have a roof over your head, for the simple reason that someone has to make the roof. Saying "I have a right to have it [without building it yourself]" is saying "I have a right to force someone to build it for me". I dunno about you, I'm uneasy about forced labor. Even beyond that, there's certainly no right to have the roof over your head wherever you want - there is simply not enough…

While I agree (in the abstract) policies that make that roof unaffordably so that others might realize wealth without working seem a bit shortsighted.

A lot of people without roofs over their head is a recipe for social instability which affects everyone.

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

#423

Post by washadjeffmad » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

rojobuffalo wrote: post #257

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 would start by making property taxes substantially higher for non-owner-occupied property. If you are rent-seeking rather than residing on the property you should pay way more, maybe 4x or higher, in taxes. Housing prices would crash and that would be the point; but everyone who owns property would be against it because they don't want to see their assets drop in value. The counter-argument people make is "that wou…

I think that also highlights that there's an investment class outside of the reach of normal citizens.

If people can't pay to own property because it's easier for regulators and mega-owners to only have to deal with bulk-owners, then there's not a human-class. One cause is not enough resources in local government. Shrinking the abilities of the public servants until offices become autocratic, oligarchic hellholes is a long-favored strategy in consolidating authority.

We're in an era that has to balance a lot of novel challenges, but they have seemed to tip in the favor of the few over the many for the past generation or two.

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

#424

Post by ItsMonkk » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

nrmitchi wrote: post #389

ItsMonkk wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 boa…

No. Renters are paying for the value of the land and the improvements. If the rental price of the apartment is above that, they won't pay it and find another place. If there are no places they will go homeless. Since landlords are already charging for this value, an increase of taxes does not increase the rents.

> every property owner isn't going to operate at a loss

So they will then sell. But who would buy at current prices? The main effect of a change in tax rate is a one-time change in the market price of the property. Someone won't be under water if the property was $1. The market will find a new clearing price.

I'm sympathetic to current owners, and this is why I prefer to combine the implementation of the Land Value Tax with a Land Tax credit equal to the existing value of the land to the deed owner. This will allow everyone to be net neutral over the transition period, and would even be net positive as the risk of ones property value dropping in recessions would go away.

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

#425

Post by Schroedingersat » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

kasey_junk wrote: post #126

Schroedingersat wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's taxed at least 100% of its land value +100% of its rental value they'll sell pretty quick.

Why not just pass a law saying only individuals can own property and they can only own one?

I like a system whereby individuals can own between one and a bit and three somewhere (including provision for commercial property where large facilities need to rent many people's fungible extra-property rights in some way). Mentioning 100% tax is just to head off idiotic straw men about passing the tax on to renters.

Also allowing benefiting from or even rent seeking on only the increased value of very recent property improvements (like taxing at the value it held 5 years ago with some buy-or-sell challenge type provision to prevent undervaluing).

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

#426

Post by VirusNewbie » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:30 PM UTC

rojobuffalo wrote: post #257

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 would start by making property taxes substantially higher for non-owner-occupied property. If you are rent-seeking rather than residing on the property you should pay way more, maybe 4x or higher, in taxes. Housing prices would crash and that would be the point; but everyone who owns property would be against it because they don't want to see their assets drop in value. The counter-argument people make is "that wou…

Tax land value appreciation, that is the rent seeking part of the equation. You want to incentivize developers to create more units, you want to discourage people buying units hoping to bank on appreciation.

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

#427

Post by benjaminbachman » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

goethes_kind wrote: post #352

You cannot fix housing. It is simply demand and supply. The problem to address, which is more fixable, is to incentivize employers to move to less popular areas. As an employee I also do not want to live in the largest metropolitan city. There is one distinct advantage of living in such a city, which is that finding new jobs is easier. But everything else just sucks, and I do not live 365 days a year looking forward…

"Leave your friends and family, abandon the area that you grew up in for 30 years" is not really practical advice. Maybe it works for you, but it does not for other people.

You are right about this though: it is supply and demand. And currently there is a lot of regulatory capture on the supply side. Meanwhile there are new investment vehicles on the demand side.

I don't know what the solution is, but when I watch my local news, not a week goes by that I don't see a headline about a developer trying to build some high density housing, but local residents show up to some board meeting and complain about it until they reduce the density. The reasons given make no sense. "It's not part of our community plan"... So change the plan??

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

#428

Post by throw0101a » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

rojobuffalo wrote: post #257

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 would start by making property taxes substantially higher for non-owner-occupied property. If you are rent-seeking rather than residing on the property you should pay way more, maybe 4x or higher, in taxes. Housing prices would crash and that would be the point; but everyone who owns property would be against it because they don't want to see their assets drop in value. The counter-argument people make is "that wou…

> But I call b.s. on that. Residents would be able to afford new construction and maintenance if those things had lower price pressure.

Including those on minimum wage? Including secondary education students who have no income? Including (international/visiting) folks on a (consulting) contract that may not want to settle in the location?

There are many situations in which rental housing is the solution for people.

> They should need to do a substantially better job at maintaining and increasing the value of real estate to justify owning it instead of a resident.

"Increasing the value of real estate" is not the only metric to judge things by. Proving a valuable service to the public is another.

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

#429

Post by BlargMcLarg » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #404

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We are headed for a massive population crash almost everywhere We're not. Many countries predict stable populations at worst for several decades still. Some continue to predict population growths. Politicians are all too eager to use immigration as a way to band-aid low birthrates, and many are already subsidizing children more. Your last line gives it away too. Japan is primarily crashing in the countryside . Tokyo…

One thing I find interesting though is that at least in Australia, it's speculated that a lot of the property pressure is from foreign investment, especially from China. So if China's population starts to crash or their economy goes bad at some stage what effect will this then have on the Australian market (for example)? I'm guessing not much because the inflationary property price damage has been done. It's a curiou…

Too many variables to say. In theory, you would say a stable population all other things equal would keep the housing prices equal (or drop a little initially since predictions aren't green anymore). In practice, even without foreign money, there are still many ways with which the value of housing can go up. And as long as the majority of voters want housing to go up, it likely will.

Practice can be seen by the many cultural shifts we had which had zero to do with population growth / housing shortages, but still increased prices tremendously. Higher loans, longer mortgages and lower interest rates, for one. Increased dual incomes is another.

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

#430

Post by KineticLensman » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

dazc wrote: post #177

iso1631 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most of the UK (England and Wales), water was privitised in 1989 General consensus even amongst the right-wing media and the media that aims to appeal to conservative voters [1-4] seems to be is that we have drought and hosepipe bans while the private companies pay out £1b dividends and it's not right. [1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/54e5542a-1a6b-11ed-b1f4-6... [2] https://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/20…

Showing my age, but back in 1976, where I lived, water was being brought in by tanker day and night during the hottest summer on record. I'm not saying privatisation has been a glowing success but supply issues were much worse in the days of nationalisation, especially when you factor in the population growth over the past few decades.

There have been precisely zero new reservoirs brought into service in England over the last 30 years while the population has as you say grown considerably. There has been relatively little infrastructure maintenance, leading to high-levels of leakage, and over-extraction from once healthy rivers. I'd agree that things weren't perfect in 1976 but privatization has failed to noticeably improve things either while totally failing to prepare for the changes required by a growing population and worsening climate.