Yes, 100%.
Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
461–470 of 764 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It's counter-intuitive but the majority of housing has to be non-owner-occupied for prices to fall. >making property taxes substantially higher for non-owner-occupied property. >but everyone who owns property would be against it because they don't want to see their assets drop in value. After the initial dip, prices will rise again because residents will vote out every city government that tries to implement zoning t…
> It's counter-intuitive but the majority of housing has to be non-owner-occupied for prices to fall
It seems likely the only way this happens is if the majority of real estate is owned by corporations or governments.
Replace "corporations" with "wealthy nobility" and we don't need to imagine how that plays out. Historically that's never been good for workers.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#463Like 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…
It looks like you can't see the real issue: too many people want to live in NYC. If you make it cheaper to own, build or rent in NYC even more people will come and the there will not be enough housing. Perhaps people should be encouraged to live somewhere else/in more places? Living in NYC is not a human right either.
> Perhaps people should be encouraged to live somewhere else/in more places?
That’s what price does
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
As others have said, this is an absolutely terrible idea and highly destructive to renters. There is simply no reason to boogeyman real estate investors so long as they are renting out the property. Renting is no less valid a form of housing than ownership and policies like you describe are already in place in many jurisdictions such as Ontario and it is already as we speak harming renters. For all the people saying…
> Renting is no less valid...than ownership I think ownership is better because people value securing the shelter where they sleep. Renting is worse because you can't make decisions about how to improve land and architecture. You are only permitted to be there under a limited contractual agreement vs. being able to stay put until you decide to sell.
You are welcome to think that. But it is an opinion, and not one shared by everyone. Both are equally valid options; in my opinion. I've been in times of my life where owning was better for me. I've been in times of my life where renting was better for me. At the times I was renting, I was very grateful for the landlord I had at the time (mostly; I've had a small number of landlords I did not like); they take on the risk and responsibility that wasn't something I wanted to deal with at the time.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Some people prefer to be homeless on the street versus getting [...] a roof over their head that they don't like" Do you have a reference to back up this statement? Have you ever spoken to any homeless people and asked them what they think about this? Clearly there are some limits in which your statement holds; I would prefer to be homeless in a city in the UK than held in a forced labour camp with housing for examp…
Every single homeless person in Boston can get free transitional housing but the Mass and Cass street area is still packed with tents and drug users
Yet isn't this more due to control and oversight versus desire or location? Perhaps the options that are presented to them as "free" contain other entanglements that tips the scales towards camping?
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why can't real estate work the same way? So I'll tackle this... Food is highly responsive to market pressure because it is nearly entirely fungible. I'll throw this here for the sake of making sure we're on the same page when I say that --- Fungible: able to replace or be replaced by another identical item; mutually interchangeable. --- So food markets are sensitive to pressure because there is hardly ever anything…
There are thousands of homes/apartments around where I live that are about equally attractive for me to live at. Most sold by different sellers. Housing is fungible.
And I bet those apartments and homes carry roughly the same value/sqft...
The claim that housing is fungible is absolute non-sense, though.
If it were, we wouldn't see such drastic market variations, even within relatively close geographic markets (in some cases, literally blocks away)
We also wouldn't see such an intense pressure on evaluating real estate before purchasing (because if it was fungible - it's all the same, right?).
I basically don't know where to go in the conversation if you can't actually acknowledge the argument in front of you, and just say "No".
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#467Earlier 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…
> It's complicated because we've made it complicated. And thus, it is complicated. Also worth taking into consideration: we may not be able to do otherwise. Currently, for sure (hence the commonality of conversations on this topic), and perhaps never if we don't/can't change the way we think.
Some of us can change how we think, but big corporations and investment firms (and banks with investment divisions) are not going to adopt our way of thinking.
They are thinking of what to do with their piles of cash, and how to make their piles grow. They are absolutely not concerned about the wellbeing of individuals outside their own organizations/families.
This is basically the housing ownership version of the monopoly concept (and I don't specifically mean the game). There are, or were, laws to prevent companies from becoming monopolies. People (and governments) realized that once a company grows and consumes or blocks out all its competition, things eventually get very bad for the consumers/public.
There seem to be quite a few people on HN in the "regulation is bad" camp, but there are a lot of regulations such as the ones related to prevention of monopolies which are critically important. And now we see that there need to be similar regulations to prevent the equivalent in housing.
For this to naturally correct itself (and laws to become demanded by the people and written by the government) will take decades and likely some level of revolt. Maybe it will happen sooner than I think. It will be ironic if the camp that has been promoting gun ownership while simultaneously screwing its supporters becomes subject to forceful demands of its angry former followers. (Actually we see this right now in US politics when someone from "the good team" finally speaks out loud negatively about their great leader. The "good team" followers become immediately vicious and threatening. Perhaps once enough of those armed good old boys finally put their puzzles together and realize they've been fooled on a grand scale, we'll start to see some change.)
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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 curre…
Well said and interesting. Part of the problem with change is that there are always negative effects somewhere, but the answer should be to address those negative effects... not to postpone change until a mythical no-negative version is found.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Yeah, Vancouver BC actually is creating policies like taxing unoccupied housing at a higher rate, instituting a tax on the sale of homes to foreign buyers, and further regulations around real estate "commoditization" and these are effective tools. I don't know why people say it's a difficult problem. Cities are actually just looking the other way.
So basically a commonsense policy which the entire world has trouble implementing but it should. Nice.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?
#470Earlier 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.
The maximum that renters are willing to pay is a function of the availability of cheaper alternatives, and a tax on rental units increases rents across the board and removes cheaper alternatives, increasing the amount that people are willing to pay. This is literal Econ 101, supply and demand curve stuff.