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?

#481

Post by bamboozled » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:56 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #157

Victerius wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are problems in the housing market, but they are not to be found by worrying about people acting speculatively. People are responding to the real problem, whatever it is We should do both. Build more housing and crack down on speculators.

Shooting the messenger has a bad record for making things better. Speculators don't drive markets, they just signal how the situation will develop as early as it is possible for predictions to be made. Cracking down on speculators won't help people get roofs over their heads. Nor will calling them unethical. Speculators are the signal for whether there is going to be a housing problem in a few years time. We should w…

In my opinion you're overlooking that a speculator could "engineer" a situation faster than say a local council is able to act / realize what is happening.

For example, a speculator moves into a nice small village, sees potential and brings in a lot of foreign capital in a short amount of time. Buying up houses and outbidding potential new citizens. The price of land is also driven up from this, even if it's only a short term thing.

The damage has been done there and it had little to do with the number of houses. It was just a hostile takeover of a community.

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

#482

Post by usgroup » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:56 PM UTC

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…

> You do not have a basic human right to the labor of the people who build and maintain these houses.

Food and security also require other peoples labour.

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

#483

Post by nrmitchi » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

rojobuffalo wrote: post #459

nrmitchi wrote: post #276

Earlier 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.

4x higher tax, not 4x total cost. First housing prices would crash, so rental prices would also drop. And they wouldn't go up 1:1 with tax increases. They would go up by some percentage which is fine. It should be a little more expensive month-to-month to rent vs. own. Renting should still be available, but a lower proportion of housing should be rentals.

“It should be more expensive month to month to rent vs own”

It already is. There are many tax incentives geared towards making owning cheaper. If owning was t already subsidized do you really think anyone would be handing out 4% 30-yr fixed rate mortgages like candy? Removing these would also make housing prices crash, which would lower both purchase cost AND rent, yet I don’t see many people pushing that idea forward (because it also makes it almost impossible for most people to buy)

The “I think people should own property, so I’m okay making it more expensive for people who don’t” is bullshit.

> a lower portion of housing should be rentals

Without numbers (the baseline you’re considering as true, and the number that is “acceptable”) this is just trying to impose a specific viewpoint without any data to back it up.

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

#484

Post by RHSeeger » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

mxkopy wrote: post #434

yasp wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I. Not having shelter kills. II. To not be killed is a basic human right. => Having shelter is a basic human right QED

That logic doesn't follow. There are plenty of things that, in some cases, lack of them causes death; but are not human rights. There are people that cannot survive without a liver transplant; not everyone gets a liver transplant; some people die because they cannot get a liver transplant. A live transplant is not a basic human right.

There are many things that, as a society, we should do our best to make sure everyone has access to; housing, food, medical care, etc. The more people that have access to them, the better off we, as a society, are. Whether or not those things are a "basic human right" is debatable; but they fact that you need them to survive doesn't define them as such.

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

#485

Post by makomk » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #191

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…

It's amazing how many people in government globally refuse to understand this. The UK government has just been talking about inheritable 50 year mortgages. No one wants to build more housing. I think it might help people understand to put it in terms like this: there are 100 housing units out there and 150 people. How do we solve the problem?

England has been building more housing - pretty much everywhere I go there's housing going up, new housing starts are apparently at their highest since the last housing bubble popped in 2008, and the national government basically removed the ability for local governments to block news housing development in order to encourage more to be built. It's just not working. Also, the areas where the jobs are have started to run out of important things like water and electric grid capacity.

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

#486

Post by ethbr0 » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #451

oblio wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on where they want to move. For national policies prices should drop nation wide, ergo people would still be able to move inside the same country (probably 99% of relocations). And if they don't sell, they wouldn't care much. Yeah, annoying, but as long as you pay the installments, not much changes in practice.

>For national policies prices should drop nation wide, ergo people would still be able to move inside the same country No. Suppose I buy a million dollar house at 20% down. I thus owe $800k in principal to the bank. I live in the house for a few years, and build up $100k in additional equity beyond my down payment. If housing prices stayed the same, I could sell the house for $1M, use $700k of that to pay off my rema…

The key component in this scenario is that the owner (debtor) is taking 100% of the value decrease, while the mortgage lender is taking a 0% decrease.

In the event we implemented a market-wide adjustment, presumably we'd suspend business-as-usual to more evenly allocate that through the transition.

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

#487

Post by prvit » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #475

prvit wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So to be clear, are rents in Paris vastly higher in general , or just for "high-end real estate"? If just the latter, then great, sounds like the policies are working.

Oh, rents in Paris are sky high regardless. Renting is also super difficult because landlords are terrified of tenants.

It’s just easier to compare the high-end of the market because offering is similar and concentrated in central areas, whereas lower-end real estate is scattered across lots of very different areas.

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

#488

Post by modriano » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

joe__f wrote: post #364

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…

"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…

I was also put off by the phrase "...roof over their head that they don't like", but the statement can be steelman'd into something I agree with and think is correct. Empirically homeless shelters operating below capacity and cheap housing in far off locations exist but we still see homeless people in tents under bridges and elsewhere.

I've seen numerous reports where homeless people say they don't use shelters because they're unsafe or the shelter's rules are too restrictive (eg "The shelter where I stayed briefly, you had to be in line. They technically opened at 7:00, but you had to be in line at 4:30 in the afternoon to be able to get your bed back..." [0]). I guess I don't know what homeless people would choose if they were offered a home in a far off town or something, but AFAIK, the only general options presented to homeless people are shelters, homelessness, and maybe social services in cities willing to work on the problem.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2012/12/06/166666265/why-some-homeless-c...

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

#489

Post by jefftk » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 4:00 PM UTC

_8j50 wrote: post #350

jefftk wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

In your proposal the 'flipper' owns the house for 20 years, which is a completely different model and makes standard flipping uneconomical

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

#490

Post by badpun » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

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…

> This entire discussion is absurd to me. You’ve got politicians burning money, some people talking about housing as if they have a “right” to a house (that is: a right to force people like me to build them a house at gunpoint), and still surging homelessness.

Isn't US homelessness mostly an issue of drug addiction and lack of mental health care? What percentage of US homeless do not fall into one of those categories?