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?

#651

Post by jjav » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #507

rojobuffalo wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Many people expressly do not value the things you claim, you are projecting your preferences on to people at large. Renting transfers many costs, risks, and hassles to the landlord, which is a desirable arrangement for a significant percentage of people. It is not uncommon for people to strongly prefer renting even when they can easily afford to own a place to live because it is a better use of their time and money.

> Renting transfers many costs, risks, and hassles to the landlord, which is a desirable arrangement for a significant percentage of people.

Agreed that it transfers risks and hassles to the landlord. It doesn't transfer any costs though, as they'll be bundled in the rent price.

Renting is like using AWS. You pay for the convenience of someone else taking care of the hardware, but they're making a profit from providing that service.

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

#652

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:19 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #485

missedthecue wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sounds like they’re behind. Or are you implying building enough homes is a bad strategy?

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

#653

Post by jjav » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:20 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.

> 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.

Not exactly, rent price is either the max renters are willing to pay, or, a small percentage on top of ownership costs, whichever is higher.

In the case of the latter, if nobody shows up willing to pay the higher price then the rental unit is removed from the market. It won't make the price go down because the owner won't rent it out at a loss.

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

#654

Post by Dracophoenix » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:20 PM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #324

thepasswordis wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you have a right to having a doctor help you? What if he doesn’t want to help you? Can the government force him to?

You clearly didn't read my answer. No individual is forced to help you, you don't know their situation, but you have a right to have society in general help you. Also using "he" to refer to a hypothetical doctor is somewhat exclusionary, I suggest "they" instead to be more neutral.

Society is composed of individuals. There is no such thing as societal help sans individual help.

You also forget, that society has rarely been consistent in who deserves help and on what terms.

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

#655

Post by mixmastamyk » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

MattRix wrote: post #216

missedthecue wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, a ton of new homes need to be built, but also a lot of the existing homes are empty. The US has a vacancy rate of somewhere near 10%.

Common NIMBY falsehood.

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

#656

Post by _8j50 » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:24 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #646

_8j50 wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't be flipping just a side-effect of ownership. Flippers should provide renovation/real-estate as a service with the original owner maintaining ownership until the sale to someone else.

> Flippers should provide renovation/real-estate as a service That's a general contractor, not a flipper. The key difference is who takes on the risk: if I hire a general contractor and they turn out to be not very good at their job, that's my problem.

Exactly, what I am suggesting is current flippers will guarantee a sale price to the seller, renovate and how much of the profit above the sale price they take is a matter of market/negotiation. They still take on the risk and work on multiple houses they just now have a seller pestering them to sell soon instead of hoard houses until price is high enough.

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

#657

Post by sixdimensional » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:25 PM UTC

reustle wrote: post #420

sixdimensional wrote: post #405

After looking into achieving personal freedom through tiny home living (and which could take different forms than what we think of today with some creativity), I can say that one of the most challenging things standing in the way is zoning laws. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to find any piece of land anywhere in the US where zoning allows relatively unfettered building of tiny or smaller dwellings. It's poss…

Isn't this why so many folks keep it on wheels / a trailer base? That seems to get around many of these issues, but does present difficulty if you're trying to claim it as your permanent domicile.

Yes, but some municipalities figured that out and banned anything that appears to be an RV or trailer parked for longer than a certain period of time.

Zoning laws for land often also include clauses such as, if you purchase land X in zone Y, you must construct a home of N,000 sq ft by time T or you are fined.

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

#658

Post by AYBABTME » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:28 PM UTC

LadyCailin wrote: post #632

AYBABTME wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This falls flat on its head when you consider that this would force a bunch of people in becoming small time landlords, with the inability to invest in their skills and competency by scaling up to multiple properties. Barely anyone would be interested in running multi-family real estate and they would migrate to commercial real estate. What would remain for residential is low density condos and shitty small time land…

But the underlying point here (I think) is that people owning one home is higher priority than owning multiple homes. I’m not contradicting either of you, but it feels like you responded to a different question.

I don't disagree (favoring personal ownership over multiple ownership), but then I'm not sure how this works out. Single-family homes everywhere? It's causing housing problems due to sky rocketing prices due to low density. So I think it's accepted that we need multi-family homes, to gain higher density housing. Ultimately skyscrapers, but in most case a few units per building. In most jurisdiction, the cost of developing a unit goes up the less dense the project is, so economical units sort of by definition mean packing more units per project.

It works out if high density housing is built and then all sold as condos. People could pool together and buy land as a coop-style group, and then develop it as high density housing. But then its facing organizational hurdles (coop-style orgs don't have the best outcomes) and the whole thing need to survive years long timelines (to design, permit and build) while staying focused to avoid cost avalanches. Good luck!

I don't have an agenda in this (unlike other commenters suggested) and would love to discover a better way of doing all this. I think the current system is flawed but I don't hear convincing alternatives. And what's there right now is better than a feudal system, that's for sure... Hey, back then, Lords were owner occupiers! How has that worked out for the peasants?

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

#659

Post by ghaff » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

ItsMonkk wrote: post #638

x86x87 wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Nope. Sorry but that's not how it works. If the landlord has to pay 4x tax they will pass some (all) of that increase to the renter. Also, a 4x increase in tax != 4x increase…

> So, say the property is worth 1mil$, and you pay 1% tax. That's 10k. You charge 3k rent. The taxman makes the tax 4%, now you have to pay 40k. You decide to pass 30k to the renter. So now they pay 36k+30k rent per year. 4x tax, 2x rent. The price of the property is based on the return that the landlord can return. This should be obvious. If you increase the tax by 4x, the most likely result is the market value will…

Or they sell it to someone for $1 million who is happy to live in it and pay the 1% tax without renting it out. (It may decrease in value some as it's no longer attractive as a rental property--especially if it isn't setup ideally as a home to live in.)

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

#660

Post by alfor » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #370

alfor wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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…

What I saw is fewer kids in almost all countries. The urbanisation push this even further as adult living in dense cities have even fewer kids. Yes, it will take some time, but the aging of population is already there. And old people consume very little. I agree that the speculative nature of housing is a problem, from what I see it is caused mainly by the devaluation of currencies.

You by a house at 100k$ with 90k$ of mortgage, your government print money making your mortgage worth less, bam you got a 200k$ house with 90k$ mortgage. Your 10k$ gave you 110k$ While your currency is worth half of its previous value.

It was the easiest way to get rich for a long time, it work as long as the currency keep debasing (you can count on that) and the housing market is good.