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

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

#751

Post by anamax »

_8j50 wrote: post #677
anamax wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many sellers can't afford to do a renovation and even if they can, they don't have the knowledge to do what the market wants. (They can't borrow without both equity and the ability to repay.) They also may not have the time. Many buyers aren't interested in doing a renovation, and most of the other things apply. People who renovate for a living do have those things. You seem to think that holding out for more money i…

I won't repeat what I said about flippers since I replied to multiple other comments but they would still exist but provide flipping/renovation as a service(see other comments). People can sell whenever they want, my restriction is the profit margin. I have no problem with that margin being more and more over time so long as that rate is nationally set to be uniform.

Are you going to cap the amount that flippers can lose as well? Why not? And, why should their profit be uniform? (Some flippers are better than others.)

Flipping as a service requires waiting by buyers and/or sellers which costs them money. Why is that a good thing? (A renovation may take 6-12 months.)

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

#752

Post by dleslie »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #697
dleslie wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most developers would not accept those terms. That's a proposal for predictable project losses. It's far less risk to own the project and land, seek institutional and similarly deep pocketed financing, then to suffer the fickle stinginess of a multitude of strata members. The developers who accept those terms will be looking to cut corners.

There are plenty of projects that are sold before they are started, and no reason the transaction would have to go the way you're claiming. As long as at least one person is willing to assign their land claim to the project it could continue without that portion taxed, and acquiring or renting the claims would not have to be coupled to funding. Modelling land as a fungible commodity that you're allowed to have as muc…

Pre-sales always include broad sweeping allowances for variances in final cost; for instance, folks who pre-bought condos two or three years ago are just starting to get sticker shock now that the final price has hit them, thanks to skyrocketing materials cost. The price they agreed to pay, with those variances they agreed to.

Without the assurance that someone else would shoulder the risk the builders would have walked away. Like they do in China, and where they have to demolish half finished towers because the builders dropped out and none will take it on.

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

#753

Post by Valakas_ »

yasp wrote: post #497
z9znz wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We" as evolved social animals have pretty universally come to the agreement that humans should have a few basic necessities, such as food, water, shelter, (and less agreed but equally important) personal safety. I could ask if you continuing to live is your human right. I'm not sure there's any absolute decree that everyone can agree on that says you deserve to live. However, we evolved people tend to assume that ev…

OK, and here I was thinking that human rights were premised on a philosophical basis. Thank you for clarifying that they are merely a political matter.

Just because he said it in this way doesn't mean you can't think for yourself and realize that it also has a philosophical basis. You are a human. You are capable of your own independent thoughts and conclusions which are as valid as other people's. If you can yourself find ethical reasons to give humans a place to live by default, and I'm sure you can, (because suffering = bad, no home = suffering, true for every human) you just created a philosophical reason for why it might be valid to consider it a human right.

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

#754

Post by yasp »

Valakas_ wrote: post #753
yasp wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, and here I was thinking that human rights were premised on a philosophical basis. Thank you for clarifying that they are merely a political matter.

Just because he said it in this way doesn't mean you can't think for yourself and realize that it also has a philosophical basis. You are a human. You are capable of your own independent thoughts and conclusions which are as valid as other people's. If you can yourself find ethical reasons to give humans a place to live by default, and I'm sure you can, (because suffering = bad, no home = suffering, true for every hu…

The same philosophical chain of reasoning would lead to government provided boyfriends and girlfriends, so I'm not sure about this line of argument.

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

#755

Post by sershe »

mythrwy wrote: post #743
sershe wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe; it's different than saying it's a "human right" though.

Good point. A roof might not be a human right. But a piece of earth might be.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think the best answer to that is georgist; one could argue that an average piece of land is extremely cheap, so there's no problem, everyone can get one; but if people want a specific piece of land, and many people want the same ones, a distribution mechanism is needed.

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

#756

Post by nostrademons »

Scea91 wrote: post #749
nostrademons wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends if you assume people are rational. A rational economic actor would not be a NIMBY under these conditions, because the increase in land values exceeds the increased tax they would pay, and so they could always sell their property for a profit and buy another one farther away from infrastructure if they don't like it. In reality, people are change-averse and irrational for a variety of reasons, chief among them…

How is the value of unimproved land determined in places where there is no nearby unimproved land to compare with. For example, how would I determine this value in lower Manhattan?

You run a regression on the value of all the improvements, then subtract that from the sale price to get the value of the unimproved land. Smooth that over the per-square-foot value of neighboring properties and you can have a pretty good estimate of for the unimproved value of the land.

If you have a hundred thousand properties to collect data on, you can get a pretty good idea of "a 3BR unit increases the value of the property this much, a 2BR unit increases it by this much, X feet in height result in this change in value, per parking space the value increases by this much". Sophisticated real-estate investors and the banks that fund them are running this calculation anyway, that's how they know which properties are good deals. Once you have a formula for this, you plug in the stats of the property in question to figure out the value of the improvements, and then the unimproved value of the land is everything left over.

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

#757

Post by daniel-cussen »

prpl wrote: post #696
daniel-cussen wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha yeah Santiago de Chile. Hey I bet you can get a great deal in Santiago de Cuba, way under $100, and it's notable enough people say "which Santiago" like you just did. Cuba has incredibly cheap rent, like Communism works, works mandatory unpaid overtime, in terms of cheap rent. So those are all beautiful quaint neighborhoods--myself I'm in Lastarria, but come on that's expensive. Yungay, little less. Barrio Brasi…

I've lived in both (Yungay and time in Maipú), looked at buying in 2019 Yungay/Ñuñoa (before October 18), and wives family is there, living in Maipú, Lastarria, etc... it's all kind of apples to orange though because the working class/middle class/upper class profiles are different than in SF. Maipú is probably the cheapest but of course you end up far away (unless you work in one of the places nearby, which is proba…

You can't buy absolutely anything for less than a million anywhere in SF.

So in that, you agreed with me. Let me take the chance to agree with you, public schools ("liceos") are not as good as Chile deserves. Well first off very underfunded, if you go and send your kids to Nido de Aguilas that's about the same budget per student as an American public school. And it's the best education. Just yeah it's hard scratching up that change in the Chilean economy, as it stands today. And there's plenty of schools, just education in America is subsidized and you have to pay your way in Chile.

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

#758

Post by Handytinge »

letouj wrote: post #229
kasey_junk wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because that means apartment buildings become illegal? Homeownership is all well and good, but sometimes you really do just need a place to live for a year or two, and having to do a full-fledged real estate transaction at each end of that period is a lot of friction.

How so? It's a fairly common model for each individual apartment to have their own owner, and a body corporate run by the owners manage common areas.

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

#759

Post by mrinfinite »

No. Nothing wrong with Buying a valuable thing for An expensive price. Its valuable.

What is wrong is fraud. Fraud happens when a bank is allowed to create money out of nothing (banks used to have to SAVE money to lend it, but the Central Bank makes it so they dont have to save money to lend it). That is unethical and also: FRAUD.

Buying a house is expensive and sucks but thats not unethical for things too be expensive. It is unethical for Banks to commit fraud by loaning money they dont have.

NOTE: central bank is there to save the banking cartel. If banks were just allowed to do what ever (free banking) they wouldnt get very far cause of runs on banks and competition between banks, but a central bank allows the tide to raise all ships (banks)

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