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What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

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Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#541

Post by b112 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #261
b112 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is to make the system more fair, not eliminate one of the parties involved. Taking such an extreme position in an argument also doesn't help the situation. Yet it seems to me at least, that you are taking the extreme position. People are arguing for nuanced improvement, and discussing what issues may arise. You're essentially saying "Enough talk, do random things". In fact, you're saying "do almost anything"…

> The point I made in the other sub-thread, is that many many other countries did that very thing. If we examine the set of 'many other countries', does it consist 90% of dictatorships, that were already in poverty, and the methods chosen 70% violence? What if, the aim of these actions was never to improve the economy, but instead was to consolidate power for the dictatorship in question and to remove elites that cou…

Strongmen come out of societal stress or collapse, over the desire for someone, anyone, to fix things.

Whilst the strongman and his cronies may only want power, a democracy can collapse because its citizens do not see the danger.

They may give special powers, or ignore weakening of key institutions, because he is "fixing things" with a strong arm and will.

And by weakening key parts of a democracy, it leaves it more open, susceptible to a strongman to succeed in subverting the current state.

Maybe even decades away.

Many areas of the world were democratic, and fell into this trap, and are now stuck there.

Some have tried to go back to democracy, or forge a democratic state for the first time, and fall due to this same fallacy.

Change is not fast enough, so "just do something, anything!".

So yes, my comparison is completely fair.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#542

Post by badpun »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #233
satvikpendem wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting point regarding this is, ask anyone in the first world whether they want the same fairness as those not in the first world, ie if we added up all of the wages of everyone on the planet and redistributed them equally, the first worlder would be much much poorer than where they started off. Of course, I do support bringing up the average wages in each country overall, which is precisely what capitalism…

> if we added up all of the wages of everyone on the planet and redistributed them equally, the first worlder would be much much poorer than where they started off This point of 'most people only want what benefits them' is very shallow. You've set up the question for failure. You limited comparison to income, and to income just among labour class. If you actually setup the question correctly, you might find the resu…

> The leading countries to rise in the last 30 years, China and Singapore, have active, competent and interventionist governments.

Can't wait for the China do collapse under its own mismanagement and the memes like the above can finally die off.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#543

Post by rcarr »

jjav wrote: post #340
csomar wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it doesn't collapse, then society may collapse? Like the sibling comment mentioned, you can only push this too far, and I think it's pushed too far to be very alarming. And housing is expensive by design and not by constraint. I'm staying in KL, a comparatively cheap place by Western standards. The housing market is crap here from a seller perspective as you have an over-supply of condos. That, despite the large a…

> If it doesn't collapse, then society may collapse? But there are plenty very cheap areas to buy houses or rent. Sure, many people don't want to live there, that's why it's cheap today. But it is a possibility nonetheless, one that is better than collapsing society. I'm always honestly confused why today it is seen as impossible to move to a cheap area? People have been doing this for generations (centuries?). It's…

> It's always an option to move to a cheaper location!

If you’ve got no savings and are trapped in debt, how do you suggest people do this? How are these people managed to scrape together the deposit and moving costs? The people who would need to do this the most are locked out of it. If you don’t have family members to stay with, what you end up with is skyrocketing homeless numbers which seems to be what is happening in California.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#544

Post by jdmoreira »

jdmoreira wrote: post #535
tpmx wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I'm always fascinated by in these stories - the complete lack of understanding for why not everyone can have everything in a particular place with finite resources. > I'm in the highest percentiles of income in Sweden Which one is it then? 80th? 90th? 99th? 99.5th? > It's basically impossible for me to afford a house / apartment for my family in the best neighborhoods. Which are the "best neighborho…

My income is higher than the average income in any post-code in Sweden (as far as I can tell). So the problem is not "income". It's other sorts of privilegies I don't have. For example "time in the real estate market pre 2010". Income != Wealth

also the higher brackets of salary in Sweden are not even high for European standards. They are in fact quite low

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#545

Post by theshrike79 »

toyg wrote: post #450
theshrike79 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are plenty of cities in Germany with very cheap rent, where apartment buildings get torn down because they're vacant. There are plenty of cities in Finland like this too. But the problem is that the jobs aren't there. I could buy a huge house with a big yard from one of those cities, but then my commute would be over 300km every day. Not really worth it. Or I would have to quit my job and start working in the…

I'm not attacking your experience, but in 2023, with the explosion of remote jobs in software and generally post-covid, this sort of argument looks a bit weak on HN.

If it was only me and the SO, we'd be living in a huge house somewhere in the boondocks with a city-subsidised fiberoptic link.

But... we have kids and the schools in the small towns aren't that good and most are constantly at risk of being shut down.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#546

Post by badpun »

throwawaybbq1 wrote: post #126
pcthrowaway wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of this issue is due to our (enormous) amount of immigration, given that fertility rate has been below the replacement rate since 1970 or so

I would have gladly had more kids if I could have afforded a place to put them. Do you know what a 3 bed condo costs in Toronto? It is financial suicide.

In my parents generation in communist Poland, people had 2-3 children families in flats no bigger than 500-750 sqft. When there's a will, there's a way, and people just truy wanted to have children back then. While nowadays, it seems that there's always some excuse in the way.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#547

Post by rcarr »

illiarian wrote: post #381
slaw wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you point me to these plenty cheap areas? I work remotely and may consider moving there.

In Sweden if you move from Stockholm to Eskilstuna (1h30m drive away) you can find a 5 room 100 sqm apartment in the dead center of the town for the price of a 2 room 45-50 sqm apartment in any of the immediate suburbs of Stockholm. Or, to put it simply, move out of the big city, and the prices drop by a factor of two or more.

This is all well and good but are there jobs there that match the persons skillset or would they have to spend most likely 3-6 years retraining?

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#548

Post by diatone »

mthoms wrote: post #231
LegitShady wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All 3 of the major parties are pro huge immigration. Any discussion to the contrary is labelled racist regardless of a housing and healthcare crisis. Businesses underpay and when they can't find people willing to impoverish themselves to work for them, they apply to the government to bring in "temporary foreign workers" - for things like fast food restaurant workers not essential business, keeping the wages down. Tem…

Are there any economists that support your theory? Namely that (if I understand your point correctly) immigration is hurting the economy more than it’s helping? Everything I’ve seen claims the opposite - but I’m open to new information. Also, what support do you have for the claim that the existence of temporary foreign workers suppress wages for working Canadians? My understanding is that they are performing jobs th…

Here is an Australian site expressing a similar view about the Australian economy. One prominent poster is ex Australian treasury and has been featured on news programs on TV.

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#549

Post by Tijdreiziger »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #188
Tijdreiziger wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were no rent control, all the units would go to the wealthy and everyone else would be driven out of the city.

Why is that? You've got to ask yourself this question, why would this happen? Because if you don't address the cause, you've got a "law of conservation of problems" and you just shift your problems from one place to another. Rent control doesn't solve problems, it moves problems to another part of the system, in this case, a housing system. So what is the core problem? The core problem is that there aren't enough dwe…

Building more is clearly the main solution, but failing that, abolishing rent control would only make the existing problem even more dire.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#550

Post by klunger »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #45

The Sweden story sounds so much like the SF story. Area doesn’t building housing, leading to a massive increase in house prices and a destruction of class mobility as the rich get richer (as their houses get more valuable) and the poor get poorer (as they pay more to rent the same living space). The growing wealth inequality leads to all sorts of other dysfunction including increased crime, worsening services, etc. a…

The same story could have been written about Oslo - my home - and the other major cities in Norway (Bergen, Stavanger, even Kristiansand).

It's not so bad in the country side, but there are very few jobs there. I have some friends (a couple with 1 kid) who moved to distant suburbs of Oslo for more affordable housing. But the long commutes destroyed their quality of life and put a strain on their marriage. They are now moving back to a tiny, very expensive rental in Oslo. Its a definitive step down from when they left.

We have outgrown our apartment -- the kids are getting bigger. So, we really need a 4 bedroom place (ideally 5 so we could have an office, but we'd settle for 4 and a desk in the living room). There are no apartments - which would be a lot more affordable than a house - that large here. The max bedroom count in apartments here that I have ever seen is 3, which we already have.

So we are planning to buy a 2-unit house ("tomannsbolig") with another couple with kids. It's the only way we can afford something with enough bedrooms, without a large inheritance or something like that. None of us have anything like that coming. We have 4 "good," stable jobs (programmers, researchers etc). Even with other couple in the mix, it feels impossible to find something in the same school district. We've been looking for over a year.

So, we are thinking about looking for a third friend or couple, since there are a few houses that have 3 units. It's just tricky to find someone you feel comfortable enough with to ask that. But we hope that 5-6 incomes will be enough in this market.

*Before anyone tells me my kids can keep sharing bedrooms, try telling that to them! The increasing need for privacy and lack of space is becoming a real problem here.

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