161–170 of 207 posts
This is creating an artificial Tulip bulb crisis where people could live instead of these rent-seeking vampires either letting them idle or renting them on Airbnb. Pass a law that homes must be occupied by the owner at least 10% of the time or property taxes go up 900%. Creating a class of land barons and serfs doesn't bode well for the future of humanity.
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Yes, you are an investor. You do not live in the home you purchased. You rent it to earn money, i.e., an investment. This creates a huge problem. Rental properties have different regulations in different places. My brother-in-law was not given a lease renewal amnd was forced to move (within 30 days) while, where I live, that is illegal unless there is cause for eviction. It creates instability. Also, my rent increase…
Housing would be (much) more difficult if nobody could rent and everyone had to own the homes they lived in, not easier.
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No they're not. This is like saying the scalpers who bulk-buy all the concert tickets and resell at huge markups are "ticket creators." If you take investors (30 percent of home buyers, according to TFA) out of real estate then demand goes way down, taking prices with it and making housing a lot more affordable.
There's a Canadian specific nuance here. In Canada for decades there has been virtually no construction of purpose built rental housing. The primary new rental housing that is being created is wholly through condos being built and people renting out their condos. Accordingly the only new product being created for renters is being created by investors buying condos. Like it's bad that this is the case and this should…
I'm not convinced that what we need is more of this low-quality "affordable" housing. I think the problem would be solved by cracking down on all the people buying second, third, fourth, ... single family homes and converting them into Airbnb flophouses.
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We also need to create cities, and revitalize dying ones. There are many small towns in the US and Canada where I'd love to buy a house, but they all tend to suffer from the same terminal decline pattern: crumbling infrastructure, lack of opportunities, and a single WalMart supplying everyone while choking out all other business.
I sometimes daydream about building a city, just one, that prioritises cycling and walking over cars. If you like cars, you can literally live everywhere else.
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The biggest losers of a LVT are SFH owners living in a humble old near worthless house on relatively valuable land. No, because those folks can sell their property to a developer and earn a nice return while moving to a cheaper area.
The humble house owner can already do that now under the current property tax regime (where they would pay less than under a LVT regime). The only change here is that their taxes go up and they're thus "encouraged" to sell. Seems bad from their POV! The LVT would zero the tax on improvements, and accordingly the tax on land would have to increase to compensate. A mansion owner for example may have 40% of their bill b…
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San Francisco tech salaries are not representative for the entire US tech industry. And on top of that, San Francisco salaries drive up housing prices, so i'm not sure if working in SF results in a higher discretionary income.
Toronto tech salaries are not representative for all of Ontario either. Bay area tech salaries are 3x gdp per capita. Toronto tech salaries are 1.2x gdp per capita. Funnily enough, the 3x higher salaries in San Francisco actually make it more affordable than working tech in Toronto. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
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How does an investor who is renting drive up the cost of housing? Barring certain oddities (e.g. college towns tend to have higher rental costs than purchase due to the transient nature of the populace) rents and mortgages should obtain parity very quickly, especially for families looking to stay longer than the transaction cost of the loan.
Because real estate prices are highly location-specific. People looking to buy a home in a nice, safe neighbourhood with a school in walking distance are forced to compete with investors buying houses and turning them into Airbnbs. As the article says, 30 per cent of home buyers are investors looking to grow their portfolio, not people looking for a place to live and raise a family. If those investors put their money…
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Housing would be (much) more difficult if nobody could rent and everyone had to own the homes they lived in, not easier.
If there were absolutely zero investment homes, then the price of a typical small home right now would be 150k.
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Because real estate prices are highly location-specific. People looking to buy a home in a nice, safe neighbourhood with a school in walking distance are forced to compete with investors buying houses and turning them into Airbnbs. As the article says, 30 per cent of home buyers are investors looking to grow their portfolio, not people looking for a place to live and raise a family. If those investors put their money…
AirBnB is not the same thing as long-term rental, it’s a major oversimplification to bucket all types of rental properties together.
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AirBnB is not the same thing as long-term rental, it’s a major oversimplification to bucket all types of rental properties together.
I spoke to the owners of the last 3 Airbnbs I stayed in. All of them were converted from long-term rentals. The landlords in all 3 cite much higher profits from Airbnb as the reason for conversion.
Obviously, the housing that short-term rentals use has to come from the housing stock somehow, so it's not interesting to point out that Airbnb's cannibalize the long-term rental market.
(Over the medium-long term this is a problem that'll be solved by a combination of more construction, which is desperately needed anyways, and ordinances regulating Airbnbs, like NYC just passed.)