MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
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MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
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Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
#2We need to stop treating real restate--especially residential real estate--as a mechanism for creating wealth.
there are enough homeowners that they vote for politicians and policies that will increase the value of their "investments". All this does is simply steal money from the next generation. Our entire economic system is designed to transfer wealth from the young and poor and the old and wealthy.
There is a distinction here to be made between "private property" (what we have now) and "personal property", which would be a far more ideal outcome.
Personal property simply means that you're allowed to own your own home. You're either not allowed to buy up huge tracts of homes to restrict supply and jack up prices or, if you do, you're taxed punitively for it.
Landlords. We need to get rid of landlords. 50+ years ago, the UK came close to this with a surprisingly simple solution [1].
This alone isn't sufficient but it's an important part. The other big part is to have a supply of social housing [2] so the private sector simply can't manipulate hte market.
Unfortunately, when Americans in particular hear a term like "social housing" they lose their minds and they immediately go to ghettoes or projects. Don't think that. Think Vienna [3][4].
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-...
[2]: https://www.allianceforhousingjustice.org/us-social-housing-...
[3]: https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-archit...
[4]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-soc...
Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
#3Another MIT course that I absolutely love (went through it twice) is "Environmental Technologies in Buildings" [1]. It covers a very wide breadth of topics, like sun radiation, photo-voltaics, wind, insulation, human perception of heat and lighting, etc. Just all around fascinating. Professor Reinhart is a pleasure to learn from. There's also and Edx course with lecture recordings for it [2].
[1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/11-350-sustainable-real-estate-s...
[2] https://www.edx.org/learn/sustainable-development/massachuse...
Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
#4We need to stop treating real restate--especially residential real estate--as a mechanism for creating wealth. there are enough homeowners that they vote for politicians and policies that will increase the value of their "investments". All this does is simply steal money from the next generation. Our entire economic system is designed to transfer wealth from the young and poor and the old and wealthy. There is a dist…
The prime minister of Canada literally said housing can't come down because it's the retirement plan of a lot of boomers.
Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
#5Genuine Question, why can't we just charge a federal property tax 3-4x local property taxes for individuals who own >1 property (which would likely be distributed back to the locality, specifics not important), apply the same rules we do for pass-through taxation to mitigate loopholes, and automatically charge this elevated rate for properties owned by non-natural persons? I think this would just price in the externalities of corporate versus natural person living in a property for a locality.
Or maybe it's a tiered system. W/e.
On a related note, does anyone have anecdotal stories about the efficacy of Georgist tax policies?
Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
#6We need to stop treating real restate--especially residential real estate--as a mechanism for creating wealth. there are enough homeowners that they vote for politicians and policies that will increase the value of their "investments". All this does is simply steal money from the next generation. Our entire economic system is designed to transfer wealth from the young and poor and the old and wealthy. There is a dist…
The prime minister of Canada literally said housing can't come down because it's the retirement plan of a lot of boomers.
Which is odd because I don't see a lot of downsizing from any boomer I know, the equity is locked away on the home until they sell.
Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
#7Genuine Question, why can't we just charge a federal property tax 3-4x local property taxes for individuals who own >1 property (which would likely be distributed back to the locality, specifics not important), apply the same rules we do for pass-through taxation to mitigate loopholes, and automatically charge this elevated rate for properties owned by non-natural persons? I think this would just price in the externa…
Trusts. It's relatively easy to hide who owns what.
Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
#8We need to stop treating real restate--especially residential real estate--as a mechanism for creating wealth. there are enough homeowners that they vote for politicians and policies that will increase the value of their "investments". All this does is simply steal money from the next generation. Our entire economic system is designed to transfer wealth from the young and poor and the old and wealthy. There is a dist…
No political remedy will work until there's a culture shift, and that's probably still a generation or two away. The baseline that people seek isn't just a reliable place to sleep, eat, and clean themselves.
They want the television-depicted life: a home which they only (at most) share with a partner and some pre-adult children, where everyone has their own bedroom, and there's probably at least one more bedroom to enjoy as an office or rec room, a kitchen suitable for entertaining, maybe a finished basement, parking for a few cars, no shared walls, and convenient access to whatever their work and whatever they like to attend in their free time. They'll tolerate a little less, but will refuse to take the social issue as resolved if they have to.
That's a far far cry from both the traditional history of multi-generational homes, boarding houses, and one room cottages and the modern political vision of "social housing". You can award contracts to all the builders you want, or open the market for them to chase whatever money you think is out there, but you're not going to be able to practically deliver the homes people want for everybody who wants them. Expectations need to be reconciled too, and we have almost no means to affect that.
Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
#9Genuine Question, why can't we just charge a federal property tax 3-4x local property taxes for individuals who own >1 property (which would likely be distributed back to the locality, specifics not important), apply the same rules we do for pass-through taxation to mitigate loopholes, and automatically charge this elevated rate for properties owned by non-natural persons? I think this would just price in the externa…
Not sure how it's down there, but my understanding is even if we have housing crisis, legislations that would actually bring down the housing prices is also bad for us. RE market is about 10%+ of the entire GDP, so we want individuals to park their money and use it as an investment vehicle as a part of the consumption cycle. Combine it with "i'll just buy it for my child/spouse/mom/dad" and so on, it's not really that easy to implement either.
Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate
#10The course videos have been uploaded to YT in the past hours:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63Np7g0Xtk9...