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MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

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Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#121

Post by pxmpxm »

dontlikeyoueith wrote: post #71
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a distribution problem. We don't have enough pie (houses). We need more houses. Not a campaign to distribute a massive shortage slightly more evenly.

There are more empty second homes than homeless people in my state. By a factor of 10. It's a distribution problem.

I would venture a guess you've never owned a property to conflate "empty second home" with that "free housing for homeless" insinuation, as if those two concepts are in any way related.

Pretty sure that housing isn't the only place where you see redistribution as the solution though, that pattern always holds strong.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#122

Post by pxmpxm »

jmyeet wrote: post #77
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why can't we just charge a federal property tax 3-4x local property taxes for individuals who own >1 property Trivially worked around. Use an LLC. Have it bought in a relative’s name. Have it bought in a rando’s name with a bulletproof lease with a $1 rent-to-own option at its termination. Essentially, the property registry system becomes a farce. (You see this, for example, in India.) Simpler: a straight wealth ta…

Things are only "trivially worked around" if we let them be. There is a concept you don't seem to be familiar with called "beneficial ownership". What this means is that if an LLC buys a house, a lot of jurisdictions require the "beneficial owner" to be known and to be taxed accordingly. The beneficial owner may not be on public records (the LLC will be) but the tax authorities will know. Some jurisdictions don't do…

> 1. Eliminate the Mortgage Interest TAx Deduction. It's giving money to the wealthy;

That's literally the most popular deduction in USA; with home ownership rate of ~ 66%t by construction this covers more than half of the income distribution (ie not just "the wealthy" boogeyman)

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#123

Post by kavenkanum »

leehuffman wrote: post #64
hahahacorn wrote: post #5

Genuine 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…

> Genuine 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) I am that person. I own two duplexes in addition to my primary residence, for a total of four residential rental units – all 2/1s made up of ~750 sq ft each. Those additional properties that I own provide hou…

Just replace property tax with a land tax and most of your concerns will be handled. Any land upgrade (like buildings) should not affect the tax from owning a property.

Also I think that although rental cost may increase (but it's unlikely as individual rentals will be much more down to earth than those operated by a corporation that's driven only by quarterly earnings), the buying should be much more affordable.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#124

Post by pxmpxm »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #47
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don’t see how those are trivially worked around in a country with a half decent government Look at how people abuse rent controlled apartments. (All the way up to the current mayor.) > People are not just going to give their relatives title to their property This is literally what happens in places with such taxes. I wouldn’t bat an eye buying a house in my partner or a parent’s name if it saved 3x property taxes.

I’m sick of rent control being vilified. If you’re not going to build more then you definitely need it. I’ve had my rent go up as much as 20%, forcing me to move on more than one occasion. If Prop 13 keeps the grandma in their home, then why can’t I have rent control that lets me stay put and provide stability? Landlords will do the absolute minimum for repairs anyway, rent control or not.

Rent controls is universally considered a stupid idea, the only reason why it continues to exist for the benfits of the political class that leverage votes out of it.

Handing out subsidy checks for the same amount accomplishes the same thing without the deadweight loss of people getting locked in aparments that economically prohibitve to keep habitable , or the units stay vacant for the same reason (see NYC).

Even government run HUD aparments end up with the same problem, given the exact same economics.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#125

Post by pxmpxm »

leehuffman wrote: post #64
hahahacorn wrote: post #5

Genuine 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…

> Genuine 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) I am that person. I own two duplexes in addition to my primary residence, for a total of four residential rental units – all 2/1s made up of ~750 sq ft each. Those additional properties that I own provide hou…

> Letting people build things

When the real solution is obvious and the proposals are nowhere near it, the game at play isn't to solve the problem: Remarket collectivist expropriation with some gen-z friendly word salad and backfill details on how this solves ____.

The paradox, to me, is that the set of people pushing for redistribution is almost entirely disjoint from the set of people responsible for creation of the thigns to-be-redistributed. One would think the skill set needed for the latter would make them exceptionally suited for the former, yet here we are.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#126

Post by jayemar »

jjav wrote: post #115
jmyeet wrote: post #2

We 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…

> We need to stop treating real restate--especially residential real estate--as a mechanism for creating wealth. It's not about treating it this or that way though. Owning a house is creating wealth, it's not something you can avoid. How could this ever not be the case? We all agree a home is valuable. So if you buy one (and pay for it over many years), you're acquiring something valuable. As opposed to throwing mone…

> How could this ever not be the case?

If the value of the house goes down like what happened in 2008.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#127

Post by snapplebobapple »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #100
snapplebobapple wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a bad idea because the problem isnt the need to increase density, that is obvious and wanted by nearly everybody building. The provlem is the zoning often limits lot coverage to one or two units and some percentage less than 50 % coverage. You dont jave to be a dick to the one guy in the hundred building that wants a small single family and lots of land, you need to let the other 99 act in their own sel…

My suggestion does not prevent a SFH and lots of land entirely, only if an existing structure was torn down to make way for it. You can still buy an existing SFH, or build one on vacant land. You simply can’t replace an existing SFH or multi family with another SFH. Density line only go up.

Yes, that's a good summary of the bad idea. Again, this is a bad idea because it discriminates against one tiny sliver of the resale market (those that want to buy old houses because they like the area the land is in and tear down the house to build a new one). It's not going to work. What you are going to cause is that tiny sliver of people to say "ok, how much do I have to keep to call this a reno and get it through the system?" and then keep that minimum. You are also going to cause an expansion of the government to deal with this new level of regulation, increasing everyone's costs and making us worse off for no discernible benefit because this deals with a part of the new house pipeline that isn't the problem.

The problem is that in most of these place no matter what one does one is still stuck with low lot coverage and low allowable unit numbers (i.e. in my city the overwhelming majority of residential tops out at 45% lot coverage, 15 meter heights, and one unit maximum (a small chunk of the overwhelming majority zoned this way allows 2 units in a restrictive manner as either garden/over garage or basement suite). So instead of wasting resources increasing regulation, the solution is to decrease regulation. rezone all this stupid stuff to allow much higher lot coverage, height and unit count and then approve everything that fits in the zoning in a short period of time rather than dragging it out for months and months through bureaucracy. You get smaller, cheaper government (big win), faster development of the available land (huge win) and you refocus the large contingent of businesses currently focused on buying old single family in places zoned for 2 units, subdividing and building two units onto building much bigger, higher density things like multi unit walkups in the same space raising the unit count from the current max 2 units to 4-10 units on the same piece of land. This will solve most of the problems while giving people the freedom to do what they want (but the incentive to do what is best for society) vs decreasing freedom for no benefit and moderate harm.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#128

Post by panick21_ »

majormajor wrote: post #59
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a distribution problem. We don't have enough pie (houses). We need more houses. Not a campaign to distribute a massive shortage slightly more evenly.

What's the reason that, with office occupancies down in so many places, there isn't a big push for conversion of commercial zoning to residential multi-family? Incentive programs to reward converting vacant spaces? Penalty taxes for holding vacant office space instead of selling it to someone who will figure out something to do with it?

> What's the reason that, with office occupancies down in so many places, there isn't a big push for conversion of commercial zoning to residential multi-family?

Zoning simply doesn't allow for that in the overwhelming majority of places.

> Incentive programs to reward converting vacant spaces?

How about making it legal first?

> Penalty taxes for holding vacant office space instead of selling it to someone who will figure out something to do with it?

Or just have land value taxation.

All of those things simply miss the underlying structural issues. We know the structural issue. People need to stop thinking in these 'could we do this little micro adjustment, or this little micro adjustment' as if that solves anything.

We know how to solve this, its not really up for debate. Endlessly arguing about micro-optimization. Its like in IT when people argue about some minor optimization in the compiler when their are 100x more blocked by IO.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#129

Post by pixelatedindex »

pxmpxm wrote: post #124
pixelatedindex wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sick of rent control being vilified. If you’re not going to build more then you definitely need it. I’ve had my rent go up as much as 20%, forcing me to move on more than one occasion. If Prop 13 keeps the grandma in their home, then why can’t I have rent control that lets me stay put and provide stability? Landlords will do the absolute minimum for repairs anyway, rent control or not.

Rent controls is universally considered a stupid idea, the only reason why it continues to exist for the benfits of the political class that leverage votes out of it. Handing out subsidy checks for the same amount accomplishes the same thing without the deadweight loss of people getting locked in aparments that economically prohibitve to keep habitable , or the units stay vacant for the same reason (see NYC). Even go…

> Rent controls is universally considered a stupid idea, the only reason why it continues to exist for the benfits of the political class that leverage votes out of it. Handing out subsidy checks for the same amount accomplishes the same thing

Fine, if subsidy checks then it’s subsidy checks. But subsidies or handouts will never work in the current political climate because it is “handouts for the poor”. So I don’t necessarily blame them for going this route.

All I am saying is that uncapped rent increases has put me at a major disadvantage, because every time I hope to save and buy for a house my rent jumps substantially and I find myself back to square one. I’m making progress toward that down payment sum, but the cost of moving + paying higher rent has made this a struggle.

Homeowners enjoy(ed) a lot of government perks - the GI bill spurred construction, property taxes are capped, interest can be a tax deduction. Renters get absolutely nothing, and 40% (vs 60% homeowners) is a non-trivial amount. Why can’t I have any protections or programs that help me save a bit more so I can actually be a homeowner?

Even the downvotes to my previous post seem to indicate that nobody really cares about renters - and I’m caught in this weird middle where I make too much to not qualify for subsidized housing and I make too little to save at a cadence where I can catch up with home appreciation and bidding wars. Now, I’ve to deal with bidding wars a renter too - it’s not the norm yet but I have certainly run into it. What the hell am I supposed to do?!?

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#130

Post by dlyco »

Singapore cracked the housing problem for citizen but the rest of the world doesn’t like the policy, I can imagine most of the people commenting here won’t either.

Just read the comments, “housing provider” you can’t even admit your a landlord, it is amusing to read comment like these, very interesting to see how NIMBYs think.

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