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MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

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Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#131

Post by jjav »

jayemar wrote: post #126
jjav wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Those houses are now worth more, even inflation adjusted, it was just a temporary dip. So you've still built wealth even if you bought in 2007.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#132

Post by pixelatedindex »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #101
pixelatedindex wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying that tracking who is the legal owner and beneficiary of a property is tough. That doesn’t pass the sniff test - the legal owner has to pay property taxes so why can’t they track it that way? If it’s a trust then it’s the beneficiaries that are the owners. In the absence of rent control i can see landlords just forwarding the cost of taxes, but that’s where I’m a huge proponent of it. Discourage investing in…

> the legal owner has to pay property taxes so why can’t they track it that way ...the legal owner would pay the property tax. The beneficial owner/controller would reimburse them. > In the absence of rent control i can see landlords just forwarding the cost of taxes, but that’s where I’m a huge proponent of it. Discourage investing in homes unless you really have the capital This reminds me of the effect of squatter…

> It discourages property owners becoming landlords.

But that’s a good thing, no? I’d much rather they sell, instead of hoarding property.

And as for the tax deductions, why should homeowners get even more help from the government? Property tax is capped, homes appreciate like crazy, and there are already tax deduction in place. From where I’m standing, homeowners are sitting pretty with their mortgage being at an all time low. It is awful being a renter and having no idea if my landlord intends to jack up rent and having me wonder if it’s worth it to move.

That being said, I do understand that there’s a fine balance - like if there are no landlords, someone who isn’t ready to find a house won’t have a place to live. Maybe we should put controls in place on who can buy a house - foreigners and corporations shouldn’t, for example. That should counter people doing all-cash offers for above asking.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#133

Post by brailsafe »

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…

> Easy layups for anyone with half a brain. We don't have to modify anything outside of city/county zoning & the ability to infill everywhere.

Right, that's why we'd both want to allow infill everywhere, and ensure market effects can be realized by simultaneously discouraging property vampires who've got an inflated sense of service to their community—however generous they may think they are—from capturing any/all new homes built with the gains they got from already milking the constrained housing market or being the wealthiest generation; it takes a long time to cool down the ocean.

A set of policies that would enable much more to be built on what were previously lower density lots, that people who were previously priced out have a realistic opportunity to access, and as well constrain the ability for individuals to capitalize on raw surplus ownership. Building more doesn't work if people with modest salaries and families can't even dream of buying or renting the new units, but also things don't get built if there isn't some kind of incentive to do so, and there's a lot of potential for nuance in how policy makers should go about doing that. However it works out though, it shouldn't favor those who show up and threaten to make people homeless as soon as their personal fiefdom seems jeopardized.

On top of those hypothetical policies, protections against displacement of renters seem pretty crucial, in terms of redevelopment of land and letting people move back in, as well as against just arbitrarily selling one's property and tossing your tenants to the wind or leveling their home.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#134

Post by hahahacorn »

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…

Parent here, sorry for taking so long to get back and thanks for such a thorough answer.

I’ll start off by agreeing that supply is the primary issue. If I had to choose between increasing supply and fucking with tax incentives, I choose increasing supply 100/100 times.

However, you’re approaching this solely from the perspective of existing multi home owner.

(The following is directed both at you, but also the other dozen comments making similar points). The entire point of this change would be to drive prices down. Because carrying this inventory is more expensive. Rent is dictated by what renters are willing to pay, not by your property taxes. What you're willing to pay is driven down by the increased cost of ownership. This leads to more owner occupied lots.

Your third option that you didn’t mention is that you sell the duplexes to one of the renters or someone looking to buy their first home and rent the other half (who now have an advantage over serial investors, and prices are lower) and you can utilize the cash from your sale to invest in other assets that don’t carry as many negative externalities to be invested in as speculative assets (I can’t buy a fucking house!!!!!!!). This is also Economics 101.

But to be clear, 3-4x property tax is too high, it would make more sense in the 20% up to 300% and scales the more you own. Also let’s just build.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#135

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

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.

This is a cute fact completely devoid of meaning.

If your homeless population is 0.1% of the population, only 1% of the housing stock needs to be second homes for this to be true.

If you think only the top 1% should be able to afford a second home, then you must think we should be artificially poor.

The top 1% in this country are VERY wealthy. The top 10% can EASILY afford a modest vacation home if that's a priority.

The solution isn't to take their homes in Big Bear and give them to homeless people in San Jose.

It's to build more houses in San Jose so that starter condos don't cost $800k...

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#136

Post by tnel77 »

snapplebobapple wrote: post #98
toomuchtodo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow housing provider here. To your point about scraping the lots and building SFHs, I would counter the solution to that is to outlaw zoning for SFHs for tear downs. Raw land, go for it. But if a structure stood on a parcel, you can only increase density when rebuilding and upzone. This also potentially avoids situations like Naperville, Illinois, where you have a housing shortage at the same time obscenely wealth…

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…

To be honest, I don’t really care about the one guy who can afford to buy a run down house in a nice downtown area just to level it and rebuild a $3-5M modern travesty.

Re: MIT 11.350: Sustainable Real Estate

#137

Post by dontlikeyoueith »

yonran wrote: post #76
dontlikeyoueith wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those additional properties that I own provide housing to 6 humans who can't purchase, or just prefer not to. Of course you just ignore the fact that one of the reasons they can't purchase is because you're hoarding the damn houses. You can't buy what isn't for sale.

The problem is not that rents are too low and sales prices are too high, which might make it appropriate to punish renting a unit and force landlords to sell. The problem is too few of both rental and ownership units.

There are plenty of ownership units in my state. They are just owned as second homes by people who don't live here. 80k of them sit vacant most of the year. There's only 6k homeless people in the state.
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