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New US homeownership measure puts people first

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Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#21

Post by estearum »

mothballed wrote: post #15
estearum wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US-migrated Nigerians are driving Nigeria's local home ownership policy? Why? How? It seems more likely what you're seeing is the kindred spirit between parochialists of all colors. And if only they could see through the "colors" part they'd realize they're not so different after all.

President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu was literally a US-migrated Nigerian, studying here for college and then working. Maybe you are not familiar with Nigeria, but a surprisingly large amount of those with legislative power have lived or held property in the US. You don't even have to "migrate" to buy property here, just show up, and you can leave (or do it remotely). Tinubu arrived in the United States in 19…

Super interesting! Wasn't familiar, though I admit I didn't even think of ruling class Nigerians (which as you point out, the entire world sends their elite children here to be educated), and was thinking more of "actual" immigrants.

I think there's a big difference – on virtually very dimension – between royalty/heirs/elites getting sent to Harvard and back home as compared to someone who actually uproots their life in a one-shot chance to create a new home in America.

I'm not sure I'd characterize the former as a type of "hypocrisy" though. They're doing exactly what they set out to do, which is to go learn about what works elsewhere in the world and try to apply it back home. Sometimes for evil purposes and sometimes for pro-social ones.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#22

Post by bluGill »

Aurornis wrote: post #13

TL;DR: Instead of measuring the percentage of homes that are owned by people who live there, they want to measure the percentage of adults who own a home. Feels like an apples and oranges situation. The two numbers each have their own value but they’re measuring different things. One is calculated based on the number of houses, the other is a measured based on the population of adults or households. Both measures hav…

Both also make the assumption that owning a house is good. Renting should be just as good.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#23

Post by pmnelson »

Another similarly flawed measure is household income (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...), which is used frequently as a measure of socio-economic class. Under this measure, a single adult making $90k and a household of two adults and two children making $90k combined are treated equally, which has always struck me as quite stupid.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#24

Post by bluGill »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18
mothballed wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu was literally a US-migrated Nigerian, studying here for college and then working. Maybe you are not familiar with Nigeria, but a surprisingly large amount of those with legislative power have lived or held property in the US. You don't even have to "migrate" to buy property here, just show up, and you can leave (or do it remotely). Tinubu arrived in the United States in 19…

> a surprisingly large amount of those with legislative power have lived or held property in the US Is this an evangelical thing? Or is something else going on?

Anyone with money in a country with poor education will try to send their kids to a country with good education. That has been mostly the US over the past 100 years, but there are several other countries (most of the EU) that also have great schools that sometimes get them as well. People with money in a poor country tend to be politically powerful, so it is not surprise their get their kids into power.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#25

Post by cucumber3732842 »

ajross wrote: post #9
azath92 wrote: post #5

Looking at the statistics that are used to measure growth and performance at a population level are such a great window into how they themselves are opinionated stances. The two measures are both great measures of house ownership that measure different things. The article frames the second one as better, and if you are looking to see the ownership proportion of people (for example as they note to look at the numbers…

> If however you care about the housing development decisions that will incentivise owner occupancy Genuine question: who, precisely, cares about "incentivising owner occupancy" as a policy goal? What interest does that serve and why should the government prioritize maximizing that metric? Basically right now we measure "what fraction of homes are occupied by an owner" and not "what fraction of people live in their o…

Allowing people access fairly illiquid and predictable housing allows and incentivizes them to prioritize things on longer timelines which is good for society.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#26

Post by ajross »

estearum wrote: post #12
ajross wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If however you care about the housing development decisions that will incentivise owner occupancy Genuine question: who, precisely, cares about "incentivising owner occupancy" as a policy goal? What interest does that serve and why should the government prioritize maximizing that metric? Basically right now we measure "what fraction of homes are occupied by an owner" and not "what fraction of people live in their o…

The theory behind it is that 1) economic growth generally accrues to land values so distributing land ownership is one way to distribute wealth and 2) people generally treat the things they own better than the things they rent or consume. Incentivizing ownership is more closely aligned with objective (1) while owner-occupancy is more closely aligned with objective (2). These don't work in the presence of capital's ou…

> distributing land ownership is one way to distribute wealth

Right, so you want to know how many people own homes, not how many homes are "occupied" by an owner[1], which is at best a proxy, right? Sounds like you're agreeing with me but just getting the sides of the argument mixed up?

[1] As the article points out, a single person can in fact "occupy" more than one home!

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#27

Post by jvanderbot »

ajross wrote: post #9
azath92 wrote: post #5

Looking at the statistics that are used to measure growth and performance at a population level are such a great window into how they themselves are opinionated stances. The two measures are both great measures of house ownership that measure different things. The article frames the second one as better, and if you are looking to see the ownership proportion of people (for example as they note to look at the numbers…

> If however you care about the housing development decisions that will incentivise owner occupancy Genuine question: who, precisely, cares about "incentivising owner occupancy" as a policy goal? What interest does that serve and why should the government prioritize maximizing that metric? Basically right now we measure "what fraction of homes are occupied by an owner" and not "what fraction of people live in their o…

A key difference is illustrated in TFA. To maximize fraction of people owning a home, you dislike people renting or living with a homeowner. A spouse that marries a homeowner, for example. It would be "better" if they broke up and owned their own separate homes. Or perhaps they could buy two homes, one for each. Or they could by two homes and rent a third to actually live in - same metric value.

To maximize fraction of homes with their owner living inside, you focus on the ownership _and_ the lifestyle choice. A family living together is the best use of land in this case. A family renting a side room to a college kid is still the best use of land. If every home were lived in by its owner, you could still have 90% of your population renting and not building generational wealth.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#28

Post by ajross »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #25
ajross wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If however you care about the housing development decisions that will incentivise owner occupancy Genuine question: who, precisely, cares about "incentivising owner occupancy" as a policy goal? What interest does that serve and why should the government prioritize maximizing that metric? Basically right now we measure "what fraction of homes are occupied by an owner" and not "what fraction of people live in their o…

Allowing people access fairly illiquid and predictable housing allows and incentivizes them to prioritize things on longer timelines which is good for society.

You are the second reply that seems to have misunderstood what the article is about. The point is that the current metric is not a measure of how many people own homes, even though everyone thinks it is.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#29

Post by vintermann »

ajross wrote: post #9
azath92 wrote: post #5

Looking at the statistics that are used to measure growth and performance at a population level are such a great window into how they themselves are opinionated stances. The two measures are both great measures of house ownership that measure different things. The article frames the second one as better, and if you are looking to see the ownership proportion of people (for example as they note to look at the numbers…

> If however you care about the housing development decisions that will incentivise owner occupancy Genuine question: who, precisely, cares about "incentivising owner occupancy" as a policy goal? What interest does that serve and why should the government prioritize maximizing that metric? Basically right now we measure "what fraction of homes are occupied by an owner" and not "what fraction of people live in their o…

If you live in a place which is used only for vacation homes, or worse, only as investment objects, you know the value of owner occupancy.

Non-occupants contribute very little to the actual value of a place - they don't work here, they don't buy here. But they capture much of the value of other people trying to make the place a pleasant place to live, though rising real estate values.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#30

Post by an0malous »

bluGill wrote: post #22
Aurornis wrote: post #13

TL;DR: Instead of measuring the percentage of homes that are owned by people who live there, they want to measure the percentage of adults who own a home. Feels like an apples and oranges situation. The two numbers each have their own value but they’re measuring different things. One is calculated based on the number of houses, the other is a measured based on the population of adults or households. Both measures hav…

Both also make the assumption that owning a house is good. Renting should be just as good.

Why? It’s a position of less security and stability
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