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New US homeownership measure puts people first

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Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#321

Post by bombcar »

vablings wrote: post #210
mchusma wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not investment at all, we want more investment into housing. But you are absolutely correct you cannot both want housing to be a good investment (increase in value faster than inflation) and an affordable (drop in price lower than inflation). Don’t subsidize demand. Allow more supply. Private homeowners, big developers, all of the above. Build.

The issue is that housing should not be an investment but due to rising labor and materials costs and also more restrictive code, they are now an investment.

Housing should be an investment; you should be encouraged to invest in where you live and improve both your property and the area around you.

It should not be a good investment - it should, over time, boil down to below inflation once you take maintenance and taxes into consideration.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#322

Post by Gormo »

testing22321 wrote: post #188
smallmancontrov wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care, housing, and education are the big three drivers of mandatory expenses in most peoples' lives. It's undeniably a little cool that luxuries got cheap, but it's severely un-cool that necessities got expensive. I'm glad to see a focus on pushing statistics to do a better job of reflecting that, but yeah, this is all downstream of structural incentives so fixes are only going to happen through legislative ch…

> Health care, housing, and education are the big three drivers of mandatory expenses in most peoples' lives In every developed country two of those are basic human rights, and you get them free even if you’ve never worked simply because you don’t want to. Every developed country except one, that is.

It's not possible for any of these to be "basic human rights", regardless of what rhetoric may be employed by states seeking to assert centralized political control over their provision. Goods and services that must be actively supplied by other people cannot be rights.

Rights are norms that protect people's inherent rights unto themselves as baseline rules we use to negotiate society in the first place. They can't pertain to things that can only be obtained within society.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#323

Post by bluGill »

carlosjobim wrote: post #298
bluGill wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of factors. Some things are worse than the past. However other things are better. There is no universal correct weighting of these different factors. In general I think that nobody would be willing to go far back in time. You don't need YouTube, but would you want to live without it? How about electric lights? Safe drinking water? Flush toilets?

It depends on what your situation would be and where, when you go back in time. Most people in the world today live in absolute misery, so that's not much argument. The enormous abundance of game animals in the past is just one factor which is mostly forgotten today. In a world without clocks, no electric lights are needed. The safest and highest quality drinking water comes from springs and streams, still today. Flu…

Game animals were rarely that in abundance. It happened after plagues but then populations rebounded and life was a constant struggle.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#324

Post by repeekad »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #169
repeekad wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does being in a city “naturally” mean less home ownership? More demand and higher prices yes, but you also should be earning more and dense housing projects should be trivial to justify. It’s legislation all the way down, politicians protect the interests of the wealthy who want to rent seek regardless of location. Look at how mamdani got a common sense luxury home tax in NYC, before that ultra wealthy owned mult…

One thing soviet commies did right was housing builds. Build factory for city blocks, then just pop them up, constantly, keeping the line busy. It should really be city that is building the new housing (even if in the end it gets subcontracted, at least the top level have vested interest in keeping the quality and cost in check). Maybe even offer some rent-to-own programs where part of rent gets put into savings that…

China and their ghost cities of unoccupied high rises would say otherwise

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#325

Post by rawgabbit »

profdevloper wrote: post #309
loudmax wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also need immigration because it grows the GDP, makes for a dynamic and resilient economy, increases scientific and technological output and raises the standard of living. Immigration is what made America great.

I think immigration from developing nations does raise the standard of living for the immigrant (e.g. India), but not for the host nation -- it's called "regression to the mean". As far as GDP goes, I always think of this: > Two economists are walking in a forest when they Come across a pile of shit. > The first economist says to the other "Ill pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit." The second economist takes the $1…

That’s funny. Here’s one.

Lawyer: “Can a foreign citizen donate to a U.S. campaign?”

Judge: “No.”

Lawyer: “What if we put millions of them into a multinational corporation first?”

Judge: “Now you’re speaking constitutional law.”

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#326

Post by cpburns2009 »

jimberlage wrote: post #258
ecshafer wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more specific, I dont think owning a sfh to rent out should be good. But building an apartment complex should be a good investment. Unrestrict building, and tax underutilized land.

I think the problem with getting this done in the US is the lack of public transit and the dysfunction in public schools. If you could avoid a $700 car payment and still get to school/job/grocery store on time, a lot of Americans would. But if you can't, and you are paying $700 anyways, why not at least use the fact that you're paying $700/month to travel anywhere and get a bigger parcel of land all to yourself? Ther…

No body is forced to have a $700 car payment. That's a luxury financing $30k+ on a brand new or nearly new car.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#327

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ipdashc wrote: post #112
GodelNumbering wrote: post #33

There was a youtube video sometime ago that argued about how life has vastly improved in every single aspect (with numbers about how 'stuff' has gotten universally more affordable), only housing has gotten more expensive relative to income and how that proves we have a better quality of life because of that. It got me thinking that maybe the home ownership, or having a place you can call yours, disproportionately aff…

> disproportionately affects people's sense of content and wellbeing It's probably not just homeownership, but the cost of real estate as a whole. And not even just residential. Isn't the often-lamented "loss of third places" at least in part due to those places not being able to pay rent unless they heavily monetize? I've also heard the theory that the arts often take off in an area when real estate prices drop and…

The arts are often the first step towards gentrification. The artists move in for the cheap rent, then the rest see all the arts and think "I want to live there!" Then pretty soon the artists can't afford it any more and move somewhere else.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#328

Post by carlosjobim »

bluGill wrote: post #323
carlosjobim wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what your situation would be and where, when you go back in time. Most people in the world today live in absolute misery, so that's not much argument. The enormous abundance of game animals in the past is just one factor which is mostly forgotten today. In a world without clocks, no electric lights are needed. The safest and highest quality drinking water comes from springs and streams, still today. Flu…

Game animals were rarely that in abundance. It happened after plagues but then populations rebounded and life was a constant struggle.

You've been told that life was a constant struggle, you weren't there. Many would say that life today is a constant struggle.

But we have abundant evidence in art, architecture, inventions, and every fruit of human creativity, showing that people weren't in a constant struggle.

Especially, we have evidence in literature from the past, giving a more nuanced picture than that of constant struggle for everyone everywhere.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#329

Post by mrguyorama »

mchusma wrote: post #201
ecshafer wrote: post #192

Housing can not be a viable asset class, or it will continue to rise in prices. Step 1 is Land Value Taxes. Step 2 is remove/greatly reduce zoning, allow construction and streamline the process. If you allow density, building up, and incentivize it, then it will be built. Developers spend tens of thousands of dollars in permits and interest payments before they can put a shovel in the ground. Being a landlord isn't r…

The issue is not investment at all, we want more investment into housing. But you are absolutely correct you cannot both want housing to be a good investment (increase in value faster than inflation) and an affordable (drop in price lower than inflation). Don’t subsidize demand. Allow more supply. Private homeowners, big developers, all of the above. Build.

And when "Just build more" doesn't work because private builders have no incentive to build a million dirt cheap starter homes for a mediocre profit and instead focus on building a few mcmansions?

We have a lot of building going on where I am. It's all for $500k homes. Nobody builds cheap one or two bedroom homes on tiny plots of land because the target consumer is more constrained and therefore far less profitable.

So much of the problems in the US right now is that capitalism optimizes for maximum profit, not any profit. It isn't sufficient in the US business culture to run a business that merely employs a bunch of people and produces things, because in the US, the "business" exists to be an asset class for the extremely wealthy.

So if the free market has no interest in serving people with less money than god, what do we do then?

I don't know why people believe there is a regulatory impediment to building a home outside of a city core. My dad is a contractor and he serves pretty much exclusively rich (gay) tech bros who fled california to increase our cost of living here in maine because nobody else can pay what they pay. His clients that don't fit that mold all inherited a good mid sized business or are well connected families. He does this instead of the plan he had a decade ago to refurbish or build about 10 new homes on a specific plot because it's literally twice as profitable at 1/100th the effort. Instead of working himself into an early grave, he can work 25 hours a week and live as upper middle class with his $100k pickup truck that is owned by his business.

Re: New US homeownership measure puts people first

#330

Post by rightbyte »

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #311
PunchyHamster wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing soviet commies did right was housing builds. Build factory for city blocks, then just pop them up, constantly, keeping the line busy. It should really be city that is building the new housing (even if in the end it gets subcontracted, at least the top level have vested interest in keeping the quality and cost in check). Maybe even offer some rent-to-own programs where part of rent gets put into savings that…

> One thing soviet commies did right was housing builds I disagree. I have yet to see a nice-place-to-live low-income project. In USA Russia Brazil or Southeast Asia.

There are plenty in e.g. East Berlin. High rises with alot of parks around.

You need to imagine them as they were new though.

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