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Priced out of home ownership

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Priced out of home ownership

#131

Post by jeffbee »

kevinmershon wrote: post #116
zenapollo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s another way to fix it. You can regulate financial speculators. In the US 1/4 of all US homes are owned by financial institutions. I doubt it’s very different in Europe unless they are regulated. This situation ensures only the rich can own a home as buyers are competing against hedge funds.

Yep. Homes can either be for shelter or for investment, but not both. We are experiencing this as a global culture. I dream of a 100% tax rate on second homes, foreign ownership, and corporations owning single family homes and condos. Or even better, make it illegal. But any politician who pushes such a bill would immediately get removed from office and the law repealed.

None that is going to make a lick of difference. Because of longevity, birth rates, and preferences for smaller households, America is short 30 million homes. You can't tweak your way out of this.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#132

Post by silverquiet »

tootie wrote: post #125
silverquiet wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the “just build houses” contingent seems unaware that people (and as Mitt Romney famously said, “corporations are people too”) can own more than one house. Supply is certainly an issue, but inequality is as well.

Mitt Romney was not talking corporate personhood. He meant corporations are run by human beings.

I don’t remember the context that well, so you may be correct about that, but I think I disagree with him then - I think corporations are made of humans, but they are machines (perhaps primitive AIs) and are as uncaring as a lawnmower.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#133

Post by jessekv »

unshavedyak wrote: post #98
floodle wrote: post #74

[flagged]

I dunno, spending years giving someone the same price as a mortgage (for me at least, back when i rented and decided to buy) and seeing almost nothing in return but convenience seems a pretty strong argument no? Yea, renting has some advantages. However in my view many people are simply too poor to spend that kind of money on the convenience of not managing a house. Is it more work and liability to own a home? Yes, d…

If your mortgage is the same as your rent, seems reasonable. In some housing markets, just servicing the interest on the mortgage is close to the cost of rent. Buying then becomes the "luxury option".

If you don't mind me asking, how much will borrowing cost you over the same 10 years?

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#134

Post by jeffbee »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #72
jeffbee wrote: post #59

None of the measures mentioned in the article — lower interest rates, lower transaction fees, down payment subsidies — will lower costs. Every one of them will raise prices. You can only fix this with supply: build homes.

They're building constantly here in Omaha, Nebraska. Affordable though? Apparently not. I mean if you have a lot for development are you going to build a $200K home or a $600K one on that lot?

It sounds like you have shifting baseline syndrome. Omaha last year built fewer houses than had built 25 years ago, but the city is a third larger than it was 25 years ago. So in fact it is building slower than it did in the past.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#135

Post by [deleted] »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #23
andrewstuart wrote: post #5

Society in UK, USA, AUS,Canada has been destroyed by housing as a financial instrument instead of……. housing. And politicians love every dollar of price increase. There’s the homeowners and the renters/serfs and nothing in between. Dead society, nothing to aim for or live for.

Politicians love every dollar? Regular people own the overwhelming majority of homes, and they love every dollar of increase. The finger pointing at corporations or politicians is totally misguided. It's the locals who collectively are invested in their homes and collectively (through the votes they cast) create the disastrous situation we are in. Even the most bleeding heart liberal is all about "protecting the char…

[deleted]

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#136

Post by User23 »

nomilk wrote: post #112

Given how abundant land is, does it imply that supply shortages are purely man-made? (e.g. policies not allowing large swaths of land to be built on). Otherwise it doesn't make sense that prices are high for a good (housing) whose primary input (land) is in great supply.

The primary input isn’t land, it’s tolerable neighbors. That is of course what “good school district,” “location, location, location,” and similar euphemisms actually mean.

If you have a high tolerance for crime and other antisocial behavior there is plenty of extremely affordable housing in major US cities with plenty of amenities like walkability and public transportation.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#137

Post by jncfhnb »

b112 wrote: post #130
jncfhnb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handouts to the homeowners does not feel like the right call here

Are you sure you a replying to the correct place? No one talked about handouts, just about building more senior style housing. Seniors can pay for that, especially after selling a house.

No they’re talking about subsidizing senior living facilities

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#139

Post by piva00 »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #123

Why doesn't the government build and sell housing at a small profit? Here in Dubai, the largest housing construction companies are or were government owned. It's one of the ways the government can have zero income tax despite oil being less than 1% of its economy. My only thought is that it's political, and some voters don't want their houses to lose value.

Because of neoliberal policies. Some governments around the world did incentivise and even footed the bill for building public housing before neoliberalism took hold; for example the Swedish Million Programme [0] built 1 million dwellings between 1965-1974 where the government took the risk on 66% of the building costs to be repaid by tenants over 30 years.

This system of building houses was completely scrapped by neoliberals, letting the "market" take control of supply with the government taking a background stance of mostly zoning out where they'd incentivise building new dwellings.

I can see in a not-so-distant future talks about this kind of program being reignited in politics, the neoliberal approach has absolutely failed us.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Programme

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#140

Post by jncfhnb »

cyberlurker wrote: post #100
jncfhnb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handouts to the homeowners does not feel like the right call here

Senior living centers are often atrocious and still can set people back over $10,000 a month. I think a program could be designed without being a handout. One option could be if you’re going into a government run senior living center you need to pass that money down to whoever was going to inherit it/receive it through donation. And that has to be a taxable event to cover the cost of the subsidy on senior living. Peo…

And if the old people don’t have enough wealth to cover the subsidy via taxes that they would have paid anyway just later on their inheritances?
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