171–180 of 395 posts
An irrelevant sideshow. If they made housing plentiful and cheap then nobody would buy it for any reason other than shelter.
Not realistic. There will always be a constraint on the best locations and zoning laws, typically reinforced by the self-interest of landowners in those locations, apply a further constraint on the density of dwellings in these locations.
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I’ve talked with a friend in NZ who have recently purchased 5 houses all to rent, all have mortgages, and none in expensive cities (think South Island outside CHCH and Queenstown). They work full time in Auckland in a business they run. The housing crisis has been this way since at least 2000 or so. It won’t change until: - Stamp duty for buying rentals / converting to rentals, maybe 10-20% - Limit the number of exis…
Is there a reason increasing supply wouldn't be an easier solution?
New Zealand has a similar housing problem. House prices are skyrocketing and pricing out young people. A 25-30% rise in the past year has meant few people are saving fast enough to get a deposit. But two or three years ago the govt. banned overseas buyers. There is no reason to suggest the ban is not effective. It even bans non-permanent residents, so plenty of legitimate residents (work visas) can't purchase propert…
Could it be as simple as money being funneled through NZ nationals to buy up houses? I mean housing prices are up everywhere it seems, one could think there's an evil shadowy cabal of rich investors buying up properties. But, and I'm not an economist or anything here, on the other hand there's a few forces pushing average people to it; we've recovered from the housing crisis from 2008 onwards. Savings account interes…
Why would they have to be evil, shadowy or a cabal? All you need is wealth inequality.
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> They just rent it out. This is not the case in some prominent housing markets (London & NYC come to mind). There are owners who purchase the properties as a way to store wealth in the US. These dwellings frequently sit empty most of the time.
The Dutch had a great system where buildings that had been empty for over a year could be squatted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting_in_the_Netherlands I learned about it after a trip to OT301 with some friends from the CouchSurfing meetup in Amsterdam in 2013. Apparently the law has changed though, and now people are being criminally charged for squatting empty buildings.
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A colleague told me about the setup in their home country some weeks ago, I _think_ that was the Dutch one, excuse my fuzzy memory... Once your €1500 tenant leaves, you have 3 or 6 months to find the next one. If not, the city will offer your place in parallel as social housing and you'll get €400 (flat rate for the whole municipality per size band) if that gets filled first. On a three year contract. Makes for a ver…
It's good and I wouldn't complain if this was an outcome however better yet would be a system that allows people to buy their own homes. One of the major pitfalls and imo systemic national security risks in Europe are the high income tax rates. This coupled with foreign investment in the property market means that regular Europeans are effectively priced out of the market with no way back in. Long term this is a craz…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve talked with a friend in NZ who have recently purchased 5 houses all to rent, all have mortgages, and none in expensive cities (think South Island outside CHCH and Queenstown). They work full time in Auckland in a business they run. The housing crisis has been this way since at least 2000 or so. It won’t change until: - Stamp duty for buying rentals / converting to rentals, maybe 10-20% - Limit the number of exis…
Is there a reason increasing supply wouldn't be an easier solution?