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Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

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Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#271

Post by wyre »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #70
pochekailov wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only one question: why are they unwilling? Is it that hard? They won't be killed or tortured, like in Belarus or Russia, then why not?

I think a lot of young people just are ignorant about the situation coupled with the rise of populists on the left and the right, there's always some abstract other to blame without a focus on concrete problems and possible solutions. Whenever I talk to my young friends about Social Security's trust running dry in a decade they just handwave it away with stuff like: the government will just print more money or blame…

As a young person (28), I think it’s because we feel powerless in the face of what is to come.

Young people have no power because we largely are in the renter and working classes; while the home and business owners fight against every mention of renter protections, increased housing, worker protections, etc.

Not to mention we see the world we are growing up into is quickly becoming more and more inhabitable while living with the truth that the fossil fuel industry has been lying about climate change for 50 years.

Who are the populists you’re talking about? I can only think of Bernie and Yang. Trump isn’t a populist.

We aren’t ignorant either. We are a product of the social media machine and a decreasing faith in educational institutions. I think a lot of people are too scared of the future so they don’t think about it. Blaming an abstract for political problems has been a thing for long as politics as been around.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#272

Post by colinmhayes »

mistrial9 wrote: post #142
datacruncher01 wrote: post #132

It's a simple problem, we turned housing into an investment. Now everyone who owns a home is incentivized to ensure their investment is maximized and that results in a lot of NIMBYism. The simple solution is we need more housing in cities and suburbs. How we get there is an exercise that's taken on by local housing authorities and they are not incentivized to solve the problem. That's because they work for voters who…

> States are going to have to step in and override cities that aren't being effective surprise - this has already been signed in California; and amended, and further amended.. https://www.capradio.org/articles/2017/09/29/brown-brings-ho...

And SF has already tried bending over backwards to defang it. Luckily mayor Breed rejected the attempt, but it's far from over.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#273

Post by DubiousPusher »

aluminussoma wrote: post #250
DubiousPusher wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have been recently intrigued by FinTwit arguments that an excess of demand spurred by too low interest rates is the real reason for many shortages I don't believe this is the case as since 2008 the U.S. construction industry has not even built enough units to keep up with population growth. I believe this is a supply problem which is two-fold. 1) Restrictive zoning and permitting which really took off around the…

> I don't believe this is the case as since 2008 the U.S. construction industry has not even built enough units to keep up with population growth. I believe this is a supply problem which is two-fold. A counterargument to this is that population growth has not been very high in the past few decades: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=SUL3 You certainly have valid points, especially in San Francisco. Nevertheless, l…

Population growth has been lower but construction levels have been lower still. This is not speculation. It is fact.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/14/america-is-short-more-than-5...

The only parts which are speculative are why. There is consistently lower workforce participation in construction though, that is also a fact.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/construction-industry-after-r...

I'm glad the builders in your area have been able to work consistently. I would guess that they are likely riding a trend of a decreasing number of builders who are increasingly professionalized and technologized their operations. Regardless, that is an anecdote and the statistics paint a pretty clear picture.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#274

Post by squeaky-clean »

NoSorryCannot wrote: post #240
l33t2328 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what every parent hopes to leave their kids with: an obligation

Oooor they can sell it, as originally stated. Goodness. The point is reduce land entitlement a little bit. Yes, there's going to be some light incentive to cut loose and that's OK.

Wouldn't this just reduce land entitlement for those who aren't wealthy enough to afford the new taxes? I think something like taxes that apply for people who own more than 1 property would be better.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#275

Post by dionidium »

datacruncher01 wrote: post #132

It's a simple problem, we turned housing into an investment. Now everyone who owns a home is incentivized to ensure their investment is maximized and that results in a lot of NIMBYism. The simple solution is we need more housing in cities and suburbs. How we get there is an exercise that's taken on by local housing authorities and they are not incentivized to solve the problem. That's because they work for voters who…

> It's a simple problem, we turned housing into an investment.

People are not natural economists and will basically dig in to support the status quo until that status quo changes, at which point they'll support the new one. Americans, for example, buy new cars at an average new price of $40k and for most of my life accepted uncritically that the value of those cars would plummet the second they were driven off the lot. They did not lobby for supply restrictions that would prevent it. They didn't ask their politicians to prop up "car values." They didn't try to avoid it, at all. They just accepted it.

They would do the same with housing, if they weren't already conditioned not to.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#276

Post by rhacker »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #234
idkyall wrote: post #122

Housing in the US has gotten to where it is due to horrible laws effectively allowing total tax avoidance for landlords. Take some investment property. You buy it at some basis price, let's say 500k. You rent it out for 15k a year. Each year you can offset your rental income against deprecation of the property and property taxes - meaning, you pay no income tax on your rental income. ~30 years later, you've deprecate…

> unless your estate is over 12 million dollars(and double that for a married couple), you pay no estate taxes. Why aren't estates just taxed as income to the entity who it goes to? If my father croaks and leaves me $1m it should count as an additional $1m of income to me that year.

how do you tax a house that isn't a dollar amount?

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#277

Post by wyre »

sleepydog wrote: post #121
29athrowaway wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then each renter will become a homeowner, they will feel very comfortable, have 4 kids, and now you will need 4x more units. Then their kids will have 4 kids, and you'll need 16x more units with respect to where you started. Few generations after you have a much deeper problem that the one you started with. Now you live in a country with a population of over 1 billion, where protests cannot be controlled anymore and…

I don't understand. The population in wealthy countries is growing very slowly. https://datacommons.org/tools/timeline#&place=country/USA&st... What makes you say that housing costs are the cause? I've not heard of that argument before.

Reminds me of this [1] post yesterday that because sedans can only fit 2 car seats parents don’t have a third child because they can’t afford a bigger car.

Maybe, parents are having less kids because they can’t afford to move to a place with an extra bedroom.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32491901

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#278

Post by t_mann »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #199
t_mann wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the ownership percentage is negligible, does that mean that most real estate is owned by a few super-wealthy, or who owns it then?

Who else would own it? The government?

In principle there are a few possibilities - foreigners, pension funds, banks, insurances or other corporations, endowment funds, publicly owned,... although most of these would seem more likely in a place like the US.

It's also conceivable that nobody really knows, that there is no common land registry that really matches the reality 'on the ground', ie the people considering themselves owners and receiving rents. In such a situation it would be very hard to make transactions, hence why it might appear impossible to buy real estate in some areas.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#279

Post by rhacker »

throwaway908724 wrote: post #214
idkyall wrote: post #122

Housing in the US has gotten to where it is due to horrible laws effectively allowing total tax avoidance for landlords. Take some investment property. You buy it at some basis price, let's say 500k. You rent it out for 15k a year. Each year you can offset your rental income against deprecation of the property and property taxes - meaning, you pay no income tax on your rental income. ~30 years later, you've deprecate…

Wow, I wish. I'm speaking as someone who put all his retirement savings into index funds year after year, but then married someone whose job is related to real estate. Real estate feels more concrete and understandable to her than finance, so that's where our money goes now. It's not easy free money, and I don't know why you would think that any high-profile, low-barrier-to-entry investment would be easy free money.…

It sounds like you're landlords, but you didn't explicitly state it. But isn't your tenant basically paying off each property, over the next 30 years. So right now your debt load may be high, but you're not experiencing that. You're just paying off the loans from rental income and handling the overage (prop tax and fixes) with the dev job. So in 30 years the two of you will have like 40M dollars paid over the backs of renters by selling all those properties..

I mean that's fine, it's legal. But if that's the goal of real-estate, then of course it will never be affordable to the next generations. Everyone wants to do what you are doing.

Re: Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

#280

Post by TaylorAlexander »

dionidium wrote: post #260
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of reasoning is flawed. The government can build housing so that people have places to rent, in a way that isn’t “an investment” in the profit-seeking sense. That’s what they do in Vienna and it seems to work great. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl... And then in Singapore they have very high home ownership rates, so we could also be dramatically reducing the number of people who…

I rented (by choice) for many years. I never once thought, "I wish the government were my landlord." The arrangement actually works pretty great just how it is. I was very happy to write that rent check every month and always felt like I got a good deal for my money, even when I lived in a very expensive market (NYC). In every case, I desired something that was very important to me and for which there's a lot of dema…

That the fact has not occurred to you personally does not mean such an arrangement in aggregate would not help solve the problem of housing as a profitable investment. Maybe you didn't think of this on your own accord, but I bet you WOULD have appreciated if the same unit was cheaper, and this would be the case if 50% of the housing in your market was public housing as is the case in Vienna, even if your unit was privately owned.

Plus your single example of being satisfied with your landlord is not evidence that we should accept landlords across the board. My own landlord sucks at repairing things that need repair, and I find it very frustrating.

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