Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty • Hacker News Board

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#291

Post by cptaj » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

emptyfile wrote: post #257

mcv wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's possible. I admit I haven't been keeping up, and my knowledge of squatting stems mostly from the 1990s, when I was a student. I still think it's a very pragmatic way to fight real estate speculation. But my impression is that Amsterdam doesn't have a big problem with buildings sitting empty, so if squatting is illegal again, I guess they've found a different way to prevent it? I have no idea what that is, thou…

Wow, so every word of your post is probably wrong. Do you not see the problem with the most upvoted and seemingly informative comment on the thread being, at the very least, 20-30 years out of date?

Hah, I do see one heck of a problem. Specially how he describes squatting in such a positive light.

You're fucking stealing. Its not positive. Housing policy can be fixed without normalizing stealing.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#292

Post by ahoy » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #290

lawlessone wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>are at a historical minimum of empty houses available, yet the spanish population is migrating from smaller cities to the big ones. So doing this in Barcelona actually makes sense then?

I read that as "the properties aren't empty", not "there are lots of people keeping empty properties off the market".

Doesn't that make empty properties especially offensive then?

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#293

Post by crazygringo » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

kabacha wrote: post #202

crazygringo wrote: post #201

In this conversation, it seems like people ignore the fact that there's a societal benefit to leaving buildings empty, at least in economic theory. Which is that it's keeping the space open for more productive use in the long term. Suppose you own a storefront or apartment that could fetch $5K/month right now, but you think it will fetch $10K/month in 3 years, and that leases are 10 years long. Well, the people/busin…

Your anecdote covers business leasing when the article discusses housing. Surely having a flat sit empty for years while people don't have any place to live in is a problem, right? Obviously there's an economic incentive here (why else would anyone leave the apartments empty?) but it just doesn't mean it's not a problem for the cities and their citizens.

> Surely having a flat sit empty for years while people don't have any place to live in is a problem, right?

If there were literally more people in Spain than there were housing units to hold them, then yes of course that would be a problem.

But it certainly doesn't appear to be the case here. This is mainly about small price differences -- forcing a small increase of short-term availability that will have the cumulative effect over lowering prices in one segment of the market slightly in the present.

It's not about finding physical space to house the homeless, for example, in a city bursting at its limits. That would be a legitimate moral problem, of course.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#294

Post by alexgmcm » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

bprieto wrote: post #267

tschellenbach wrote: post #76

It sounds nice, but the real question is why are people letting these building sit empty. There is probably a good reason for it. Maybe some renter protection laws that went too far?

This is exactly the case. Here in Spain it takes months, even a year to get a judge to evict a tenant that has stopped to pay rent. In the meantime, you need to keep paying for utilities or you will be fined, not the person not paying their rent. Even when you get them out, you could find a destroyed property, just for the sake of it, and you have to pay for the repair work. So just one stroke of bad luck with a tena…

And yet here in BCN the market is crazy.

The agency parasites are the worst - charging 10% of the annual rent just for giving you the keys and printing a copy of the contract.

I was fortunate enough to be able to rent my flat from a family friend, who was afraid of okupas if it was left empty.

That said I live far-out from the centre (which I prefer) and it is still much more expensive than when I arrived just 4 years ago.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#295

Post by crazygringo » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #226

crazygringo wrote: post #201

In this conversation, it seems like people ignore the fact that there's a societal benefit to leaving buildings empty, at least in economic theory. Which is that it's keeping the space open for more productive use in the long term. Suppose you own a storefront or apartment that could fetch $5K/month right now, but you think it will fetch $10K/month in 3 years, and that leases are 10 years long. Well, the people/busin…

No one is forcing the landlord to have a 10 year lease. They can lower the lease and have a short notice period. Now they get 3 years of some rent followed by 7 years of double rent.

Generally, no.

Most businesses won't sign a lease unless it's for much longer than 3 years -- they need to lock in a known rate long-term to plan a business around.

And with apartments, there are often rent regulations that prevent rent going up by more than x% per year, and you can be sure that if annual increases are 5% but the market doubles, those tenants are going to stay for as many decades as they possibly can.

If landlords could get a profitable tenant for 3 years and then be guaranteed they'd leave, then there wouldn't be the "problem" of vacant properties in the first place.

In fact, that's one of the motivations behind the "pop-up stores" that have recently become a thing in places like NYC -- a business takes over an empty storefront for just a summer or something like that, so the landlord makes a little $, but the tenant is guaranteed to leave. The problem is, there just aren't that many viable pop-up store businesses.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#296

Post by parthdesai » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

l4yao wrote: post #225

parthdesai wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, appreciate the level headed discussion and some very sound points that you bring. I dug through insideairbnb more and it's actually 12,374 (65%) units that are listed as entire unit in Toronto. That absolutely is a very significant amount of units. Only about 7k of the listings are either shared room/private room. Data: http://insideairbnb.com/toronto/?neighbourhood=&filterEntire... > Lets say anyone re…

>it's actually 12,374 (65%) units that are listed as entire unit I had filtered out the 3300 "Entire home/apt" listings that were available for 0 days a year. Not sure why it's part of the dataset, but I assume it's for people with previously active listings. I'm not really understanding the mortgage point, but you bring up an interesting point of treating "multi-listing" hosts as bad actors. If we approximate it by…

>I'm not really understanding the mortgage point, but you bring up an interesting point of treating "multi-listing" hosts as bad actors. If we approximate it by saying 45% of 9550 are bad actors, that's still only 4300 listing. That's still tiny relative to the Toronto rental market. To be fair, the realistic number could be a lot lower since a multi-listing host might be hosting multiple bedrooms in a single house and inflating the # of multi-listing hosts, or they might be hosting their primary residence and an investment property where only the investment property is a bad actor.

So, here's another article i found on BBC, and tbh i hadn't even considered this point. A lot of airbnb units usually are in more desirable neighbourhoods, thus decreasing supply of rental units in these areas and in turn increasing the price of available units to rent. Renting on Airbnb nets you 2-3x the median long term rent. In LA, almost half of Airbnb listings were clustered in seven neighbourhoods, where rents increased a third more quickly than the city average.

Now if this is isn't a direct enough proof, i'm pretty sure i won't be changing your point of view.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45083954

> wonder if a study may exist that shows the economic benefits of Airbnb in communities, keeping more of the income within local residents, patronage to a larger spread of local businesses, greater financial independence from self-employment etc...

I haven't really thought of that, but you also have to remember that this is Toronto (specifically near and around downtown) , and it is going to get tourists regardless of Airbnb. And what happens to local shops when a unit is vacant for 4-5 days a week?

>t's become a major echo chamber where fact based level headed discussion is quickly down voted if the rhetoric doesn't fit the majority's views

Yeah, to be really honest I can't deny that.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#297

Post by crazygringo » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

noobermin wrote: post #213

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. Maybe I'm missing something. I don't understand how more efficient rent-collection (and literal rent-collection at that) is productive. I mean, isn't it definitionally not "productive"? I mean you can make the argument that by being more efficient at rent collection over some time horizon you funnel more money to yourself and other local industries but isn't this basically just a cost to everyone else at every o…

Whenever this argument is made, there seems to be this conflation of "economically good" and "x made me money." Just because you make money (or make more money) doing something doesn't mean it's a net good for society.

Of course, but that's a much deeper issue. Today, we generally accept that in a free market without externalities, private profit = public good. If you disagree, you can take that up with Adam Smith and the invisible hand. ;)

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#298

Post by conanbatt » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

okr wrote: post #223

conanbatt wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bonkers line of argumentation. Speculation is not a productive activity. It is also potentially very destructive. A different argument would be to say that the seller of the property is putting the money to better use, but nevertheless speculation of land, particularly in big cities, is purely a legal issue and regulatory capture. Change taxes to LVT and watch them dissapear.

I am surprised to read on YC news, that speculation is not a productive activity. Is not the whole venturing idea an organized risk minimizing speculation adventure? I do not think anyone willingly spends part of their wealth into something, that they don't think, it's worth investing in. And i also think it is worth noting, that if there was then a future gain, that it had produced something, that others were willin…

Investment is not speculation. Its of course a game of definitions, but generally speaking both economists and financial literature separate them on their usefulness and advice.

> And i also think it is worth noting, that if there was then a future gain, that it had produced something, that others were willing to spend money on. So it must have been useful?

Starting by the conclusion here. People also willingly spend money on the lottery, or betting, and although it has some entertaining value, it would be to the detriment of society as a whole if investment were diverted into the speculation of games of chance.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#299

Post by cf141q5325 » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

narcindin wrote: post #279

cf141q5325 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wrong and not 30 years but 9 years out of date. I still think its noteworthy, that Amsterdam had such a rule for a long time until very recently. It shows that there are precedents for how to deal with empty buildings.

I think its noteworthy, but in the opposite manner. Amsterdam tried such a rule and then got rid of it. What do the Dutch know about the costs of this rule that isn't in this conversation?

It wasnt a cost benefit analysis. It was a moral opposition to the idea of squatting after a rise of the far right into parliament and reporting that put squatters in the corner of left wing terrorists.

We can learn that certain people oppose the idea of squatters on a moral level. I dont think thats a surprising new finding.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#300

Post by zulln » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

ahoy wrote: post #292

vonmoltke wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that as "the properties aren't empty", not "there are lots of people keeping empty properties off the market".

Doesn't that make empty properties especially offensive then?

There has never been as few empty properties as there is now (according to parent comment). As such, it should be less of a problem now than before? Not the other way around?