Live data from Hacker News

Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

wired.com

41–50 of 72 posts

Re: Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

#42

Sadly, this solution never works in the real world.

Tell this to the Citizens of Vienna and Singapore, where the landlord is the State, or not for profit orgs propped up by the State.

What. No. In Singapore the state-built apartments (HDB flats) are sold not lent to the Singaporeans/permanent residents.

The state does not operate as a landlord. Most of the population owns their property here.

Re: Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason for this could be a lack of people coming into the country that need a home. If the number of people entering a country is minimal, the demand won't go up, and almost everyone can afford a home. If there are far more people entering then homes get chopped up into apartments and each rented out for the same price the whole house would've been rented for a few years ago. Landlords in this situation are just…

I’d have thought the pressure of immigration on housing needs is lower than the pressure of centralized wealth creation? I have no sources just an intuition. London and Amsterdam are a good example of this

What is centralised wealth creation?

Re: Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

#45
post #17

> Now, Colossal Order says, it will be based on a household’s income: “Even if they currently don’t have enough money in their balance to pay rent, they won’t complain and will instead spend less money on resource consumption.” Good idea, negative reward for increased income. Sounds like a socialist utopia. I believe a better option would be to remove mortgages. I have a few reasons for this: 1. Houses are priced bas…

> It doesn't add up. It adds up when you realise that the number of people entering the country (by birth or net legal/illegal immigration or asylum) is far higher than the number of new homes being built.

I have observed the new European right-wing neo-liberal sunrise with great interest, and I think the "people entering the coutry", aka "asylum seekers and other pesky poor people I don't like" (where there still is social housing) or "IT professionals and bank boys and all those pesky rich hipsters I don't like" (for gentrified/gentrifying cities) are a much smaller part of the problem than it seems. It is easy to blame them because they are foreigners and thus don't vote, and it makes "externalising" the problem (which is multifaceted, complex, and absolutely the fault of the current generation of politicians/investors and the middle class) easy - it gives you a super simple "guilty party" you can smack at with a baton and feel good about it. Where as you might be a part of the problem (that lovely single family home you have invested in so well could have been a 4-story housing unit for 4 families, but it wouldn't have been your investment pot, wouldn't it?)

I think NIMBYism and financialisation of housing in general is the actual problem here. If it is a financial instrument to invest into a mortgage or development and you can expect those insane returns simply by being able to "afford" a home - you will naturally be skewed towards making homes more expensive and less available, as scarcity raises value. Where I am it is the trope of the last year or two in politics that "those pesky foreigners have gobbled up all the real estate", all the while construction is regulated up the wazoo, older people do not allow hardly an electricity cabinet to be built even if they can see it with binoculars...

It is in the interest of those who bought their houses early and for cheap (some - even before the Euro) and (some) paid off the mortgages. Since pension schemes are getting dismantled, and solidarity is decreasing - a lot of people tend to see "selling the big house" as their only plausible way to have savings that do not depreciate and do not get taxed. And they sure AF do not want housing to be more affordable, because their pretty single-family home will become more affordable too. Boo boo foreigners.

Naturally they would not want this investment to depreciate.

Mortgages not balanced with rents are certainly a problem, as are fiscal benefits to those taking mortgages (and the general neo-liberal thing with taxing investment way less than income). But the biggest issue IMO is the fact that housing is investment first, basic need second. This needs to change if folks in populated western countries want to live... somewhere.

Re: Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

#46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell this to the Citizens of Vienna and Singapore, where the landlord is the State, or not for profit orgs propped up by the State.

What. No. In Singapore the state-built apartments (HDB flats) are sold not lent to the Singaporeans/permanent residents. The state does not operate as a landlord. Most of the population owns their property here.

>Most of the population owns their property here.

...as a direct result of government policy that discourages landlording.

Re: Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

#47
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but a decent solution would be to regulate landlords. Of course any blue blooded american will cringe at the R-word.

Really? Isn't it the republicans who are vehemently against regulation and not the democrats?

The “blue” in blue blood does not refer to Democrat, rather to patrician upbringing.

Re: Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

#48
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't add up. It adds up when you realise that the number of people entering the country (by birth or net legal/illegal immigration or asylum) is far higher than the number of new homes being built.

I have observed the new European right-wing neo-liberal sunrise with great interest, and I think the "people entering the coutry", aka "asylum seekers and other pesky poor people I don't like" (where there still is social housing) or "IT professionals and bank boys and all those pesky rich hipsters I don't like" (for gentrified/gentrifying cities) are a much smaller part of the problem than it seems. It is easy to bl…

> It is easy to blame them because they are foreigners and thus don't vote

I don't care if people vote. That doesn't inform my opinion on supply and demand.

> asylum seekers and other pesky poor people I don't like

If you're saying something that only attacks a person's imagined character, and not their argument, you shouldn't say it.

> If it is a financial instrument to invest into a mortgage or development and you can expect those insane returns simply by being able to "afford" a home

It's become a financial instrument because of the likelihood of future increase in demand vs supply.

Re: Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason for this could be a lack of people coming into the country that need a home. If the number of people entering a country is minimal, the demand won't go up, and almost everyone can afford a home. If there are far more people entering then homes get chopped up into apartments and each rented out for the same price the whole house would've been rented for a few years ago. Landlords in this situation are just…

I’d have thought the pressure of immigration on housing needs is lower than the pressure of centralized wealth creation? I have no sources just an intuition. London and Amsterdam are a good example of this

Huh? I'd have said Amsterdam is actually a real good example of immigration driving up rents. When covid happened, Amsterdam rates actually went down, whereas they kept going up in the rest of the nation. Why: the expats stopped coming.

Re: Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords

#50
post #5

[flagged]

China has higher home ownership than the US "Today China is a country of homeowners with more than 90% of households owning homes (87% in urban and 96% in rural China) (Clark, Huang, & Yi, 2019). At the same time, more than 20% Chinese households own multiple homes, higher than many developed nations (Huang et al., 2020)"

[deleted]
Post reply on HN