Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake • Hacker News Board

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#401

Post by ihattendorf » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #188

dbetteridge wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the article agrees with you? It primarily talks about the unfairness of the current system, the NIMBY problem reducing housing stock and the issue of regulations intended to curb new building reducing the stock of houses so that only the elite and existing homeowners can afford them. The section on renting/alternatives is mainly just a discussion about alternatives to the current unfair approach and some cases…

Buying a house for 10% down all in would be a dream in the majority of the US. Yes, FHA or FDA allow 3.5% or even 0% down in some circumstances but you're going to end up in an undesirable area (FDA) and be paying hundreds a month for mortgage insurance (both FHA and FDA). Which, while it sounds like something everyone should have, is you paying for the bank's insurance in case you default on the mortgage. To avoid t…

We recently purchased in a large US metro area all-in for ~6% out of pocket. It didn't make sense for us to pay > 5% down on a conventional loan with interest rates below 3%. Depending on who you go with PMI rates can be as low as 0.25% of the loan value/year (~$20/month per 100k) if you have good credit.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#402

Post by Smaug123 » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

throwaway316943 wrote: post #353

chii wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did the owner construct the land? The land itself had to be acquired somehow. The very first owner paid for an army to take the land from the indigenous population that "owned" it, and that "cost" is a chain that is linked all the way to today (and at every step of the transaction, somebody profits by increasing the price a bit). So either you raise another army today (at an even greater cost) to acquire the land,…

It’s not just the acquisition of the land but also the investment in the economy that surrounds the land. All land starts out near worthless and in the middle of no where. Generations of sacrifice and investment are what turns it into a highly valuable property. That process can also reverse if the owner ceases to improve the property and invest in the community.

That's what Georgism is about: fully separating those two concepts. The land is valuable because of the community; the property is valuable because of its owner. So under Georgism, all land is held under common ownership, with the land's value being entirely taxed away from its occupier, allowing you to profit personally only by improving the property and supplying value to others thereby.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#403

Post by mcwalshq » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

Housing markets all over the world have significantly increased their value since the Boomer era. We should try to secure property even we resort to renting to own or similar to that, not just blindly renting throughout our whole life.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#404

Post by shuckles » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

stepbeek wrote: post #52

shuckles wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easy to say this as someone wealthy enough to spend time commenting on online forums. What is the economic externality of urban infill development?

> It’s easy to say this as someone wealthy enough to spend time commenting on online forums This feels a little ad-hominem. I criticised the argument laid out in the article. Do you agree with the point made in the article? If so, why?

You’re making the point that GDP is not a perfect measure, without offering any that are better. It’s easy to wonder who economic growth helps when you are in the diminished marginal returns part of the curve.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#405

Post by lucian1900 » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #307

lucian1900 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have described very well the limits of social democracy, indeed. Ceding any ground to markets and capital ends up eroding any gains won by the working class. Similar happened after capitalism was restored in Eastern Europe. Even though housing was built and maintained just fine for many decades, very little was built or maintained after 89 since there was no profit in it.

This is absolutely false. I have lived in many of these communist buildings, and the reality here is that these buildings are built so extremely badly and without any consideration of the surrounding that nothing can be done. The communists used toxic materials, didn't care about maintenance and simply built a wall where a maintenance shaft should've been, didn't care about safety, didn't care about families sharing…

It does vary, there’s some bad ones in România too. Still, most were pretty good. To this day they form the vast majority of housing stock.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#406

Post by lucian1900 » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #354

fogihujy wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My original point was just that; public housing is not something you just do with a one-time investment, and it requires a serious long-term commitment to keep it viable. I agree that many of the previous projects failed to commit to keeping those buildings in shape and I also doubt that any modern democracy would ever commit to such endeavours in the future; nobody wants to make very expensive, very long-term promis…

You said that "very little was built or maintained after 1989". The exact opposite is true - before 1989 there was a moderate amount of newly constructed incredibly dangerous and toxic buildings violating every urbanistic rule and past plans that were a major downgrade from pre-war comfort (keep in mind that these buildings were built in 1970's, 30 years after the war); and there was absolutely zero maintenance, any…

The Romanian economy was in a bad shape in the 80s mostly because we were forced to pay back IMF loans early, while under trade sanctions. The loans were taken to build up production in order to export goods, but we weren’t allowed to export much beyond food. It’s a common tactic used against socialist countries.

The economy recovered eventually because the strangling eased, after one last massive robbery through the devaluation of our currency.

Eventually the building of housing resumed as well, but so much of it is of extremely poor quality. Many friends that bought new builds complained they are of poorer quality than the flats they grew up in. Only in the past few years has it become possible to reliably find good quality new builds, but few can afford them. And even now, the vast majority of housing stock is still from before 89.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#407

Post by FredPret » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

michael1999 wrote: post #387

FredPret wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toronto went through an insane boom, yes, but there was a period in I think the 90’s that was very quiet for property values, so some of it may have been pent-up demand. And now they’re building like crazy, with people leaving in droves. Hopefully that’ll depress prices long-term.

The Toronto area consistently adds >100k people each year, and added a full mega-person in the last 5. We have never built units for 100k beds in any year in the last 20. Don't hold your breath.

I wonder how many beds are under construction right now. We may be only two out of that mega-person (lol) but we’re headed to a lake or another province within a year.

Condo rents have absolutely tanked, by the way

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#408

Post by mycentstoo » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

In my opinion, at some point, there will be a lot more voters who don't have houses than there are that do. When that happens, there will be a strong incentive to level the playing field and increase property taxes, reduce tax benefits and in general, degrade some of the financial incentives to have a house.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#409

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

bovine3dom wrote: post #389

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't giving up your garden: it's swapping it for a much larger shared garden with facilities you could never dream of affording on your own. And for some people, that's great. For me, not living in a flat in the city (quite the opposite) isn't because I want a garden and facilities all my own. It's because you can't control how terrible your neighbors are, so if they're farther away from where you spend most of…

Most of those problems could be solved by good noise insulation which is fairly cheap to add during construction. Terraced houses are common in the UK and are the worst of all worlds: poor noise insulation from neighbours, tiny dark gardens and very low density.

> solved by good noise insulation

You've obviously never met my neighbors. But noise is just one example; far more annoying when I was in an apartment was someone smoking below my balcony on a hot night when all I wanted was to open the windows.

And I suppose you'll tell me that filtration systems could take care of that, which is true, but staying locked in a closed apartment is, as has been recently shown, terrible for your health, physically and emotionally.

It's no use, I shall keep my yard and clear, dark skies where you can see the stars, and wildlife.

Re: Home ownership is the West’s biggest economic-policy mistake

#410

Post by cannabis_sam » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

This a million times is true, every politician responsible for this garbage type of policy has robbed coming generations for their future.

It’s a deeply, deeply, deeply, vile and evil policy, perpetuated by completely incompetent politicians, high on their own power, 100% done for their own gain (how many politicians rent, just on average... )

Everyone who ever voted for this garbage is a literal thief... including every single property owner... (yes, my parents, your parents, everyone who owns a fucking house is responsible)

Expropriation really is the perfect solution to dealing with these assholes, trying to appropriate the future to pad their own pension..

Fuck ‘em, long and hard