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

economist.com

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

#421

Post by rootos »

effingwewt wrote: post #334
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…

And it gets better! They now have the added buffer of rental/leasing agencies! Many of these are fly-by-night and skirt or outright ignore inconvenient laws like renter's rights. Repairs? Cost sink, just don't renew complaintant's lease. Bonus you get to raise the rent again! Want to get in touch with the owner? Most times you'll have to look up tax records and hope it's actually in the owner's name. Makes rental pro…

Rental/leasing agencies can ignore laws...but the courts don't. And the machinery of law enforcement, from bailiffs to cops to IRS revenue agents, keep both sides somewhat in line.

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

#422

Post by TrueSlacker0 »

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.

"If my father croaks and leaves me $1m it should count as an additional $1m of income to me that year. "

If it is $1m in property value, do you count that as still $1m of income? If so unless the child is in great financial situation with a lot of already liquid cash, they would be forced to sell part/all of the property to pay the taxes.

If a parent croaks and has a small business, mom and pop style. How would that be handled? If they had a small corner store making 100k/profit but has no assets vs a shop that sells very expensive equipment making 100k/yr in profit. But has hundreds of thousand in assets that would pass down.

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

#423

Post by Tiktaalik »

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…

> home is incentivized to ensure their investment is maximized and that results in a lot of NIMBYism

I'm not sure a lot of NIMBYism comes from the notion of protecting home values.

If a home were to be upzoned for apartments the underlying land value would rise significantly, and this would be a significant financial windfall for the home owner. They should want to see their land be upzoned for apts but that's not what we see.

I think NIMBYism derives from the desire for exclusivity. When ones home and surrounding homes are ultra low density you are guaranteed to have few neighbours. This is what is eliminated when homes are rezoned for apartments.

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

#424

Post by choko »

dwater wrote: post #74
choko wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have all that and more. There are even groups that seek people out to teach them to vote. When you file a change of address with the post office, they send you a packet with all kinds of moving resources including how to re-register. In addition, a really quick Google search gives you all you need to know to register and vote. I don't understand why some people pretend the process is difficult. If people still are…

55% of Americans have hourly jobs, most of which do not control their hours. There are many polling places, particularly in underserved communities, where it can take multiple hours to get to vote. Elections are nearly always held on workdays. So if you are a single parent working an hourly wage job from 8am to 6pm and the polls close at 7pm, would you vote? The voting process is difficult in America for some people…

The vast majority of states have no excuse absentee voting and/or early in-person voting options. In addition, employees are legally required to allow time off to vote, though in the overwhelming majority of states, the early voting options make this unnecessary.

https://www.vote.org/early-voting-calendar/

If people want to participate, they have many options.

I've found that if you need to argue edge cases (single parent, hourly schedule that almost completely overlaps poll hours, no absentee, no early voting or mail-in, and an employer that violates law) as you have in your post, you do not have a compelling argument.

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

#425

Post by wikitopian »

Let's surround single family urban homes with high density apartment complexes and low income housing, and then act big mad when those people paying all the taxes and propping up the local public schools up and leave.

All of these trendy YIMBY schemes are great. All they need is a proviso requiring all the targets of the schemes to stick around while their neighborhoods and schools go downhill.

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

#426

Post by reillyse »

People in the comments here seem stuck in the weeds around various laws and tax incentives.

The overarching issue is that housing (something everyone needs) is being treated as an asset class.

As an asset class people who own it want it to increase in price which gives the government an incentive to maintain and increase this value.

Unfortunately this makes it more and more expensive for people who need housing.

Decoupling housing from investment is the solution but it is politically unpalatable now given the state we are in.

That is the real problem. Everything else is just a symptom of it.

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

#427

Post by ChadNauseam »

infogulch wrote: post #357

A couple ideas for how to fix some real estate problems: 1. A zoning rule that requires home owners to live in the owned home. This would prevent remote/foreign money from meddling with local housing in particular areas, and prevents big corps from buying up all the homes and forcing people to lease them out. Some people want to lease though, so that's why I think it's more appropriate as a zoning tool for particular…

5. Make it legal to build more houses

We got into this hole by making it illegal to build. For example, it is illegal to build a building with 5 or more homes in 90% of San Francisco. (Buildings with 3 or more homes are illegal in 70%.)

I appreciate galaxy-brained legislation as much as the next policy wonk, but the solution in this case is simple. Making it legal to build homes → greater supply of homes. Greater supply → lower prices.

Ever notice that cars are not that expensive, even though many people absolutely need them and they're very complex machines with high safety standards? It helps that it's legal to build them.

Our current situation is like if we made it illegal to produce new cars. Cars would get really expensive, and you'd had a bunch of people saying maybe you shouldn't be able to write off your rental car depreciation, or own a car you aren't driving, and that producing more cars can't possibly be the solution because most new cars are "luxury cars" and how exactly does more luxury cars help the car affordability problem again?

Sorry, that got off the rails a bit. It's possible that some of your suggestions would be necessary too. But when you find yourself in a hole, your first step to getting out is to stop digging.

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

#428

Post by goodpoint »

horsawlarway wrote: post #227
goodpoint wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost never. Housing has always been a basic necessity for survival. Only when feudal societies developed you had landlords and serfs and that's hardly something to be proud about.

> feudal societies developed Sooo... the last thousand some years, given that feudalism was widespread by the 11th century (and housing was absolutely an investment before that). Basically - half of recorded history (~400bc for Europe), and longer than the United States has existed. I don't understand what you think this comment means...

Please refresh your memory around the topic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human#History

> and housing was absolutely an investment before that

..and don't make absurd generalizations. Humanity is way older that the middle ages, and hundreds of different cultures existed around the world even during the middle ages.

Very few had the concept of investment and the idea a house has a monetary value that grows significantly over time was simply unheard.

> longer than the United States has existed.

Imperial units are bad but measuring history in united-states is even worse. The US is not even 250 years old.

> I don't understand what you think this comment means...

I can see that.

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

#430

Post by Tiktaalik »

axg11 wrote: post #141
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…

When was housing not an investment? Throughout history, people have always wanted to drive up the value of their land and properties. There are still plenty of places in the US/Canada/UK where housing is cheap. The problem is that nobody wants to live in those areas.

It's always been an investment, but the difference is the shift from being a stable asset that appreciated at or above inflation, to the sort of incredible hyper inflation that we now see.
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