My local grocery store has a “senior discount” of 10% off for anyone over 65. I find that sort of positive discrimination to be a gut punch to young families.
Priced out of home ownership
541–550 of 1001 posts
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#542Earlier quoted context omitted.
1000%. I will never get tired of teaching people (it's news to every single one of them!) that at any given time, there are more than 20 empty housing units in the United States for every single homeless person on the street ( https://www.self.inc/info/empty-homes/ ). There is not , nor has there ever been , anything resembling a "housing shortage". We live in a post-scarcity world as far as housing is concerned, and…
> I will never get tired of teaching people (it's news to every single one of them!) that at any given time, there are more than 20 empty housing units in the United States for every single homeless person on the street Are you suggesting we deport homeless people from cities with low vacancy rates, to cities with high vacancy rates? > There is absolutely no barrier to housing every single human being beyond greed. I…
Red states bus homeless to blue states, then blue states buss them right back until the problem is solved or one of them (the red state) runs out of money.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#543Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something about the tax position of letting mortgaged property. EDIT: I had misremembered. Landlords can still get a tax deduction for mortgage interest, but only at the 20% rate, not at their marginal tax rate. For most landlords with mortgages, this probably halves the tax credit. In the UK, if a private landlord receives £1000 in rent, and pays £800 in mortgage interest, they pay tax on the whole £1000, not just o…
> Why should a landlord be unable to deduct business expenses from revenue before calculating taxable profit, when all other businesses can? I think you nailed it. This is effectively the government saying "renting is not a business". Think about it. The ability to "deduct expenses" is one of the characteristics of businesses. Individuals also can't deduct rent, food etc from their taxes.
This just makes it easier for investors to outbid homebuyers. If you allow deductions on interest payments, why not for occupiers too? Of course that could open up a whole can of worms and potential loopholes for avoiding income taxes.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#544Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this also an issue in cities like Lisbon?
Lisbon is where the issue is the worst of all. When I had a job, I had to choose the office where I would work. I deliberately avoided the Lisbon office because I knew there was no realistic chance I would find a place to live there with my family with Portuguese wages.
sorry, I meant "more than half of the buildings even in expensive areas are boarded-up"
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#545People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…
The worlds population has doubled since 1974. In every country listed the rate of new building construction has stayed roughly constant or declined since then. You can explain this phenomenon with an Econ 101 supply and demand curve without need for any further elaboration.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#546The number of people that think owning property/a house is not only a “right” but “required” is *absurd*. It’s an idea pushed upon the “next” generation to prop up the value of their assets. :eyeroll:
On top of the weird collective delusion, most ignore the huge financial/time burden that is owning a home. It is not cheap, and anyone that tells you otherwise is *literally lying*.
There’s the never-ending maintenance that costs thousands per year in both money and time, small problems can cost thousands of dollars to fix, variable property taxes, variable insurance rates, having an asset worth being sued over, shitty neighbors that you can’t easily move away from, bad school districts, etc etc etc.
Is home ownership right for _some_ people? Sure. Is it right for the majority of people? Probably not. Should corporations be allowed to own housing? Hell no.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#547Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference showing that Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, and the US had either the same, or more dwellings per thousand inhabitants in 2011 than 2022? I don’t know if I’m just misunderstanding your point, or misreading the material, but that is also not an example of underutilization.
My point is that the relatively static proportion of people to dwellings in those countries over that period suggests that a supply shortage is not sufficient to explain the accommodation crisis. What I am suggesting is that incentives to invest in property have led to an increase in the number of properties that are not being used as a primary residence (i.e. are underutilised) and that that is the most significant…
I think you’d want to look at household size - 4 five person households need fewer houses than 10 two person households, even though the population is the same.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#548People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…
Lack of available dwellings is currently a huge problem here in Australia - the building industry is collapsing due to cost blowouts and most available builders are snapped up by a vastly more lucrative mining industry.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#549People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…
> is there maybe some other common cause? Immigration. It's not that immigrants buy up the houses (opposites, we tend to live cramped up in flat shares). It's that they support landlords profits (with cream on top of not knowing your rights) and have overall pressure on market. Building should at least match immigration/population growth. Also not building dense enough. Kiwis always tout "I wouldn't wanna live in a h…
I think people have the causality the wrong way around, the immigration is to prop up the economy. Price is set at the margins and even relatively small amounts of new immigration keeps pushing the margins up. Any successful attempts to fix the housing market, by reducing immigration or any other means, will implode the Ponzi economy. Absolutely no politician is going going to do that - you might as well hand them a grenade at ask them to pull the pin.
It's my view that this implosion will happen, just later, with less control and with more devastation.
Re: Priced out of home ownership
#550My local grocery store has a “senior discount” of 10% off for anyone over 65. I find that sort of positive discrimination to be a gut punch to young families.
adopt a granny to go shopping for you