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The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

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Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#601

Post by sien »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #262
jseliger wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city Portugal should build more housing, which is a simple, effective solution if the rent is too damn high: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-ren... . The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like.

How this usually works: "I'd do anything for lower housing prices!" Build more housing. "...but I won't do that."

This was posted a few days ago to /r/neoliberal and /r/yimby

https://old.reddit.com/r/yimby/comments/wz3tq0/anything_but_...

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#602

Post by niemandhier »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #573
mensetmanusman wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one has found or discovered such policies that work across-the-board.

Because no western country has tried lowering housing costs yet. And I mean actually lowering housing costs, not just talking about it on TV, posturing, political promises or making stupid mistakes like rent-freezes and such. But blaming the poor young people priced out of their own country for not breeding, and just bringing third world immigrants with no living standards, is much easier than improving the living st…

My observation is, that it is about child care.

Guarantee all parents affordable child care close to their work or home and many people settling for one kid will have two.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#604

Post by jhugo »

glcheetham wrote: post #593
3qz wrote: post #585

The xenophobia in this thread is shocking. Foreigners have just as much of a right to live in Portugal as people who were born there. Nobody is entitled to live somewhere just because they want to and there are still lots of affordable countries if you don’t want to put in the work

No, foreigners don't have just as much right to live in Portugal. That's what this article is about. Foreigners need an investment visa, so they have to buy the right to live in Portugal. A literal condition is that you have to buy property over €450,000 and restore it. This selects for rich foreigners so the house value increases. If you are Portuguese you get the right to reside in Portugal for free. Everyone else…

> Everyone else (apart from EU citizens) must buy it.

That's a ~440-million-person "apart from".

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#605

Post by niemandhier »

Getting a flat can be modelled using queuing theory.

A queue operating at max capacity had infinite average waiting time, this is what we are experiencing right now.

The rule of thumb is to never operate at more than 80%, or the waiting time of your jobs starts to increase dramatically.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#606

Post by sien »

JoeJonathan wrote: post #264
jseliger wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city Portugal should build more housing, which is a simple, effective solution if the rent is too damn high: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-ren... . The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like.

In what way is building more housing simple? If it were that straightforward, California (which has much more space and money) would have done it, and Californians wouldn't be moving to Portugal.

In 2000, Houston had a population of 3.8M in 2020 it was 6.3 M. From

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23014/houston/population

They have also managed this with affordable housing.

That's something to learn from.

Texas has allowed lots of houses to be built. It's perfectly doable. CA did it until the 1980s.

Check out Arbitrary Lines by Nolan Gray for how Zoning stops people building houses.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59613917-arbitrary-lines

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#607

Post by gherkinnn »

dionidium wrote: post #421
armchairhacker wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve literally seen this same exact comment many, many times except with different locations. Eastern Mass, New York, Ontario, Britain, and even starting to hear it from suburban areas. The exact same concepts: cheap grandfathered lease, hoping the landlord doesn’t cancel, can’t afford rent despite making >100k, “luxury apartments”, empty apartments, illegal renting (e.g. AirBnB) and shadiness.

The underlying issue is that demand for these places has increased in our new globally-connected world. That's not going away. Cute little lake houses aren't going to be a local secret anywhere in the world, anymore, and the sooner people realize that, the sooner they can think about how to adjust to it. We are currently in the "denial" phase. We can't get to "acceptance" fast enough.

The problem isn’t a lack of “cute little lake houses”. The problem are is a lack of “affordable homes”. Or any home.

And adjusting to what exactly? Living in squalor way outside of what you call home because some parasite gets to live in a furnished and unaffordable temp home, payed for by a relocation package?

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#608

Post by TulliusCicero »

electriclove wrote: post #533
TulliusCicero wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if that's your angle, Prop 13 is bizarrely overbroad. If you just wanted to protect long-term residents from needing to move: * Remove its application to commercial property * Remove its application to second/vacation homes * Remove its application to inherited property * Only apply the restriction if the increase would be burdensome on the household's income * Only apply the restriction once someone has lived i…

I started to nod in agreement but as I went down your list I vehemently disagree with where the continuation of that thought goes..

Why's that?

The way I look at it, if the purpose is to protect people from needing to move because they can't afford property taxes, restrictions should be narrowly tailored to only apply in that case.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#609

Post by Elinvynia »

FerociousTimes wrote: post #414
the_gipsy wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where job opportunities are, and that's why more housing will increase the opportunities, and then the price of housing...

For a post-Covid world where remote job opportunities are on the rise, this is becoming less and less of a pressing matter. People can work from nearby towns where housing costs are relatively moderate and just hit the head office in Lisbon one or two times a week. Corporations and people need to adapt to the changing circumstances and to be open to make the necessary adjustments to advance in this world.

Not all people can work remotely!

This is the exact way that janitors and baristas and everyone servicing those 100k+ a year software engineers is priced out.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#610

Post by gip »

keepquestioning wrote: post #478
gip wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an anecdotinal data point.. I live in a building with 6 units in the Mission district of SF. Until a few years ago my neighbours were people: families, (gay) couples,.. We now have 3 startups in our building. One of the startup (YC-backed!) moved out yesterday. The guys just threw what they didn't want into the street from the windows of their second floor apartment. And disappeared, leaving a filthy mess on…

You need to report them to YC

I'm not sure I want to do that, it's not my style. I just called the City and they sent a team to clean up the mess.

But even if I reported them, I suspect YC leaders would be rather proud of these guys.

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