Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says • Hacker News Board

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#661

Post by endisneigh » Fri, May 06, 2022, 3:48 PM UTC

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #659

endisneigh wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they use the money in order to maintain the house. Furthermore owner-occupancy is a thing, where the landlord does some maintenance themselves. However no matter what, no landlord can maintain all aspects of the house alone. You think a single person can be a master of all trades and have all equipment on hand all of the time in an apartment, for instance? Why does it even matter if someone pays others to mainta…

I believe the argument would be that the tenant might be empowered to pay for their own maintenance if they're not paying rent to a landlord.

Can’t said tenant just buy a house then?

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#662

Post by bell-cot » Fri, May 06, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

turtledove wrote: post #345

The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market, the better. We all need it, and we should figure out mechanisms to make it available to all. Practically that means paying to build and maintain housing stocks, changing tax incentives so developers are incentivized to build more housing and less luxury housing, charging a premium for unused land in desirable areas (parking lots don't house people)…

At least in the U.S., you'll also need to replace the system of local governments being mostly funded by local property taxes. That results in local government (and the residents who elect it, and whose taxes fund it) being very strongly in favor of high-end residential development (ideal - a gated neighborhood of mansions, or a luxury skyscraper, with absentee owners), and very strongly against low-end residential development (worst case - a mobile home park). Vacant mansions will pay very heavy taxes, require minimal city services, and generally push up property values (good for all those already aboard the property ownership pyramid scheme). Mobile home parks will do quite the opposite.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#663

Post by xhkkffbf » Fri, May 06, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

southerntofu wrote: post #528

jillesvangurp wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inevitable outcome of housing inflation and elimination of the middle class is slums: illegal housing. People will have to live somewhere. And when that becomes unaffordable they'll just improvise. This is not a technical problem but a policy problem. The solution is changing the policy. The current policy is to drive up housing prices by creating completely artificial scarcity. All the land is owned and earmarke…

> The current policy is to drive up housing prices by creating completely artificial scarcity. This is true but not in the way that you mean. As you said there is no shortage of space. But it's important to point out that on a global scale there is no housing shortage either. Vacant dwellings outnumber homeless people by far in most industrialized countries where homelessness is rampant (for example: 3 million empty…

It sounds incredibly naive to imagine that stopping enforcement of breaking and entering will suddenly give everyone a place to stay. It might work for a few minutes or a few weeks, but I guarantee that the freeloaders won't fix the window or door jamb that they break. Why should they? They have no pride of ownership.

I spent some time in the Soviet Union before the wall fell. It sucked. Idealistic ideas like this destroy housing for everyone.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#664

Post by buttercraft » Fri, May 06, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

turtledove wrote: post #447

paisawalla wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the landlord what, eats all of the downside in that scenario? But I'm sure you'd also restrict their ability to raise rents on other tenants (if they have multiple units) to compensate, so why would the landlord even do this to begin with? It's potentially 100% downside and restricted upside.

Yep. You got it in one. Private landlords are a part of the problem. They have every incentive to prevent new housing from being built. It should be challenging to be better at providing housing than the municipality government.

But you're not trying to make it challenging, you're trying to make it impossible. Why would anyone pay rent if they don't have to?

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#665

Post by ehnto » Fri, May 06, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

newbamboo wrote: post #645

ehnto wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saying used to be that many think they are Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires, but I think at this point it's fair to say that many people think they are middle class when in fact, the middle class has been swept from underneath them and they are now more or less comfortably-poor. Public services, housing affordability, food availability, product quality, fair pay and benefits. Previously middle class people ar…

You should read about inflation. Efforts to fatten up the middle class with free giveaways to certain voting blocks has and will continue to spur inflation and make those same voters ever less wealthy. But voters are myopic, so they’ll vote for free money every time. Eventually you get Venezuela. A better way would be to protect people by not making policy decisions that reward bad behavior and punish those who avoid…

I wasn't suggesting a handout though I can see how that's easy to read. I don't have the answers on how to achieve it, but policy changes to shift more people up the class chain rather than pushing them down is what I was thinking. Raising minimum wage, reducing service burdens on the individual, reducing the cost of housing, adjusting taxes perhaps. Generally freeing up money to be available and spent in the community and not caught up in financial instruments and real estate.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#666

Post by cuteboy19 » Fri, May 06, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

b112 wrote: post #580

turtledove wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surface parking lots take a huge volume of space that could be used to house tens or hundreds of families. It has nothing to do with "cars bad", and everything to do with "why are we letting all this precious resource go so poorly utilized?"

This is the problem. You have an agenda (cars are unimportant / should be banned), therefore, you cite parking lots as "poorly utilized". You also act as if there is a land shortage. There is not, with exceptions stated above.

You can easily use Google Maps on some European city and compare it with an American city. The problem will be obvious to you then

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#667

Post by notch656a » Fri, May 06, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

mellavora wrote: post #557

notch656a wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, government operated facilities do not have a profit motive, Great, so the shit-show we have now, except without any incentive to efficiently spend. Sure that will go over swimmingly. Everyone knows that government construction projects are known for coming on-time and on-budget, and for the best value.

Ah, the classic "private enterprise is better than government" argument! Private enterprise is good at projects where the project owner can (directly) capture the majority of the value created and is responsible for the majority of the costs involved in that creation. The mis-alignment is that this creates strong incentive to shift the costs outside the organization. Government is better at projects where the majorit…

>Government is better at projects where the majority of value created is diffused across a large share of the population and/or over a long time frame. They do have a strong incentive to keep costs down, because costs are paid by taxes and taxes are unpopular and lead to revolution.

>This is simple economics.

I'm sorry, but simple economics from where? By what authority is that some immutable 'simple economics?' I reject your thesis. Regarding 'costs' being 'taxes' and them going 'down', I invite you to study the change in federal taxes as a proportion of GDP in the past say 130 years.

>There are numerous examples of government projects which may or may not have been under budget, but which created 10x or 100x or 1000x returns. Things like "public roads", "internet", "education" spring to mind.

Yes now think about how much better return, and many other projects may have emerged, had the government not sucked that money out of the economy. "Muh roads" sounds nice but you can privately build a road without taking money at gunpoint from peoeple, and also get good returns. If I take $20 from you and buy you a $1 pen, I don't get to brag that because I bought you the pen you wrote a multimillion dollar book (even then it is true in some perverted sense the pen [road] had 1000x+ returns).

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#668

Post by srean » Fri, May 06, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

turtledove wrote: post #466

cycrutchfield wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“profit from rent is amoral”. Care to elaborate on this? Does this ethical standard also extend to other human needs as well? For instance should farmers not be able to profit from providing food?

A farmer and a landlord are different things. My family are farmers, I've been a landlord. (FWIW, before anyone calls me a hypocrite, I paid back every renter every penny of profit I made from them plus appreciation.) The labor that the farmer puts in should absolutely be rewarded. But the labor of a farmer is absolutely nothing like a landlord who makes money purely because they had enough money to buy housing. Plen…

> purely because they had enough money to buy housing

The nominal assumption is that they must have earned that by providing someone with something of value to them. The money they receive is a formal/cultural recognition of their indebtedness -- that they have provided something useful but have not receive anything of material value in return. Money is a way of claiming something useful in return for something they had provided, but separated in time and place.

Of course this is the theoretical and intended mechanism. It does get subverted in many ways when one earns money without providing anyone with anything materially useful. Inheritance can be interpreted as one such. Although it can be interpreted charitably too -- dont compensate me for the goods and services I provided , I am dead, compensate Saul instead.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#669

Post by elephanteeee » Fri, May 06, 2022, 4:31 PM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #150

elephanteeee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the mismatch? Biden got a trillion or two in handouts and Powell bought up all the bonds. Now Biden is taking a step back (not completely but not another trillion) and Powell said he’ll start selling.

Pretty sure the covid stimulus passed while trump:Biden was/is president is like 2:1. Not giving either one a pass though because Biden reappointed Powell and failed to give Powell the political direction to raise rates late last year when it was obvious inflation was anything but transitory.

Even if you’re right that’s kind of misleading. Trump’s stimulus and Powells actions were basically necessary to prevent another 2008style economic collapse. Biden’s came as “voluntary” unemployment was already high and during a recovery. Either way that was another example of the fed and exec branch working together. However anyone’s feelings are about politics and the things said, us policies were quite competent during the pandemic.

For anyone interested trillion dollar triage is a great book.

Re: Homes in 97% of U.S. cities are overvalued, Moody's says

#670

Post by me_me_mu_mu » Fri, May 06, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

jokethrowaway wrote: post #406

me_me_mu_mu wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cut down home ownership to max 3 homes per household. Otherwise rent from someone else. And yes it’s possible to be capitalist and agree with sensible regulations. I’d rather we focus on building amazing companies and utilizing labor effectively.

Capitalism does imply the absence of regulations imposed by a bunch of goons with guns that claim to be "a legit government representing the people". Mixed economies are not capitalism. You can say you're a bit capitalist - that's an easy one, we have plenty of data to show that positive economic effect for everyone are linked to free markets - but still believe fairy tales about the government being moral and caring…

Bro I can also pretend government can buzz off, but we need a military to protect our interests. We need some semblance of order so we don't descend into anarchy and chaos. People who exist at polar ends and bring up edge cases without contributing to fixing them to bring us closer to the middle actively make things worse, imo.

These are not zero sum games, and people that think they are probably have no skin in the game. Even the people with lots of wealth and resources worry about losing them, and in order to maintain it you need to make concessions when necessary and be pragmatic.