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Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

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Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#71

Post by rsj_hn »

colechristensen wrote: post #63
cycrutchfield wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter what sort of entity owns a piece of property? They pay property taxes, they should get to do what they want with their property.

Unconstrained property ownership has consequences. As a society you have to understand and decide how much you want to regulate how markets and limited resources can benefit some and harm others. There is clear social harm to have cities filled with empty homes while there are people who want homes and can't afford to buy any on the market or are forced to commute long distances. Using real estate to store money and…

Especially in constrained areas like Barcelona (or urban areas in the U.S.), property ownership is a monopoly, so it has market repercussions. Buying up units and then refusing to rent them out (or have anyone occupy them) can be viewed as interfering with the local market. These are micro markets that are price sensitive to interference.

If you are a landlord, you need to rent the place out at the current market price. If you do not want to do that, you can sell the property and get out of the landlord business. Just squatting on it and leaving it empty/boarded up distorts the local property market and should be heavily taxed to discourage absentee landlords from interfering with local markets.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#72

Post by NeedMoreTea »

DrJokepu wrote: post #52
kradroy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US fines are not tax deductible, so that's one fiscal difference between taxes and fines. I have no idea if Spain considers fines to be tax deductible or not.

On the other hand, in the United States the Eighth Amendment forbids imposing excessive fines, and a very good argument could be made that some of these fines could be classified as “excessive”.

The aim of laws is compliance. If the low and medium fines of previous years have failed to achieve compliance, and fines eventually escalate to high, I'd argue it's far from excessive. If it were excessive a much lower amount would have achieved general compliance with that particular law, would it not?

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#73

Post by shhehebehdh »

lsiebert wrote: post #56
Pirolita wrote: post #18

People should be able to do whatever they want with their properties

No, they shouldn't. There are externalities that effect others, and the free market. For example, you don't want people doing things that poison groundwater for the neighbors, right? Anyway, letting property sit idle benefits the landowner but causes issues for neighbors, local government and the free market. It means businesses in those locations get less customers, and local governments less sales tax. If the prope…

Normally people talk about externalities of activity, as opposed to externalities of inactivity. I suppose this is just two sides of the same coin. People living in a place does have positive knock on effects. However it feels a little different to me to say, “because you didn’t use your property a certain way, therefore there wasn’t this good secondary effect, therefore you have created a negative externality.” No, I just have declined to create a positive one. If I use my property in a way that is good but not creating the maximum amount of positive externalities, have I still created a negative externality? I don’t think so.

Terminological issues aside, tax is not about fairness. At least not for any one person’s particular definition of fairness, and certainly not mine. Tax, in this case, is about a behavior we want changed, and a means readily to hand by which to change it. Doesn’t really matter if it’s fair.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#74

Post by refurb »

wmf wrote: post #38
pbiggar wrote: post #35

Does anyone know why is it that seemingly every major city is having an affordability crisis at the same time?

Because capital is global and it's flowing into all major cities at the same time?

Add in expansionist monetary policy and you get asset inflation.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#75

Post by romwell »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #43
devindotcom wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA "The problems the fines are intended to combat began in 2007, when the financial crisis brought an epidemic of foreclosures on homes across Spain. After a nationwide wave of repossessions, banks found themselves the owners of newly vast portfolios of housing whose tenants had been evicted. Put off by the cost of renovations and wary of their potential obligations to rental tenants as landlords, many banks simply…

So isn’t the more salient point here that tenants’ rights are apparently so strong here that the owners would rather leave the properties vacant (and lose money) than rent them out to a new tenant? Perhaps if they would remove some of the more pernicious and abused “rights” for tenants, more property owners would put their property up for rent?

>Perhaps if they would remove some of the more pernicious and abused “rights” for tenants, more property owners would put their property up for rent?

Do you want slums?

Because this is how you get slums.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#77

Post by sorryforthethro »

pbiggar wrote: post #35

Does anyone know why is it that seemingly every major city is having an affordability crisis at the same time?

I can't actually validate your claim, but the Federal reserve increased their rates by 0.25% in December, which translates to some % increase in prime mortgage rates, which ends up restricting the average home buyer's price window by some %, some other things I don't understand, and uh, prices drop?

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#78

Post by jdreyfuss »

cgb223 wrote: post #61
jdreyfuss wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just a proposal, right? Did it pass? Last I heard, London Breed was looking at other avenues to tackle the problem (reducing bureaucracy, expanding multi-use space allowances, etc.)

What has she done so far to help improve the housing situation in SF? It’s hard to find information about that

This is specifically about commercial vacancies. According to this article from the SF Chronicle[1], her approach to addressing commercial vacancies mirrors her housing strategy, but I'm not sure what's actually been implemented so far for either situation.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/With-SF-s-retai...

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#79

Post by mey »

tschellenbach wrote: post #76

It sounds nice, but the real question is why are people letting these building sit empty. There is probably a good reason for it. Maybe some renter protection laws that went too far?

More likely it's worth it to them to keep rates high and limit supply.

Re: Barcelona Fines Landlords Who Let Buildings Sit Empty

#80

Post by user5994461 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #58
repsilat wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price to income ratios have indeed gotten worse in many places. I don't know how widespread that effect is, though. I put it down to a combination of consistently low interest rates (both in the short term and in the long-term trend), coupled with cumulatively worsening construction deficits. Wouldn't be surprised if not all of that withstood comparison with actual data, though.

But surely this isn't the first time they've gotten worse, right? They've increased many previous times in many previous places throughout history, right? I really don't think there's anything that special about what we're going through right now. I'm sure the Romans were complaining about rising prices in Rome as the city filled up and real estate became scarce.

>>> But surely this isn't the first time they've gotten worse, right? They've increased many previous times in many previous places throughout history, right?

Truth be told. This is the first time in history this happens. There has never been as long a period without war or calamity. Properties were never inflated to the point of being not affordable within multiple decades of income.

You were trying to give the 20's as an example. 1920 is just after the war, property had zero value after most of them were destroyed and most tenants are dead. Fast forward less than 20 years and it's world war two, it's all reset again.

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