Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020) • Hacker News Board

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

#701

Post by kareemsabri » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 1:36 AM UTC

ChrisLomont wrote: post #664

kareemsabri wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true. > At Fannie Mae, we provide liquidity to the single-family market by purchasing and guaranteeing mortgage loans made by lenders and issuing debt securities and mortgage-backed securities that attract global investors to finance U.S. housing. https://www.fanniemae.com/about-us/what-we-do#:~:text=At%20F... .

>I don't think this is true. They do guarantee some loans, as I wrote above. The marketing blurb you copies cleverly does not state they will guarantee any mortgage loan. If they did, the housing crisis would not have been such a crisis - the crisis happened when so many investors realized the loans they bought could crash and cause them massive losses - precisely because FM does NOT guarantee all loans. They guarant…

Well, what you said is this.

> FM does not guarantee most mortgages, only certain govt types like FHA and VA loans, which the govt decided to back in order to help low income people get loans (otherwise the rates would be even higher for them).

And this.

> The OP claimed they guaranteed mortgages, which they do not.

So it read to me like they don't guarantee mortgages save for the "special" mortgages for underserved groups (FHA/VA). In fact, they do. They guarantee all the loans they buy, as far as I know. They only buy conforming loans. Conforming loans are another way of saying, loans that they will buy (and guarantee). Of course they don't guarantee loans they don't buy.

I used to work at a mortgage originator, and we sold the majority of our loans to Fannie and Freddie.

> Of all conforming loans made, Freddie and Fannie end up purchasing about 60% of those.

This is true, because private investors pay more than Freddie and Fannie for conforming loans.

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

#702

Post by pksebben » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 1:38 AM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #241

Loughla wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely do not want electronic voting. I legitimately believe that system would be kept behind a black box, and would be far too likely and liable to be cheated and gamed. At least with a huge stack of paper that is stored for an approved number of years there is an option for independent verification.

How about vote by email? Go to a vote.gov, fill out your ballot, it gives your a PDF you can review, you email that to your board of elections, they reply with a "got it!", and they're counted like all other mail-in ballots on election night. Same process, just s/USPS/SMTP/. But if that's fine, why make the user jump through the email hoop? Hell, digital ballots would give you stronger guarantees for verifying your v…

I'm convinced that people afraid of electronic voting are either hucksters that like the status quo or people who've been convinced by them.

if you're worried about voting being a black box, it already kind of is. what proof did you get that your last vote was accounted for properly? who counted it?

if you're worried about "hacking" you're not paying quite enough attention. We have secure systems that exist. At least as secure as a fuckton of snail mail managed by tens of thousands of the worlds most insecure asset, people.

I like your system. Ping me if there's ever an open codebase and I'll contribute.

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

#703

Post by fezfight » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 1:38 AM UTC

pas wrote: post #404

fezfight wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I think folks overlook just how wealthy certain investors are when they propose the fix is to just build new properties. Those will also get snapped up by investors. To fix the problem, investing in housing needs to be either banned or made very unattractive. You only need one house to live in.

Vacancy rates are low, investors don't just sit on the units.

They had to add a tax to empty homes in Vancouver to try and recover some of the units lost to investors just sitting on them.

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

#704

Post by carom » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 1:40 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #670

carom wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not need to hand over ownership to the government to build more houses. Just simplify zoning laws. Private landlords want to build. People want to maximize the value of their properties. They can't because of zoning laws that favor single family home hellscapes.

> single family home hellscapes "Hellscapes" is uncalled for. Many people like living in single family homes. The goal of housing should not be to enforce a single cookie cutter configuration on everybody. It should be to enable a free market in housing so that all of the different preferences people have for housing can have a reasonable chance of being met. I agree zoning laws should not favor single family homes t…

I agree, people should be able to do with their property what they want. Many SFH owners actively try to block development of the properties they do not own, unfortunately.

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

#705

Post by carom » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 1:51 AM UTC

namlem wrote: post #504

carom wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes have nothing to do with insane rental prices. It is zoning that favors single family homes.

Single family zoning, plus parking minimums, minimum floor-area-ratios, and minimum lot sizes.

Preach. I have a property zoned for 14 units, the entire ground floor will be parking in order to build that many.

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

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Post by lovich » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 2:06 AM UTC

ChrisLomont wrote: post #678

lovich wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it not be rentable? That’s an assumption that doesn’t stand on its face when you look at the unmaintained crackhouses landlords will rent easily because demand is so high for housing.

Are you claiming zero money was spent on those properties for 30 years? I don't think that claim would stand on it's face. Over 30 years all sorts of things would break, pipes, leaks, batteries corroding and leaking out, animals move in, windows broken, doors removed.... Detroit ruins show what zero money put into a building for 30 years looks like - gutted shells. Show me an ad for a rentable place that has had zero…

Does >0 money spent equal 100% deprecation over 30 years?

If the landlord spends a single penny in paint does that make up for getting an asset that’s considered zero value but still gets to be sold for hundreds of thousands?

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

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Post by celtain » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 2:10 AM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #342

dcolkitt wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this cannot be solved from the federal level. I disagree. The federal government invests enormous resources into subsidizing home ownership. Everything from Fannie Mae guaranteeing mortgages to not taxing home owners on the imputed value of rent. And I think that's all well and good, home ownership has many positive externalities. But there's zero point subsidizing demand for something when supply in inelastic. In…

This is interesting. I wonder if it would work to make all FHA loans be required to be NEW properties/units. So the only way to get access to the money is to expand the housing. I'm sure there are consequences but I need to think them through a bit more.

I don't know about policy consequences, but one political hurdle is that this would be attacked as "welfare for the rich" or something along those lines, since new construction is generally more expensive than existing units.

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

#708

Post by siwatanejo » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 2:28 AM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #82

siwatanejo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the reward for having merit - money - is itself an effective substitute for merit. True! It's exactly what happens with, for example, the richest man in the world right now. Everyone loves him because they think he has so much merit, but he's just a glorified recruiter and/or magnate, he doesn't have any technical knowledge at all.

If you're talking about Elon, he does in fact have pretty deep technical knowledge. Both from reports of his employees and just watching technical interviews with him. I get the hate about him, but it's reached the point where people just make stuff up and it gets swept up into "truth" just because it feels good.

Mmm ok it might be true that he has technical knowledge, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt there. But thing is, some things he does really suck big time, such as claiming he's the founder of Tesla (merit stealing smell right there) or maskerading their driving assistance system as FSD, when it's well known that his system is the worst in the market (probably will stay like that until they add Lidar sensors).

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

#709

Post by kamaal » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 2:31 AM UTC

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #460

ChrisLomont wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you pay no income tax on your rental income And are losing value on the property, which is the point of depreciation. >~30 years later, you've deprecated it down to an effective value of $0 An no one will now rent, since your building has an effective value of $0 since it has become crap. All throughout your list you ignore all the costs involved in being a landlord. Have any friends that have tried it? (I do). Did…

>"Did they become silly rich? Or did they quit because it is a major problem to actually make it very profitable versus other uses of capital and time? I'm a decently saavy investor (in many things), and have watched multiple friends start up rental properties, only to stop once it became clear that tenants destroy things, costs to maintain properties are volatile and astronomical, the work required is significant, a…

>>Most landlords I have met buy properties and then outsource their administration to property management companies.

And the cost of buying a property and outsourcing its maintenance is 0 right?

The landlord magically pulls a home out of thin air and some group of people maintain for them for free?

>>Landlordism is parasitic in the literal sense of the word. Landlords get rent and capital appreciation for doing nothing but possessing an ownership title. The propertyless pay the propertied a premium to live.

This applies to any investment, including things like 401K, pensions, getting an education, or even taking care of one's health.

Why should anybody in an economy be better off than the other part of the population by being disciplined, making routine and early investments?

Good news is you can plan and start working to go over to the winning side by taking action on it today. Or you can call others 'parasites' for making smart decisions you don't make. Calling others names might mask your own failure, and downplay their achievements, but is unlikely to change anything for your or for them.

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

#710

Post by toss1 » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 2:41 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #654

toss1 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rebuttal by mminer237 is much closer to right [0]. Also it isn't even as good as mminer237 mentions, as many states also have a much lower exemption, and there is work in congress to get rid of the step-up in basis (a bad thing, imo) and to reduce the $12MM lifetime gift & estate exemption (a very good thing). So yes, there are some advantages, but OP is vastly exaggerating as if it is some freebie to landlords w…

It may not be a freebie for landlords, but it is much more "cost neutral" or "tax neutral" to own an investment property than to own a primary residence. Consider: Investment property: * Deduct maintenance costs * Deduct insurance costs * Deduct property taxes * Deduct mortgage closing costs * Deduct mortgage interest * Deduct HOA dues * Deduct property management fees * Take advantage of depreciation deductions * Av…

Of course there are more deductions when an object is a BUSINESS instead of a piece of PERSONAL PROPERTY.

No, it does not seem the slightest bit lopsided.

There is zero difference between the deductability of expenses you mentioned and expenses for any other business.

Businesses are generally taxed on their PROFITS, which are [INCOME] MINUS [COSTS].

The regular homeowner is not running a business.

The same thing is true of a truck or racecar. If you own it as personal property, you don't get to deduct much of anything. If you own it and run it as a business, you can deduct your expenses before counting profits and paying taxes.

The same object can be either a personal property or a business, and it is the ACTIVITY that matters, not the object.

Your argument is either attitude & ignorance gone wild, or demagoguery attempting to confuse the issue with sleight of hand.

If you think that home ownership should be more subsidized than just the mortgage interest deduction, just say so and advocate for those subsidies. It'd be much more cogent, but you evidently don't want that discussion, or expect it to be a loser, which it likely is.