Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods • Hacker News Board

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#81

Post by mcv » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:22 AM UTC

arvinsim wrote: post #53

snemvalts wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greed is innate to humans and you can't even take it away with communism, people will still find a way to collect and hoard. The problem is the low interest rates from central banks flooding the economy with money.

That's not an excuse. Lots of undesirable traits are also innate like violence, tribalism, etc. Does that mean we give those a free pass?

Exactly. We've got laws to mitigate or redirect any harmful innate traits that we've got. Greed, like violence, is definitely among them.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#82

Post by varjag » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

dwightgunning wrote: post #48

varjag wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the Netherlands used to allow full tax write-off of the mortgage interest (dunno if they still do). That certainly is bound to heat up the market.

This is still in place for PPOR. Does not apply for investment properties AFAIK.

Since most people would like themselves a PPOR that still has the effect of heating up the market.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#83

Post by jhgb » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

sverhagen wrote: post #30

jhgb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do I understand correctly that they want to kick out all the students from the cities? Presumably not, unless those students are property investors.

I suppose the implied question is: who's going to rent to students if the landlords' investments get penalized for them not living there themselves. There's presumably too many students in these cities for all of them to find some family who have a spare room to rent.

Even if this action were to have unintended consequences, the question was "do they want to". No, they don't, obviously, not any more that the people who gave "go" to STS-51L wanted to kill seven astronauts. What they want to do is to get rid of predatory investors.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#84

Post by timwaagh » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:25 AM UTC

I'm very unhappy about this. It won't be possible to buy a reasonable retirement income anymore and all the profits of the property sector will flow toward those deep pocketed property firms who have the right political connections to get permits. I think the governments just want to work us till we either reach a much extended retirement age or die from depression (which you can be euthanized for here). I'll be fighting to get a second property in the coming months to rent out.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#85

Post by murgindrag » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

nmca wrote: post #42

In the long term, the ethically right answer seems pretty clearly to me to be a land value tax [0]. But due to encouragement of home ownership [1], that's not going to democratically tenable in a lot of countries for 20+ years. Unfortunate situation. [0] In 1879, a man asked "How come all this new economic development and industrialized technology hasn't eliminated poverty and oppression?" That man was Henry George,…

I'm not sold on the Economist article. I do believe in home ownership. The idea that a person spends a lifetime in the same home and community is a good one. We're tribal creatures, and you want a tribe -- you want people to know their neighbors, have community BBQs, and live in real communities. You want enough of a vested interest in municipal politics that democratic structures work. You want kids growing up with the same friends in school.

The flips side can be pretty dark too. For example, there are are plenty of stories of poorer communities, especially African American tenant ones, being broken up and priced out by gentrification of rental markets.

Ownership is less economically efficient, but much more resilient. Once a mortgage is paid off, you've always got a roof overhead. You just need to earn enough for food, clothing, and medicine.

I think the trick would be to implement significant differences in land tax based on:

* a home you live in; versus

* an individual investment property (e.g. if you own 2-3 homes); versus

* an institutional investment property (e.g. investment fund owns hundreds of homes)

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#86

Post by debarshri » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

This move is well appreciated. Currently, I own a house in oudegracht, Utrecht. It is very terrible situation here. All the apartments in and around me are all the time rented out as airbnb. During peak of pandemic, it was pretty much a ghost town.

The housing prices have skyrocketed due to covid, but all these all-cash investor are jumping and swooping in the apartments, holding it for a while and passing it to the next person. Some of the people, even have to pay around 50k euros over the asking price to buy it.

Because of the rising prices, the annual property tax to be paid also increases dramatically. People blame the low interest rate, but based on what I am seeing and heard from other people, it is investors all over the globe investing in properties in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Rotterdam etc.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#87

Post by ed_blackburn » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

dmje wrote: post #25

Amen to this. Two case studies from the UK I've been thinking about recently: 1) Visiting London and spending time in South Kensington - walking back to hotel at night, only about 30% of houses had any lights on. Suggestion is the others are effectively uninhabited, and a search on RightMove shows properties sell for £20-£30m for a 4/5 bed. This isn't normal Londoners, it's outside investment. 2) Cornwall, where I li…

Another Cornishman here (Par). The financial destitution and how much harder they have to work for the same things I do in the South East is unsustainable. Cornwall has Luther to the right politically and that’s because there’s been some useful scapegoats. Now those scapegoats have been slain and things are getting worse not better I hope we’ll see policies that are focused on root cause issues instead of ideology (left or right). Property is an obvious example. Dormant second home now means the Cornish rent or live in low quality new build accommodation (hello Wainhomes) but when communities are hollowed out and empty through winter local businesses fail and the destitution affects even the pretty locations. Those people wonder what happened to the quaint fishing village their second home is in. Why is cafe closed, the nearest shop a supermarket that is a 30 min drive away. Why is their a drug problem? Why are the pins all boarded up etc etc. I hope Cornwall and it’s political representatives can act before the bust comes and find a balance between tourism and building sustainable local businesses in different sectors. The obvious place to start is accommodation. If people cannot put a roof over their head how can a community function least of all an economy.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#88

Post by turbinerneiter » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #51

turbinerneiter wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it gets harder and harder for normal people to own anything (build up wealth), while building wealth is the best retirement startegy there is. I myself, for example, live in a city where owning the place I live in is just barely getting in reach for me, although I am in the top 30% income bracket of my country. I therefore have to put my savings into the stock market, which is at an all time high.…

> The problem is that it gets harder and harder for normal people to own anything (build up wealth), In the US, it is easier than ever. Open a free account online at a number of brokerages, and buy some broad market low cost equity index ETF. The problem is government subsidies for real estate. Get rid of federal taxpayer guaranteed mortgages (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, ginnie mae). Get rid of 1031 exchanges. Let the m…

It's just that most people would prefer owning a house over owning stocks.

Because when the economy tanks and you lose your job, you have to sell your stocks at the low point to make rent. When you own your house, losing your job still sucks, but at least you still have a home. Thats also the reason why the low interest rates, although nice for homebuyers, also aren't a great levy of the situation: I have to pay back the credit for my house over 40 years, I have the same risk of losing everything in a downturn. You can't make the credit payment and are forced to sell your home at the market low.

Maybe I'm just traumatized. When I left school, 2008 economy crash was in full swing, two years after leaving Uni and in my first job, Corona happened.

On the topic of price distortions through government influenced loan rates: I think what you say makes sense.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#89

Post by throwaway-8c93 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

iamnotwhoiam wrote: post #13

So investors buy the homes then rent them out? What’s the problem? In some asian markets investors buy homes then sit on them unused for years. That’s a problem.

The real problem is that governments around the developed world gave up on building affordable social housing since the 70s.

AirBnB investors just highlight the symptoms.

Re: Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

#90

Post by iamstupidsimple » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

keewee7 wrote: post #80

turbinerneiter wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it gets harder and harder for normal people to own anything (build up wealth), while building wealth is the best retirement startegy there is. I myself, for example, live in a city where owning the place I live in is just barely getting in reach for me, although I am in the top 30% income bracket of my country. I therefore have to put my savings into the stock market, which is at an all time high.…

>The problem is that it gets harder and harder for normal people to own anything One of the reasons is that people insist on living and working in some of the wealthiest and most expensive cities in the world. I live a cheap town and my commute to work in the 2nd biggest city in my country is just 25 minutes.

Mainly that's because that's where the jobs are. (Remote isn't a 100% solution, either.)