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Dutch cities want to ban property investors in all neighborhoods

nltimes.nl

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

#91

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#92

Post by amelius »

___luigi wrote: post #64
winkelwagen wrote: post #18

Better late than never. The housing market in the Netherlands is currently terrible. I’ve “fled” the country for the next few years. Hoping that would be enough time for the market to get healthy again. It’s just insane that we made it this easy for people who were well off to begin with to profit. Just sold a house, the profit I got from buying and selling that house alone makes me nauseous. Makes me wonder why I wo…

Is it better in neighboring countries?. There was a discussion [1] about controlled rent market few days ago, it seems that the problem is related to growth. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58317555

IANAE, but I'm guessing part of the problem is also that housing is not part of inflation (i.e. not in the indexation).

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

#93

Post by reacharavindh »

Perhaps relevant to this discussion. Another article on the same website from 7 days ago.

https://nltimes.nl/2021/08/29/us-investor-blackstone-accused...

Cant help but think, may be this is some form of insider trading by the wealthy - buy up apartments before such a regulation comes into place?

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

#95

Post by II2II »

keewee7 wrote: post #41
winkelwagen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that means middle income families or starters are not able to buy those houses, and the investors driving the prices up. Then yes, it’s a problem.

Why should middle income families be able to buy property in some of the wealthiest and most expensive cities in the world? There is suburbs for that.

Where are the people who work in those cities supposed to live? Are they expected to commute an hour a day, diminishing their earning potential and increasing their expenses? People in the wealthiest cities also tend to have access to more resources, due to the concentration and diversity of the population. Denying low and middle income families access also diminishes their potential, while diminishing the potential of cities through the reduction of diversity.

At best, this sounds an argument to hold people back. At worse, it sound like an argument to push people down.

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

#96

Post by lotsofpulp »

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.

Perhaps people’s perception of the risk of living in a smaller town is sufficient to merit the risks of higher land prices in some of the wealthiest and most expensive cities in the worlds. Namely the risk of losing your source of income in a small town and the increased probability of higher income/access to opportunities in major cities.

Of course, it is a pendulum, and it is possible people’s perception swings too far towards the small town and the big city and back and forth.

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

#97

Post by wsc981 »

mercy_dude wrote: post #39

There is a better way - raise the real rate. Cheap loans along with endless printing has basically made fiat useless as a medium to store value, the only reason fiat exists now is as a medium to exchange goods/services. Here the Fed has been buying over 100B of mortgage based securities a month. This got to stop. For all the talks about Wealth inequality, I don’t understand how politicians fail to understand this bas…

In The Netherlands I don’t think this would make a big difference around the major cities as there is a huge housing shortage and this will stay the same at least for the next 10 years, probably more much longer.

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

#98

Post by dogma1138 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #40
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…

Vacant properties in London are a red herring. Last time I checked official number they accounted for 1% of the housing stock, bearing in mind that a number of properties are always being refurbished at any given time. In general it does not make sense to keep a property empty unless perhaps it is an extreme luxury one. South Kensington is one of the most expensive area of London and not representative at all. Whatev…

The median price for a property in London is £600K, the average is over £1M today.

That means that normal people cannot afford to buy anything in London even with HTB which is a terrible policy the people who can afford to use it are already in the top percentiles.

A £600K property as a first time buyer requires you to have about £100K to get on a property ladder.

10% deposit for a 90% LTV mortgage is £60K, stamp duty is £17,500 (£20K from end of Sep 21) that’s already ~£80,000 then you have mortgage fees, legal fees, furnishing costs (since new builds don’t even come with blinds)…

The average salary in London is £41K, that leaves you with take home pay of about £30K after tax (if you have no student loans).

So a house hold of two people living in London has about £60K per year if both earn the average pay, £25K or more of which would go to rent per year, another £4000 will go to various utility bills and council tax, another 5-5.5K would go for travel (assuming you live within zone 1-4), then you have food, clothing and other living expenses, so if you are somehow lucky and can save up £10K per year that’s 10 years to save up enough for a median property which is most likely a 54 sq/m flat.

Add kids to this mix and well you are royally fucked.

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

#99

Post by zihotki »

To add to the topic, in NL you, as an owner of a property, are obliged to report to municipality if your property is vacant for one year. This is to prevent squatting. Very recently U.S. investor Blackstone reported ~300 apartments at once in Amsterdam for being vacant. They did it only after it was found out that some of the properties were squatted. And according to different sources, the apartments were vacant for very long time, more than a year.

On top of that, the investors often buy social housing. After some refurbrishment they start renting it as a non-social one. Many people are upset by this behavior as well.

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

#100

Post by akudha »

reacharavindh wrote: post #76

I may be biased because I moved recently to the Netherlands and looking to buy our first home and stop paying rent. But, the house prices are crazy out here. I work in tech and my wife is an academic. We earn what is definitely above market average, and it looks like we cannot afford most houses we find in the area where we are renting now(well outside Amsterdam). At this juncture, at least temporarily, investors who…

This is becoming a problem in farmlands too. Young farmers are unable to buy farmlands, they are forced to lease from huge landowners. It is zero risk investment for these big landowners. Farmers do all the work, put in all the investment like tools (except the land) - landowners simply collect rent. Some of these people own hundreds of thousands of acres (Bill Gates, for example).

This is an ugly situation. This is not sustainable. At some point, we'd have a few hundred super wealthy people/corporations owning much of the desirable land and property. Everyone else would become just a peasant/tenant living in tiny apartments working all our lives just so we can have a tiny roof over our heads. This isn't hyperbole - one look at BlackRock should give us an idea in the direction this problem is going.

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