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Most Americans do not have the savings required to own in cities. Ownership might be a solution that works for you, but penalizing landlords penalizes renters w
by natrius 10y ago
Most Americans do not have the savings required to own in cities. Ownership might be a solution that works for you, but penalizing landlords penalizes renters who can't afford ownership.
- _delirium 10y agoWhether it's affordable to own in cities isn't entirely independent of what restrictions we put on landlords. To take one end of the restrictions scale: if being a landlord were simply banned, i.e. you could occupy property but not rent it out, purchase prices of apartments in most situations would end up lower. Copenhagen does that in large swathes of its property market, for example, by requiring owner-occupancy in some categories of housing. And you can clearly see the price differential: apartments in the buildings that allow unrestricted rental have much higher purchase prices than otherwise similar apartments in buildings restricted to owner-occupancy, by often a factor of 2-3x. (That isn't to say as a policy proposal this would fix SF's particular problems, just that purchase prices aren't independent of landlords' role in the property market, as prospective owner-occupiers have to bid against prospective landlords in cases where landlordism is permitted.)
- natrius 10y agoWe agree with each other. Restricting rentals reduces competition for owning homes, which lowers the price to purchase a home. You'll get more homeowners. Everyone who still rents is worse off because the supply of rental housing has been choked off. They will live in less desirable neighborhoods than they would in a world without such restrictions.