3 ms·

If home ownership is a bad thing in this alternate universe, why would institutional landlords own and rent out homes? Why wouldn't they just invest all their m

If home ownership is a bad thing in this alternate universe, why would institutional landlords own and rent out homes? Why wouldn't they just invest all their money in index funds instead? Are they dumber than the renters or something? I think it's fair to say that any scenario that works out well for landlords, works out at least as well for home owners. Because when you buy a home, you become a landlord! (Even if your only renter is yourself...) As for why home ownership is a good thing, from a societal level, it's pretty well established that home ownership correlates to all sorts of good stuff like wealth development, better schools, lower crime, etc. But beyond that, a lot of people just like being in charge of their own stuff. Over-extending yourself financially is a bad thing, and it's true that some people do that in pursuit of owning a home. But, other people over-extend themselves in pursuit of owning a nice car, or trying to become a rock musician, or getting rich quick with cryptocurrency, etc. Home ownership certainly does not have a lock on the category of "things people sometimes make bad financial decisions about."

chibg10 8y ago
>As for why home ownership is a good thing, from a societal level, it's pretty well established that home ownership correlates to all sorts of good stuff like wealth development, better schools, lower crime, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb with no data here, but I'm fairly certain you would find the same correlations among people with equivalent wealth of any kind to that of homeowners. Home ownership as a path to wealth building at the societal level is fundamentally in conflict with the (more important imo) goal of affordable housing. This is especially apparent in a democracy... where homeowners tend to wield an enormous (and disproportionate) amount of political power (i.e. see NIMBY). So I would disagree that home ownership is desirable at societal level. Democratic society is better off when the default path to wealth building for the masses involves investing in productive goods (i.e. goods that create economic value.. such as the computer), rather than a good which both is necessary for everyone to live a decent life (though doesn't necessarily need to be owned) and only increases in value when there's a shortage of it for others.

chibg10 8y ago

>As for why home ownership is a good thing, from a societal level, it's pretty well established that home ownership correlates to all sorts of good stuff like wealth development, better schools, lower crime, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb with no data here, but I'm fairly certain you would find the same correlations among people with equivalent wealth of any kind to that of homeowners. Home ownership as a path to wealth building at the societal level is fundamentally in conflict with the (more important imo) goal of affordable housing. This is especially apparent in a democracy... where homeowners tend to wield an enormous (and disproportionate) amount of political power (i.e. see NIMBY). So I would disagree that home ownership is desirable at societal level. Democratic society is better off when the default path to wealth building for the masses involves investing in productive goods (i.e. goods that create economic value.. such as the computer), rather than a good which both is necessary for everyone to live a decent life (though doesn't necessarily need to be owned) and only increases in value when there's a shortage of it for others.