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You want to make real estate cheaper by making it less desirable to investors. But if you made it less desirable to investors, they'd build less of it -- and y
by nostromo 7y ago
You want to make real estate cheaper by making it less desirable to investors.
But if you made it less desirable to investors, they'd build less of it -- and you'd make the housing supply worse.
- colechristensen 7y agoInvestors aren't necessary to build housing. If you remove their drag on the economy (taking much more value than they give) there would be more capital ready and willing to build housing. You start removing investors from the housing economy then the capital flowing from workers pockets to landlords profits slow down and stop. Two effects there 1) The capital that was invested in real estate is going to be invested somewhere else. 2) The capital that was going to real estate returns is going to be invested somewhere else. 1 means more investment in business and R&D. 2 means more people have more discretionary spending, some of which would go to investing in real estate for their own uses.
- darawk 7y agoWho is going to build an apartment building aside from an investor?
- kyruzic 7y agoA group of interested buyers who could afford to find its construction if it weren't for investors driving prices sky high.
- nostromo 7y ago> A group of interested buyers ... so, investors.
- colechristensen 7y agoNo. You are not an investor if you're buying your own home to live in.
- darawk 7y agoAnd who is going to organize this process?
- colechristensen 7y agoThe people who would like to live there.
- darawk 7y agoOk. How is that going to work? How will the process be coordinated? Contractors hired? Decisions made?
- colechristensen 7y agoThere are lots of options. One is forming a co-op organization and using that to build, then the board of the co-op is in control of that kind of thing. Units are mapped to shares of the entity and there are no other shares. Buying a unit means buying shares. Building upkeep is handled with a regular fee. A significant portion of owned apartments around the world are operated in a similar arrangement.
- darawk 7y agoBut wouldn't you have to wait until you sign up say, 100 or 200 people to build a reasonably dense apartment building? How is that going to be practical? A co-op is then going to have to run on consensus about what sorts of amenities to build, and what to do with common spaces, etc. Another question might be: there's nothing stopping anyone from doing this now. You could go start one of these at this very moment if you wanted to. Why do you think it hasn't been done?
- mixmastamyk 7y agoSounds like some are conflating housing-developer-investors with housing-buyer-investors. Discouraging the second need not discourage the first, if done right.
- darawk 7y agoI'm not sure how that makes sense. How are housing-buyer-investors going to build an apartment building?
- mixmastamyk 7y agoThey’re not, it’s the speculators that need discouraging, not builders.
- darawk 7y agoOk so builders can invest in building homes, yes? But builders need capital to do that. Where are they going to get that capital?
- mixmastamyk 7y agoFrom their pockets and banks.
- darawk 7y agoSo, a builder can build an apartment building, but they cannot ever sell that apartment building?
- mixmastamyk 7y agoNo, individual units would be subject to the restriction of being sold to direct owners and must be occupied or subject to tax. See recent laws in Vancouver for one example. Once all units are sold, the building is co-owned between them. There is nothing left for the developer to sell. Perhaps a rental property management service, paid for by the owners.
- refurb 7y agoThis doesn’t make any sense at all. Landlord profits don’t “slow down and stop”. They are like any other investment. And until money grows in trees, you need capital from somewhere, either from investors or if the government pays for it, taken as taxes. There is no “magic” here.
- kyruzic 7y agoThis is just plain wrong. If it's less expensive the ordinary person could afford to fund it's construction rather than relying on a group of wealthy people to fund it construction. Who then control it an arbitrarily set rental prices.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoWhen their is such pent-up demand for housing, losing investors doesn't sound so bad.