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Perhaps an alternative real solution to the housing crises is the abolishment of professional landlords themselves. Why should we support a system where people

Perhaps an alternative real solution to the housing crises is the abolishment of professional landlords themselves. Why should we support a system where people can own many properties, each feeding them 1/2 of someone else's paycheck? Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of housing being affordable. How can you possibly have affordable housing in a system where housing increases in value (cost) at 5% a year? Who could possibly afford it after several decades of compound growth?

pitaj 7y ago
> Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Public housing has failed time and time again in the US, so citation needed.
- dantheman 7y ago
  Public housing isn't perfect in Europe - it leads to stagnant cities and the inability to redevelop areas as they change.
mc32 7y ago
So how is housing going to get built? Are you suggesting that the state have a monopoly on buildings and housing? What process do we use to begin the expropriations and confiscations?
- ahelwer 7y ago
  Start small. People can own one, maybe two housing units (everyone loves a good cabin). Get rid of REITs. Expand building of public housing; don't means-test it, it's available to everyone. Means-testing is how you get impoverished housing projects. Universal public goods have a habit of sticking around and getting funded.
  - refurb 7y ago
    Where do you plan on raising the funds to actually build housing? Unless it’s economically attractive to invest in real estate, the money won’t flow into housing. Sure you could have the govt do it, but based on their track record I don’t assume it’ll be done very efficiently.
- munk-a 7y ago
  Sorry, to clarify... Are you saying that because we have public transit no one can own cars anymore? The generous way to read the post above is an arrangement where property ownership can be both public and private - possibly where rental units are majority state owned and private ownership is more concentrated in actual residents.
  - mc32 7y ago
    >” ...real solution to the housing crises is the abolishment of professional landlords... Why [] support a system where people can own many properties[...] Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible... It’s akin to saying most transit should be gov owned: cars, trucks, trains, planes, ships... they may allow you to own one private vehicle.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >Sorry, to clarify... Are you saying that because we have public transit no one can own cars anymore? You joke but many people here would support just that.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      Eeeeh, in the long run I think it'll just become unnecessary to own a personal car for most people if self-driving car fleets become a thing - I dunno... it might be a luxury like owning your own boat, if you're vacationing on a lake you can always rent one so why pay to maintain something you very rarely need... more apt might be to consider it equivalent to owning your own train car. At any rate I don't think personal property ownership should be made illegal, it could just be made to cost - taxi companies are taxed for running a fleet of vehicles and charging people to ride on them, that sort of mass property ownership could be similarly taxed.
  - baby 7y ago
    I think everyone can agree that the private car culture destroyed any hope for good public transport in the US.
- c22 7y ago
  You don't need to confiscate anything. We have an abundance of housing stock (nationwide, many more existing homes than families to fill them). If you make it impossible to be a private landlord then these properties will decrease in value until most citizens can afford to buy a house. Public housing will only be necessary for a small percentage of outliers. New housing will be built to be sold at a modest profit and replace decaying stock, just as it is now. The only difference is owners will not be able to sit on the pot collecting rents from derelict buildings while they wait to optimize their redevelopment in a peak market.
  - 1123581321 7y ago
    Using the law to destroy the value of someone’s asset until they abandon it is confiscation, just indirectly.
    - Supermancho 7y ago
      Confiscation, it is not, anymore than negative reports are confiscation of stock. You can liquidate and acquire a different asset. Personal preference has rarely been rewarded (re: eminent domain). There are windows of opportunity, timing and strategy inherent to capitalism. Sell before it passes (or the market adjusts) to maximize your realized asset value.
      - mc32 7y ago
        People are going to like that as much as they like devaluations or high inflation.
      - 1123581321 7y ago
        Both your examples (eminent domain and a government using propaganda to devalue a company) are forms of confiscation. It doesn’t matter if smart people would be able to foresee and mitigate the damage.
    - c22 7y ago
      Sorry, it might be rude, it might be unfortunate for existing landlords, it might even be a terrible idea, but I don't see how you can call it "confiscation". If the defacto situation is maintained ownership until a decision is made to sell that is not confiscation. If the city builds a trash transfer center right next to my house causing my property value to plummet I might be upset, but nothing has been confiscated from me because I do not own "the character of the neighborhood" except in some small collective part.
zaroth 7y ago
The first house I ever owned was a condo I bought in 2005, way out in the sticks, because the further I got from the city the cheaper the houses got, and because I had a strong suspicion that housing prices were too damn high. By the time I had to move to CA for work in 2009 of course the market had crashed badly and the condo was well underwater, not even counting the $20k I had put into the kitchen and bathroom. It was a $185k 2BR 1.5BA unit, with a condo fee of $300/mo and a monthly payment (principle + interest) of $980 with a 3/1 ARM at 3.5%. I got lucky because the rate was indexed to the LIBOR and it was being manipulated to ~0% back then, so my rate stayed super low even though it was adjusting every year. I put the unit on the market for $165k for two months and got zero showings. So I offered it for rent at $1400 on Craigslist and it was rented that weekend. I just sold the property last year, to the person who was renting it (and had been for 4 years) for $185k. I gave him the last 4 months before closing rent free because we closed without any broker (no commission) and because I didn’t have to do a thing to the unit pre-closing, seeing as how he was already living there. Not all landlords are scum out to make a buck on the back of tenants they never met and don’t care about. Not all landlords are even in it because they initially set out to be! And very few landlords are being “fed” half of someone’s paycheck, but more like, covering the costs plus a few percentage points, as long as nothing unexpected happens.
- ahelwer 7y ago
  I own a condo too. And if I move I probably won't sell it, but rather rent it out until I move back (while living in a rented place of my own). Individual home ownership is not a problem, it should be encouraged. The problem is people (and REITs) who lever up with a bunch of properties to be fed half of people's paycheck in the manner described. I will nitpick and say that paying your mortgage is not a cost. That is equity you're getting.
  - wait-a-minute 7y ago
    You are very confused. A mortgage is definitely a cost. It's only meaningful equity if you ever sell it and get any of the money back, which is not guaranteed at all. And only public housing would collapse the entire economy. Plenty of countries tried this, most notably the commies in Russia and in eastern Europe.
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
Public housing already exists in the United States. It has had at best mixed results. There has been more success with HOPE VI public housing that doesn't concentrate everyone receiving subsidized housing together but it has been criticized for having lesser density and availability than straight up housing projects restricted to the financially disadvantaged.
tracker1 7y ago
So, you're saying people shouldn't be able to own apartment buildings? That will really help housing in dense areas.
- c22 7y ago
  People could presumably still "own" apartments.
panic 7y ago
> It works in Europe and it can work here. In Asia too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore
baby 7y ago
Agree 100% with you. Treating housing as an investment VS a human right is what got us here in the first place.
- zaroth 7y ago
  Housing in San Francisco is not a human right. But your anger is misdirected. The distortion in the housing market is the direct and predictable result of specific government policy, of which TFA is just more of the same. In this case by “more of the same” what I mean is a policy which will do nothing to solve the problem. This particular law seems to be relatively harmless.
taffer 7y ago
> Why should we support a system where people can own many properties, each feeding them 1/2 of someone else's paycheck? That doesn't make much sense to me. 1/2 of the paycheck is only true for a few places with limited housing supply, which is the root cause of the problem. One could apply the same logic of "x% of the paycheck" to other spending items such as food and conclude that the state should also produce our food. > Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Public housing in European countries accounts for less than 10% of the overall market and is mainly aimed at poor people. I do not see how this would be a general solution to the shortage of housing. > Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of housing being affordable. How can you possibly have affordable housing in a system where housing increases in value (cost) at 5% a year? True, but here, too, the cause is a lack of supply due to zoning, minimum parking requirements, minimum lot sizes and other restrictions.
ozzyman700 7y ago
We cannot, landlords are a parasite on productivity whose existence is based on the theft from their tenants. If it was not profitable they would not do it, if it is profitable, it is inherently unethical.
- zaroth 7y ago
  Radically untrue, bordering on nonsense. Investment requires a return on investment. Return on investment must be commensurate with the risk. Risk adjusted returns are the reason the house/apartment was built in the first place.
  - ozzyman700 7y ago
    The house was built because there was someone to live in it.

pitaj 7y ago

> Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Public housing has failed time and time again in the US, so citation needed.

dantheman 7y ago
Public housing isn't perfect in Europe - it leads to stagnant cities and the inability to redevelop areas as they change.

mc32 7y ago

So how is housing going to get built? Are you suggesting that the state have a monopoly on buildings and housing? What process do we use to begin the expropriations and confiscations?

ahelwer 7y ago
Start small. People can own one, maybe two housing units (everyone loves a good cabin). Get rid of REITs. Expand building of public housing; don't means-test it, it's available to everyone. Means-testing is how you get impoverished housing projects. Universal public goods have a habit of sticking around and getting funded.
- refurb 7y ago
  Where do you plan on raising the funds to actually build housing? Unless it’s economically attractive to invest in real estate, the money won’t flow into housing. Sure you could have the govt do it, but based on their track record I don’t assume it’ll be done very efficiently.
munk-a 7y ago
Sorry, to clarify... Are you saying that because we have public transit no one can own cars anymore? The generous way to read the post above is an arrangement where property ownership can be both public and private - possibly where rental units are majority state owned and private ownership is more concentrated in actual residents.
- mc32 7y ago
  >” ...real solution to the housing crises is the abolishment of professional landlords... Why [] support a system where people can own many properties[...] Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible... It’s akin to saying most transit should be gov owned: cars, trucks, trains, planes, ships... they may allow you to own one private vehicle.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >Sorry, to clarify... Are you saying that because we have public transit no one can own cars anymore? You joke but many people here would support just that.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Eeeeh, in the long run I think it'll just become unnecessary to own a personal car for most people if self-driving car fleets become a thing - I dunno... it might be a luxury like owning your own boat, if you're vacationing on a lake you can always rent one so why pay to maintain something you very rarely need... more apt might be to consider it equivalent to owning your own train car. At any rate I don't think personal property ownership should be made illegal, it could just be made to cost - taxi companies are taxed for running a fleet of vehicles and charging people to ride on them, that sort of mass property ownership could be similarly taxed.
- baby 7y ago
  I think everyone can agree that the private car culture destroyed any hope for good public transport in the US.
c22 7y ago
You don't need to confiscate anything. We have an abundance of housing stock (nationwide, many more existing homes than families to fill them). If you make it impossible to be a private landlord then these properties will decrease in value until most citizens can afford to buy a house. Public housing will only be necessary for a small percentage of outliers. New housing will be built to be sold at a modest profit and replace decaying stock, just as it is now. The only difference is owners will not be able to sit on the pot collecting rents from derelict buildings while they wait to optimize their redevelopment in a peak market.
- 1123581321 7y ago
  Using the law to destroy the value of someone’s asset until they abandon it is confiscation, just indirectly.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    Confiscation, it is not, anymore than negative reports are confiscation of stock. You can liquidate and acquire a different asset. Personal preference has rarely been rewarded (re: eminent domain). There are windows of opportunity, timing and strategy inherent to capitalism. Sell before it passes (or the market adjusts) to maximize your realized asset value.
    - mc32 7y ago
      People are going to like that as much as they like devaluations or high inflation.
    - 1123581321 7y ago
      Both your examples (eminent domain and a government using propaganda to devalue a company) are forms of confiscation. It doesn’t matter if smart people would be able to foresee and mitigate the damage.
  - c22 7y ago
    Sorry, it might be rude, it might be unfortunate for existing landlords, it might even be a terrible idea, but I don't see how you can call it "confiscation". If the defacto situation is maintained ownership until a decision is made to sell that is not confiscation. If the city builds a trash transfer center right next to my house causing my property value to plummet I might be upset, but nothing has been confiscated from me because I do not own "the character of the neighborhood" except in some small collective part.

zaroth 7y ago

The first house I ever owned was a condo I bought in 2005, way out in the sticks, because the further I got from the city the cheaper the houses got, and because I had a strong suspicion that housing prices were too damn high. By the time I had to move to CA for work in 2009 of course the market had crashed badly and the condo was well underwater, not even counting the $20k I had put into the kitchen and bathroom. It was a $185k 2BR 1.5BA unit, with a condo fee of $300/mo and a monthly payment (principle + interest) of $980 with a 3/1 ARM at 3.5%. I got lucky because the rate was indexed to the LIBOR and it was being manipulated to ~0% back then, so my rate stayed super low even though it was adjusting every year. I put the unit on the market for $165k for two months and got zero showings. So I offered it for rent at $1400 on Craigslist and it was rented that weekend. I just sold the property last year, to the person who was renting it (and had been for 4 years) for $185k. I gave him the last 4 months before closing rent free because we closed without any broker (no commission) and because I didn’t have to do a thing to the unit pre-closing, seeing as how he was already living there. Not all landlords are scum out to make a buck on the back of tenants they never met and don’t care about. Not all landlords are even in it because they initially set out to be! And very few landlords are being “fed” half of someone’s paycheck, but more like, covering the costs plus a few percentage points, as long as nothing unexpected happens.

ahelwer 7y ago
I own a condo too. And if I move I probably won't sell it, but rather rent it out until I move back (while living in a rented place of my own). Individual home ownership is not a problem, it should be encouraged. The problem is people (and REITs) who lever up with a bunch of properties to be fed half of people's paycheck in the manner described. I will nitpick and say that paying your mortgage is not a cost. That is equity you're getting.
- wait-a-minute 7y ago
  You are very confused. A mortgage is definitely a cost. It's only meaningful equity if you ever sell it and get any of the money back, which is not guaranteed at all. And only public housing would collapse the entire economy. Plenty of countries tried this, most notably the commies in Russia and in eastern Europe.

Mountain_Skies 7y ago

Public housing already exists in the United States. It has had at best mixed results. There has been more success with HOPE VI public housing that doesn't concentrate everyone receiving subsidized housing together but it has been criticized for having lesser density and availability than straight up housing projects restricted to the financially disadvantaged.

tracker1 7y ago

So, you're saying people shouldn't be able to own apartment buildings? That will really help housing in dense areas.

c22 7y ago
People could presumably still "own" apartments.

panic 7y ago

> It works in Europe and it can work here. In Asia too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore

baby 7y ago

Agree 100% with you. Treating housing as an investment VS a human right is what got us here in the first place.

zaroth 7y ago
Housing in San Francisco is not a human right. But your anger is misdirected. The distortion in the housing market is the direct and predictable result of specific government policy, of which TFA is just more of the same. In this case by “more of the same” what I mean is a policy which will do nothing to solve the problem. This particular law seems to be relatively harmless.

taffer 7y ago

> Why should we support a system where people can own many properties, each feeding them 1/2 of someone else's paycheck? That doesn't make much sense to me. 1/2 of the paycheck is only true for a few places with limited housing supply, which is the root cause of the problem. One could apply the same logic of "x% of the paycheck" to other spending items such as food and conclude that the state should also produce our food. > Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Public housing in European countries accounts for less than 10% of the overall market and is mainly aimed at poor people. I do not see how this would be a general solution to the shortage of housing. > Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of housing being affordable. How can you possibly have affordable housing in a system where housing increases in value (cost) at 5% a year? True, but here, too, the cause is a lack of supply due to zoning, minimum parking requirements, minimum lot sizes and other restrictions.

ozzyman700 7y ago

We cannot, landlords are a parasite on productivity whose existence is based on the theft from their tenants. If it was not profitable they would not do it, if it is profitable, it is inherently unethical.

zaroth 7y ago
Radically untrue, bordering on nonsense. Investment requires a return on investment. Return on investment must be commensurate with the risk. Risk adjusted returns are the reason the house/apartment was built in the first place.
- ozzyman700 7y ago
  The house was built because there was someone to live in it.