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It's not wrong for an individual to choose an investment vehicle that aligns to their overall strategy. However in an overall social sense, I do think that res
by jb_s 7y ago
It's not wrong for an individual to choose an investment vehicle that aligns to their overall strategy.
However in an overall social sense, I do think that residential property investment in itself is wrong because I view housing as a utility and a basic necessity along the lines of water, healthcare, fire/police services and internet.
The issue is actually a simple trade off - whether it's more important to ensure people can own their own homes, or that people are allowed to use real estate as an investment.
I don't blame individual investors for this, but I do support the idea of introducing laws to limit property speculation. Bear in mind that I'm from Australia, where property investment has become a cancer that has drawn money away from productive assets (like startups) and into property, which is relatively speaking non-productive rent-seeking (outside of its effect on the construction and design industries). There's no net output from acquiring debt to buy a house so that you can do nothing but sit on it and flip it three years later for profit.
- ethanbond 7y agoYou should check out Georgism/Land Value Tax if you’re not already familiar with it. This comment is spot on.
- Ericson2314 7y agoAmend to that. Pity it is not better known. "homeownership" is such a rotten ideology in the US and has led to so many problems.
- balfirevic 7y agoI'm very sympathetic to Georgism, but you all seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in a discussion about the real estate ownership anonymity.
- rjsw 7y agoGeorgism won't work very well if you can't work out who owns the land or if it is owned by offshort corporations.
- balfirevic 7y agoOf course it will. You just need to charge the land value tax to the owning entity. The same is true now for any taxes, fees or fines regarding that property. If those are not paid, government can seize and auction-off the property.
- Ericson2314 7y agoYes anonymous ownership and Georgism aren't strictly mutually exclusive, but the path that led us here is a decidedly incompatible ideology of land just being another asset.
- throw_456721 7y ago> However in an overall social sense, I do think that residential property investment in itself is wrong because I view housing as a utility and a basic necessity along the lines of water, healthcare, fire/police services and internet. In China, the government owns all the land and citizens merely lease it for 70 years. Yet even with no land ownership, there is still land speculation.