11 ms·

A Texas nonprofit experiments with land trusts, for affordable housing

117 points by jseliger 7y ago

finder83 7y ago
Interesting concept, I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. Land ownership interests me a lot more than homeownership, and undeveloped land has its own value in a community. That's partly why we bought our house on two acres in a small community. A house surrounded by forests or a lake or even just farmland is more desirable to me than more dense housing, so I don't entirely understand Henry George's point. I would much rather live on land that I could do things with, such as farm, or hunt, or build things, and be "out in the country". What happens after the 99-year ground lease is up? Are the house and land then sold together on the open market?
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  A trust enables a public good (in this case, the land) to be protected from adverse forces (anyone whose interest is something other than those living on the land continuing to live on it). You could extend the ground lease forever, 99 years is simply a "good enough" number for now.
  - finder83 7y ago
    What are those adverse forces? Someone who's unwilling to develop their land for housing? At least monetarily, space around a house tends to increase the value of the house.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Developers, real estate investors, anyone with a profit motive who may seek to take advantage of the power asymmetry between themselves and someone who might not have the opportunity to live on a piece of land without a land trust.
      - finder83 7y ago
        That makes more sense, thanks
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Happy to help.
  - ikeboy 7y ago
    Why is it good for the government to buy up property and rent it at below market prices? That's just a handout and is inefficient, discouraging denser housing. Edit: they're specifically requiring someone to build a house there. It seems like if someone wanted to build multifamily housing, even if that would be a better use of the land, they would be turned down. That's a perverse incentive.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Call it what you want, that's what they're optimizing for. Some people can't afford market prices, and this is the hack around that market failure. You call it a handout, I call it compassionate government.
      - ikeboy 7y ago
        A far better "hack" would be LVT+get rid of zoning and other restrictions on building. That would actually reduce market prices instead of requiring a subsidy. >Compassionate government Nope, a government driving up market prices by restricting new construction is not compassionate just because they tried to help a handful of families buy below market.
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        This is in Houston. They already have some of the most lax zoning in the country. You're free to your opinion this is "inefficient" and causes "perverse incentives". In the meantime, people get homes they otherwise wouldn't. Some of us consider that a win.
        ikeboy 7y ago
        The article is about land trusts in general, not just the one in the headline. Regardless, the correct solution is to implement LVT. Without that, almost by definition market prices will be higher than they should be. The market failure is the government permitting people to buy and sell land. A small trust buying up some land and taking it off the market doesn't fix the underlying failure.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  > I would much rather live on land that I could do things with, such as farm, or hunt, or build things That's nice, but many people would just like to have a roof over their head that will stay over their head.
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  While it's nice to be around idyllic nature, it comes at the cost of being further away from other humans. There's a reason economic productivity rises by roughly 10% every time a city doubles in size. More people, means more innovations. Higher density leads to a more rapid spread of new ideas and best practices. Workers, entrepreneurs and investors can rapidly reconfigure to seize opportunities. Less density means you're more likely to fall into stagnation, as the one local employer in commute distance slowly circles the drains. City life comes with significantly better living standards. What you lose in yard space you make up with much higher salaries, better healthcare and education, and more varied cultural options. To a large extent country living is only idyllic because of the technological exports made by high productivity city-dwellers. I agree that there's a deep human need to connect with nature. But the solution isn't to try to give every man is his own personal Nottingham forest on his property. It's to build high-quality parks and nature reserves, and good transit so people can easily access these amenities.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Not to mention community. If you're lived in a city all your life and have roots, it's hard to just pick up and move. Not that it can't be done, but this often gets left out of the "why don't people just move if they can't afford to live there?" conversation.
  - finder83 7y ago
    I can see your point and agree this is probably true for the large majority of people. And most people don't want to live close to nature; it seems the large majority like being near cities and people, I'm just not one of them. :-D I'm not entirely sure that the dichotomy of high productivity city-dwellers/lower productivity country dwellers is true any longer though. I'm a dev manager/programmer working remotely, many of my neighbors are also in IT or construction and either work remotely or commute, and many programmers in our company also live in "fly-over" states in rural areas. Most also own chickens, have small farms, or raise competition animals. But I still understand and see your point, and I see the value in this for suburban areas. I suppose my mind went to areas more rural than the article is talking about.
  - DeathArrow 7y ago
- ikeboy 7y ago
  >A house surrounded by forests or a lake or even just farmland is more desirable to me than more dense housing, so I don't entirely understand Henry George's point. The point is that whoever values the land most should get it. If you're willing to pay more taxes on the land than someone who wants to build housing, then you can keep it. If not, the land should go to whoever can make the most productive use of it.
  - turtle-san 7y ago
    Not sure you are advocating or just explaining the idea, but I have to say something. This is how we lose natural land to sprawl. A large chunk is bought by a developer, clear cut, split into many small chunks, and sold to private individuals. This splitting of the land into many new owners makes conservation of an area in the future to be much harder. LVT makes sense for urban areas, but should stop where the city line is. From there out I could see LVT leeding to increasing deforestation, sprawl, and destruction of the natural environment. In certain areas I would even argue doing the opposite of LVT and be giving people tax incentives to leave land undeveloped and natural, better yet join parcels of adjoining land together in conservation projects while still allowing people to live on it, just where they cannot develop most of it, maybe even allow public access in the form of hiking trails using the "Freedom to Roam" principle.
    - ikeboy 7y ago
      And why is "sprawl" bad?
      - g8oz 7y ago
        Externalities
        ikeboy 7y ago
        What externalities, and why is it infeasible to tax those directly?
    - 7y ago
- hkmurakami 7y ago
  In Singapore the government repossess the land and the improvements. As you might imagine, property values decay as we approach lease expiration Freehold properties trade ata significant premium to leasehold.
- DeathArrow 7y ago
  >Interesting concept, I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. Land ownership interests me a lot more than homeownership Before accumulating wealth, most people are interested in having a shelter. Let's say someone has 50 years to live, from a point on. To have a shelter, it will cost him a = 50 * 12 * rent if he rents, b = x * 12 * rate if he buys a house and pays the mortgage, c = y * 12 * rate + 50 * 12 * land_rent if he buys just the house and lend the land. So picking the smallest from a, b and c might be better for that particular individual.
kyleee 7y ago
So it sounds like these trusts get favorable tax treatment too from a property tax perspective? Seems like that will be a sticking point if these gain popularity as it could suppress property tax revenue
- gpanders 7y ago
  This is a good point, and as long as public schools are funded from property taxes I think this will continue to be a problem.
brundolf 7y ago
I don't know much about this subject but it sounds like a really cool idea. We might need some of this in Austin.
- subpixel 7y ago
  The article mentions that Austin has two CLTs.
ikeboy 7y ago
The article compares this to Georgism, but the comparison seems misplaced. The point of a land value tax is not to make housing more affordable, but to ensure land goes towards the most productive use. If LVT was implemented along with zoning reform, housing would indeed become far more affordable because lots of more housing would be built. But a government subsidy for lower income families to pay below market land rent is a very different policy and has none of the benefits of LVT.
- outlace 7y ago
  Is there any example of a LVT anywhere in the US or even outside the US?
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax#Implementation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax#Implementation
    - wil421 7y ago
      Interesting read about Fairhope, Alabama and Mobile Bay jubilees. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Bay_jubilee https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Bay_jubilee
  - iana_mania_c 7y ago
    https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=soe_research https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1... [pdf] Economic development and the distribution of land rents in Singapore: A Georgist implementation
  - rcpt 7y ago
    https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/6/non-glamorous-gains-the-pennsylvania-land-tax-experiment https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/6/non-glamorous-g...
wahern 7y ago
> Many people still balk at the investment required by a CLT — in Houston, the city puts in roughly $105,000 per home. I wonder why $105,000. Looking at Zillow a quarter acre of land in the Acres Home area sells for ~$50-$75,000, and substantially less if you buy a bigger lot. And per the article, banks are providing home mortgages, thus substantially financing construction. Unless they're selling the houses for significantly less than the cost of construction, it doesn't make sense. Even if you had to heavily subsidize risk premium on the mortgage, a $105,000 expense per home seems exorbitant and not sustainable.[1] I bet costs could come way down if there was some serious money put behind a project like this to scale it up. Singapore, Hong Kong, and other places around the world (often former British colonies, because of smart U.K. housing policies immediately before decolonization) build affordable housing using similar schemes (99-year property lease, transfer covenants, etc), but on a much larger scale. San Francisco could (and should) do this, rather than spend years negotiating over developer exactions for every tiny project. [1] It would make more sense if most of that $105,000 was recovered on the first sale. But the article calls it a "subsidy", and other context suggests the $105,000 isn't directly recovered.
- thebradbain 7y ago
  I agree that $105,000 is too high for the area from a cost point of view, but when compared to California’s affordable housing up front capital cost, it looks much more promising ($1 million per unit in this, extreme but unfortunately not too extreme for this state, case): https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/news/affordable-housing/affordable-housing-in-california-could-cost-1m-per-unit-according-to-la-times-study-103838#ath https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/news/affordable-housing/a... At that rate, Houston metro could get 100 homes for the same price it takes to produce 10 affordable homes in the San Diego metro area!
  - cat199 7y ago
    no expert in the topic, but this comparison is only meaningful if compared to the local cost per unit of raw land - land prices in SD metro are probably way higher, esp. compared to this particular part of houston won't try to categorize - take a streetview tour: https://goo.gl/maps/9sEyR9YRRR2EDFND8 https://goo.gl/maps/9sEyR9YRRR2EDFND8 what is clear is that this area is mostly empty fields or pretty poor, with vastly more expensive gentrifying houses popping up in the greenspace. a large area land trust can buy large chunks, preventing speculation on the greenspace from completely removing the existing community subsequently, since community members are part of the trust, they would defacto own all of the local land, guarding against future speculation and ensuring a like-minded voting block w/r/t local property tax policy (which is huge in TX and in practice what serves as the state income tax) so to me the topic is basically like rent control for real estate. whether or not this is the state's business is another topic - interesting that our free market, 'classless' republic is in effect building up a hereditary landowning class though.
mleonhard 7y ago
20% of housing units in Denmark are co-operative owned. See sidebar at https://www.housinginternational.coop/co-ops/denmark/ https://www.housinginternational.coop/co-ops/denmark/ How Danish housing cooperatives work (6-min whiteboard video): http://stories.coop/stories/kab-how-cooperative-housing-works-in-denmark/ http://stories.coop/stories/kab-how-cooperative-housing-work... This is a model for affordable housing that really works.
- sien 7y ago
  That's interesting. However, Danes spend the second highest proportion of income on housing in the OECD after Finns. See the chart on page 2. http://www.oecd.org/els/family/HC1-1-Housing-related-expenditure-of-households.pdf http://www.oecd.org/els/family/HC1-1-Housing-related-expendi...
adelHBN 7y ago
Houston's land trust seems to be managed by the city government. So is it draining government coffers? Not sure how this works. San Francisco has a land trust (I only know of one). But it's community-based and owned. Here's the site: https://sfclt.org/ https://sfclt.org/ There are other trusts as well, such as farming trust: https://malt.org/why-we-protect-farmland/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2saXr4Dp6AIVj_5kCh0RQw_BEAAYASAAEgJ99vD_BwE https://malt.org/why-we-protect-farmland/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI...
- wahern 7y ago
  Another alternative that used to be popular in many American cities are coops. Instead of buying property you buy shares in a corporation which give you the right to occupy a unit. The large, low-rise apartment complex on Geary Blvd across the street from Japantown is a coop. Regarding the effect of 99-year property leases on home prices, there's a condominium tower at 946 Stockton St/950 Washington St in Chinatown that has a 99-year ground lease (expiring in 2069, I believe). Units in both developments regularly sell for a fraction (~ 1/3 to 1/2, IIRC) of comparable units in the area. You'd have to know the details of the shareholder rights (coop) or accession rights[1] (ground lease) to know how the prices compare to freeholds or rentals, but it shows how alternatives aren't new, just merely coming back into fashion. [1] That is, whether ownership of the tower transfers to the landlord without any renumeration for the improvement; whether the condominium owners have a renewal option, etc.
dcole2929 7y ago
This sounds like a really nice idea that is 20 years away from being a horrific disenfranchising one. Owning the land is an important piece of wealth transfer from generation to generation. This reminds me of the situation in NC and other parts of the south where minority communities are starting to lose control of the land there families due to a bunch of loop holes. There the problem is that due to lack of paper trails ownership is murky and often reverts back to the city who then sells it away to the highest bidder (often developers who displace the people who have been there). What happens 20 - 30 years from now when this non profit has shuttered and the land is now owned by some random bank? It's great that the land lease is transferable to heirs but this just has all the makings of a looming disasters
- badrabbit 7y ago
  99 year leases are common in many countries. You still get equity and you can still sell the house. If you don't sell before the lease is up and they don't renew the lease, they still need to compensate for the value of the house before kicking you out.
  - subpixel 7y ago
    There is a cap on what you can resell the house for, so this is not a way to get rich in real estate. It's interesting how many commenters seem to think that renders this model ineffective. "If nobody can get rich in this game, nobody should play" is an odd way to look at this program, which is about helping renters graduate to home ownership while protecting their community from speculative capital.
    - badrabbit 7y ago
      I agree that real estate shouldn't enable a "get rich easy" scheme,it maligns incentives of everyone involved.
    - beerandt 7y ago
      It's preventing these people from benefiting from the very mechanism they claim put them at a disadvantage in the first place. Why not teach them the ropes of how to benefit like everyone else is? Telling them not to play the game at all while everyone else continues to doesn't help anyone long term. Even worse, they're paying essentially the same mortgage (a slightly discounted one) but will see a fraction of the proportional benefit as their neighbors do, when it comes time to sell. Then it will be just another way that the system is set against them to get ahead.
hash872 7y ago
Big disagree with this concept. If the article is accurate, it prevents Regina Daniels or any other beneficiaries from accumulating significant wealth in the the property, because resale (or presumably home equity loan) values are capped. So what does she get out of it? More stability for her family and a capped mortgage payment every month, yes, but no real chance to actually accumulate wealth. It's basically blocking the way in which the poor can join the middle class (yes I think index funds are a better investment than real estate, but I think owning your own home is perfectly fine for a lower income family). A better idea would be to deregulate housing and let developers build condos there, and she could buy one (or I'd be totally fine with government assistance in her buying one!) Way more efficient use of the land, and she could accumulate real wealth that way
- seltzered_ 7y ago
  You're measuring wealth in only the dimension of financial capital. What if participation in a community land trust enables an increase of social capital? (see http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/ http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/ )
  - solotronics 7y ago
    Unfortunately if your measuring wealth in something intangible that is usually a sign your getting screwed over. If I give away all my money to random people on the street I might have gained social capital but my tangible wealth is gone.
- wmf 7y ago
  Many people think that Americans are over-invested in their houses. Germans, for example, don't use housing as an investment yet they are still able to save and invest in other ways. Specifically, Regina Daniels could put the difference between her super-low mortgage payment and what she would normally pay into some index funds and she would probably be net ahead.
  - DeathArrow 7y ago
markdown 7y ago
Relevant: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/337 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/337 And don't skip the article below the comic.
matchbok 7y ago
All of these programs are band-aids at best. Most, like this, will force middle class rents even higher, putting more strain on the system. The causes of ever-increasing rent are clear, but unpopular to address. We need more transit and living opportunities in healthy, job-rich areas so that 100 people aren't competing for a tiny apartment. Sadly, any movement to do so is attacked as "gentrification" or nonsense about "luxury" apartments. So, nothing gets done and people continue to get priced out. :/
- L_Rahman 7y ago
  The prime opponents to new housing construction aren't people who complain about gentrification or luxury housing. Those groups don't have that much political power. The proof for this lies in the fact that most new housing construction in American cities takes place in lower to middle income neighborhoods. The opponents to transit and living construction tend to be people who complain about "other people" moving in, "my property values", and "neighborhood character". We are on the same side of this issue, I simply urge you to direct your anger at more appropriate targets :)
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > The opponents to transit and living construction tend to be people who complain about "other people" moving in, "my property values", and "neighborhood character". I have a feeling that "house as a place to live" is fundamentally incompatible with "house as an investment".
    - zyx321 7y ago
      It's not literally about property values. It's about class, and to a lesser degree race. If there was good public transit, then 'inner city' people who can't afford owning a car could come and go freely. The suburban middle class don't want anything to do with 'those people'.
      - L_Rahman 7y ago

117 points by jseliger 7y ago

Interesting concept, I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. Land ownership interests me a lot more than homeownership, and undeveloped land has its own value in a community. That's partly why we bought our house on two acres in a small community. A house surrounded by forests or a lake or even just farmland is more desirable to me than more dense housing, so I don't entirely understand Henry George's point. I would much rather live on land that I could do things with, such as farm, or hunt, or build things, and be "out in the country". What happens after the 99-year ground lease is up? Are the house and land then sold together on the open market?

toomuchtodo 7y ago
A trust enables a public good (in this case, the land) to be protected from adverse forces (anyone whose interest is something other than those living on the land continuing to live on it). You could extend the ground lease forever, 99 years is simply a "good enough" number for now.
- finder83 7y ago
  What are those adverse forces? Someone who's unwilling to develop their land for housing? At least monetarily, space around a house tends to increase the value of the house.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Developers, real estate investors, anyone with a profit motive who may seek to take advantage of the power asymmetry between themselves and someone who might not have the opportunity to live on a piece of land without a land trust.
    - finder83 7y ago
      That makes more sense, thanks
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        Happy to help.
- ikeboy 7y ago
  Why is it good for the government to buy up property and rent it at below market prices? That's just a handout and is inefficient, discouraging denser housing. Edit: they're specifically requiring someone to build a house there. It seems like if someone wanted to build multifamily housing, even if that would be a better use of the land, they would be turned down. That's a perverse incentive.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Call it what you want, that's what they're optimizing for. Some people can't afford market prices, and this is the hack around that market failure. You call it a handout, I call it compassionate government.
    - ikeboy 7y ago
      A far better "hack" would be LVT+get rid of zoning and other restrictions on building. That would actually reduce market prices instead of requiring a subsidy. >Compassionate government Nope, a government driving up market prices by restricting new construction is not compassionate just because they tried to help a handful of families buy below market.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        This is in Houston. They already have some of the most lax zoning in the country. You're free to your opinion this is "inefficient" and causes "perverse incentives". In the meantime, people get homes they otherwise wouldn't. Some of us consider that a win.
        ikeboy 7y ago
        The article is about land trusts in general, not just the one in the headline. Regardless, the correct solution is to implement LVT. Without that, almost by definition market prices will be higher than they should be. The market failure is the government permitting people to buy and sell land. A small trust buying up some land and taking it off the market doesn't fix the underlying failure.
_bxg1 7y ago
> I would much rather live on land that I could do things with, such as farm, or hunt, or build things That's nice, but many people would just like to have a roof over their head that will stay over their head.
dcolkitt 7y ago
While it's nice to be around idyllic nature, it comes at the cost of being further away from other humans. There's a reason economic productivity rises by roughly 10% every time a city doubles in size. More people, means more innovations. Higher density leads to a more rapid spread of new ideas and best practices. Workers, entrepreneurs and investors can rapidly reconfigure to seize opportunities. Less density means you're more likely to fall into stagnation, as the one local employer in commute distance slowly circles the drains. City life comes with significantly better living standards. What you lose in yard space you make up with much higher salaries, better healthcare and education, and more varied cultural options. To a large extent country living is only idyllic because of the technological exports made by high productivity city-dwellers. I agree that there's a deep human need to connect with nature. But the solution isn't to try to give every man is his own personal Nottingham forest on his property. It's to build high-quality parks and nature reserves, and good transit so people can easily access these amenities.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Not to mention community. If you're lived in a city all your life and have roots, it's hard to just pick up and move. Not that it can't be done, but this often gets left out of the "why don't people just move if they can't afford to live there?" conversation.
- finder83 7y ago
  I can see your point and agree this is probably true for the large majority of people. And most people don't want to live close to nature; it seems the large majority like being near cities and people, I'm just not one of them. :-D I'm not entirely sure that the dichotomy of high productivity city-dwellers/lower productivity country dwellers is true any longer though. I'm a dev manager/programmer working remotely, many of my neighbors are also in IT or construction and either work remotely or commute, and many programmers in our company also live in "fly-over" states in rural areas. Most also own chickens, have small farms, or raise competition animals. But I still understand and see your point, and I see the value in this for suburban areas. I suppose my mind went to areas more rural than the article is talking about.
- DeathArrow 7y ago
ikeboy 7y ago
>A house surrounded by forests or a lake or even just farmland is more desirable to me than more dense housing, so I don't entirely understand Henry George's point. The point is that whoever values the land most should get it. If you're willing to pay more taxes on the land than someone who wants to build housing, then you can keep it. If not, the land should go to whoever can make the most productive use of it.
- turtle-san 7y ago
  Not sure you are advocating or just explaining the idea, but I have to say something. This is how we lose natural land to sprawl. A large chunk is bought by a developer, clear cut, split into many small chunks, and sold to private individuals. This splitting of the land into many new owners makes conservation of an area in the future to be much harder. LVT makes sense for urban areas, but should stop where the city line is. From there out I could see LVT leeding to increasing deforestation, sprawl, and destruction of the natural environment. In certain areas I would even argue doing the opposite of LVT and be giving people tax incentives to leave land undeveloped and natural, better yet join parcels of adjoining land together in conservation projects while still allowing people to live on it, just where they cannot develop most of it, maybe even allow public access in the form of hiking trails using the "Freedom to Roam" principle.
  - ikeboy 7y ago
    And why is "sprawl" bad?
    - g8oz 7y ago
      Externalities
      - ikeboy 7y ago
        What externalities, and why is it infeasible to tax those directly?
  - 7y ago
hkmurakami 7y ago
In Singapore the government repossess the land and the improvements. As you might imagine, property values decay as we approach lease expiration Freehold properties trade ata significant premium to leasehold.
DeathArrow 7y ago
>Interesting concept, I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. Land ownership interests me a lot more than homeownership Before accumulating wealth, most people are interested in having a shelter. Let's say someone has 50 years to live, from a point on. To have a shelter, it will cost him a = 50 * 12 * rent if he rents, b = x * 12 * rate if he buys a house and pays the mortgage, c = y * 12 * rate + 50 * 12 * land_rent if he buys just the house and lend the land. So picking the smallest from a, b and c might be better for that particular individual.

kyleee 7y ago

So it sounds like these trusts get favorable tax treatment too from a property tax perspective? Seems like that will be a sticking point if these gain popularity as it could suppress property tax revenue

gpanders 7y ago
This is a good point, and as long as public schools are funded from property taxes I think this will continue to be a problem.

brundolf 7y ago

I don't know much about this subject but it sounds like a really cool idea. We might need some of this in Austin.

subpixel 7y ago
The article mentions that Austin has two CLTs.

ikeboy 7y ago

The article compares this to Georgism, but the comparison seems misplaced. The point of a land value tax is not to make housing more affordable, but to ensure land goes towards the most productive use. If LVT was implemented along with zoning reform, housing would indeed become far more affordable because lots of more housing would be built. But a government subsidy for lower income families to pay below market land rent is a very different policy and has none of the benefits of LVT.

outlace 7y ago
Is there any example of a LVT anywhere in the US or even outside the US?
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax#Implementation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax#Implementation
  - wil421 7y ago
    Interesting read about Fairhope, Alabama and Mobile Bay jubilees. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Bay_jubilee https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Bay_jubilee
- iana_mania_c 7y ago
  https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=soe_research https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1... [pdf] Economic development and the distribution of land rents in Singapore: A Georgist implementation
- rcpt 7y ago
  https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/6/non-glamorous-gains-the-pennsylvania-land-tax-experiment https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/6/non-glamorous-g...

wahern 7y ago

> Many people still balk at the investment required by a CLT — in Houston, the city puts in roughly $105,000 per home. I wonder why $105,000. Looking at Zillow a quarter acre of land in the Acres Home area sells for ~$50-$75,000, and substantially less if you buy a bigger lot. And per the article, banks are providing home mortgages, thus substantially financing construction. Unless they're selling the houses for significantly less than the cost of construction, it doesn't make sense. Even if you had to heavily subsidize risk premium on the mortgage, a $105,000 expense per home seems exorbitant and not sustainable.[1] I bet costs could come way down if there was some serious money put behind a project like this to scale it up. Singapore, Hong Kong, and other places around the world (often former British colonies, because of smart U.K. housing policies immediately before decolonization) build affordable housing using similar schemes (99-year property lease, transfer covenants, etc), but on a much larger scale. San Francisco could (and should) do this, rather than spend years negotiating over developer exactions for every tiny project. [1] It would make more sense if most of that $105,000 was recovered on the first sale. But the article calls it a "subsidy", and other context suggests the $105,000 isn't directly recovered.

thebradbain 7y ago
I agree that $105,000 is too high for the area from a cost point of view, but when compared to California’s affordable housing up front capital cost, it looks much more promising ($1 million per unit in this, extreme but unfortunately not too extreme for this state, case): https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/news/affordable-housing/affordable-housing-in-california-could-cost-1m-per-unit-according-to-la-times-study-103838#ath https://www.bisnow.com/los-angeles/news/affordable-housing/a... At that rate, Houston metro could get 100 homes for the same price it takes to produce 10 affordable homes in the San Diego metro area!
- cat199 7y ago
  no expert in the topic, but this comparison is only meaningful if compared to the local cost per unit of raw land - land prices in SD metro are probably way higher, esp. compared to this particular part of houston won't try to categorize - take a streetview tour: https://goo.gl/maps/9sEyR9YRRR2EDFND8 https://goo.gl/maps/9sEyR9YRRR2EDFND8 what is clear is that this area is mostly empty fields or pretty poor, with vastly more expensive gentrifying houses popping up in the greenspace. a large area land trust can buy large chunks, preventing speculation on the greenspace from completely removing the existing community subsequently, since community members are part of the trust, they would defacto own all of the local land, guarding against future speculation and ensuring a like-minded voting block w/r/t local property tax policy (which is huge in TX and in practice what serves as the state income tax) so to me the topic is basically like rent control for real estate. whether or not this is the state's business is another topic - interesting that our free market, 'classless' republic is in effect building up a hereditary landowning class though.

mleonhard 7y ago

20% of housing units in Denmark are co-operative owned. See sidebar at https://www.housinginternational.coop/co-ops/denmark/ https://www.housinginternational.coop/co-ops/denmark/ How Danish housing cooperatives work (6-min whiteboard video): http://stories.coop/stories/kab-how-cooperative-housing-works-in-denmark/ http://stories.coop/stories/kab-how-cooperative-housing-work... This is a model for affordable housing that really works.

sien 7y ago
That's interesting. However, Danes spend the second highest proportion of income on housing in the OECD after Finns. See the chart on page 2. http://www.oecd.org/els/family/HC1-1-Housing-related-expenditure-of-households.pdf http://www.oecd.org/els/family/HC1-1-Housing-related-expendi...

adelHBN 7y ago

Houston's land trust seems to be managed by the city government. So is it draining government coffers? Not sure how this works. San Francisco has a land trust (I only know of one). But it's community-based and owned. Here's the site: https://sfclt.org/ https://sfclt.org/ There are other trusts as well, such as farming trust: https://malt.org/why-we-protect-farmland/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2saXr4Dp6AIVj_5kCh0RQw_BEAAYASAAEgJ99vD_BwE https://malt.org/why-we-protect-farmland/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI...

wahern 7y ago
Another alternative that used to be popular in many American cities are coops. Instead of buying property you buy shares in a corporation which give you the right to occupy a unit. The large, low-rise apartment complex on Geary Blvd across the street from Japantown is a coop. Regarding the effect of 99-year property leases on home prices, there's a condominium tower at 946 Stockton St/950 Washington St in Chinatown that has a 99-year ground lease (expiring in 2069, I believe). Units in both developments regularly sell for a fraction (~ 1/3 to 1/2, IIRC) of comparable units in the area. You'd have to know the details of the shareholder rights (coop) or accession rights[1] (ground lease) to know how the prices compare to freeholds or rentals, but it shows how alternatives aren't new, just merely coming back into fashion. [1] That is, whether ownership of the tower transfers to the landlord without any renumeration for the improvement; whether the condominium owners have a renewal option, etc.

dcole2929 7y ago

This sounds like a really nice idea that is 20 years away from being a horrific disenfranchising one. Owning the land is an important piece of wealth transfer from generation to generation. This reminds me of the situation in NC and other parts of the south where minority communities are starting to lose control of the land there families due to a bunch of loop holes. There the problem is that due to lack of paper trails ownership is murky and often reverts back to the city who then sells it away to the highest bidder (often developers who displace the people who have been there). What happens 20 - 30 years from now when this non profit has shuttered and the land is now owned by some random bank? It's great that the land lease is transferable to heirs but this just has all the makings of a looming disasters

badrabbit 7y ago
99 year leases are common in many countries. You still get equity and you can still sell the house. If you don't sell before the lease is up and they don't renew the lease, they still need to compensate for the value of the house before kicking you out.
- subpixel 7y ago
  There is a cap on what you can resell the house for, so this is not a way to get rich in real estate. It's interesting how many commenters seem to think that renders this model ineffective. "If nobody can get rich in this game, nobody should play" is an odd way to look at this program, which is about helping renters graduate to home ownership while protecting their community from speculative capital.
  - badrabbit 7y ago
    I agree that real estate shouldn't enable a "get rich easy" scheme,it maligns incentives of everyone involved.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    It's preventing these people from benefiting from the very mechanism they claim put them at a disadvantage in the first place. Why not teach them the ropes of how to benefit like everyone else is? Telling them not to play the game at all while everyone else continues to doesn't help anyone long term. Even worse, they're paying essentially the same mortgage (a slightly discounted one) but will see a fraction of the proportional benefit as their neighbors do, when it comes time to sell. Then it will be just another way that the system is set against them to get ahead.

hash872 7y ago

Big disagree with this concept. If the article is accurate, it prevents Regina Daniels or any other beneficiaries from accumulating significant wealth in the the property, because resale (or presumably home equity loan) values are capped. So what does she get out of it? More stability for her family and a capped mortgage payment every month, yes, but no real chance to actually accumulate wealth. It's basically blocking the way in which the poor can join the middle class (yes I think index funds are a better investment than real estate, but I think owning your own home is perfectly fine for a lower income family). A better idea would be to deregulate housing and let developers build condos there, and she could buy one (or I'd be totally fine with government assistance in her buying one!) Way more efficient use of the land, and she could accumulate real wealth that way

seltzered_ 7y ago
You're measuring wealth in only the dimension of financial capital. What if participation in a community land trust enables an increase of social capital? (see http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/ http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/ )
- solotronics 7y ago
  Unfortunately if your measuring wealth in something intangible that is usually a sign your getting screwed over. If I give away all my money to random people on the street I might have gained social capital but my tangible wealth is gone.
wmf 7y ago
Many people think that Americans are over-invested in their houses. Germans, for example, don't use housing as an investment yet they are still able to save and invest in other ways. Specifically, Regina Daniels could put the difference between her super-low mortgage payment and what she would normally pay into some index funds and she would probably be net ahead.
- DeathArrow 7y ago

markdown 7y ago

Relevant: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/337 http://existentialcomics.com/comic/337 And don't skip the article below the comic.

matchbok 7y ago

All of these programs are band-aids at best. Most, like this, will force middle class rents even higher, putting more strain on the system. The causes of ever-increasing rent are clear, but unpopular to address. We need more transit and living opportunities in healthy, job-rich areas so that 100 people aren't competing for a tiny apartment. Sadly, any movement to do so is attacked as "gentrification" or nonsense about "luxury" apartments. So, nothing gets done and people continue to get priced out. :/

L_Rahman 7y ago
The prime opponents to new housing construction aren't people who complain about gentrification or luxury housing. Those groups don't have that much political power. The proof for this lies in the fact that most new housing construction in American cities takes place in lower to middle income neighborhoods. The opponents to transit and living construction tend to be people who complain about "other people" moving in, "my property values", and "neighborhood character". We are on the same side of this issue, I simply urge you to direct your anger at more appropriate targets :)
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > The opponents to transit and living construction tend to be people who complain about "other people" moving in, "my property values", and "neighborhood character". I have a feeling that "house as a place to live" is fundamentally incompatible with "house as an investment".
  - zyx321 7y ago
    It's not literally about property values. It's about class, and to a lesser degree race. If there was good public transit, then 'inner city' people who can't afford owning a car could come and go freely. The suburban middle class don't want anything to do with 'those people'.
    - L_Rahman 7y ago