5 ms·

Rent control, when coupled with other means of ensuring housing is built for those that can afford it, is a reasonable way of ensuring housing for those that ca

by foota 6y ago

Rent control, when coupled with other means of ensuring housing is built for those that can afford it, is a reasonable way of ensuring housing for those that can't afford it at the market price. That is, globally applying a cap on rents would be a bad idea, since there would be no incentive to build new housing. However, when coupled with restrictions such as requiring only some fraction of new housing construction to be below market rate it can produce better results. Imo we should just solve this issue once and for all by supplying government housing to anyone at a low price, but there seems to be little political will for that. It seems to me if you can reach the right people to pay for it they would gladly pay to solve homelessness (which, is admittedly more than just having available housing), but it's difficult to get that to happen.

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
This may depend on where you are, but around here I’d have very low confidence that the government would be capable of efficiently delivering quality housing at a low price. Edit: Ah, I’m realizing now that you may have meant delivering it to the occupants at a low price out of their pocket, and not necessarily at a low cost overall.
dheera 6y ago
> supplying government housing to anyone at a low price Singapore does exactly this with the HDB flats.
- refurb 6y ago
  Not quite a “low price”. A 2 bed HDB costs around $500k SGD. And the median salary is ~10-15% lower than the US. Way cheaper than a private condo ($1M), but still a significant barrier to many people in Singapore especially since you can’t buy one if you’re single until you’re over 35.
exporectomy 6y ago
> Imo we should just solve this issue once and for all by supplying government housing to anyone at a low price, but there seems to be little political will for that. Where would that end? If you always build more to accommodate any poor or homeless people, they'll come from other cities to enjoy the cheap housing.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  This is a national problem requiring a federal solution. Anything less will be exploited by desperate people. Don't hate the poor players. Hate the rich exploiting them for profit.
  - jboog 6y ago
    What would you propose the federal solution would be?
    - kelnos 6y ago
      I guess you could require municipalities greater than a certain (fairly small) size construct and maintain some public housing, with the required unit count related to population in some way. If you applied that uniformly across the US, no one city or town would become hot spots for migration. I don't think this is really a workable policy, however. Not even sure it'd be constitutional for the federal government to do this. And public housing has a reputation for being lowest-common-denominator, poorly-built, and poorly-maintained. If you drive through the south of the Potrero Hill neighborhood in SF, you'll see a lot of public housing, and... frankly, it doesn't look particularly pleasant to live there. I'm sure there are much worse options, but the housing there doesn't look in great shape.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
      A federal housing guarantee. In every instance where someone cannot find affordable and sufficient housing for themselves and their family then they are entitled to the live in an unoccupied unit that meets their families needs (1 bedroom per kid and 1 for parents, at most 30 minutes by, public transit from their primary job, or car if they have a reliable vehicle and the income to maintain it) for at most 30% of their income. Their primary employer pays half the difference in cost and the property owner absorbs the rest. If this kills a business then so be it. Businesses are not entitled to impoverished workers. Vacant properties should be taxed at an increasing rate sufficient to force the owners hand to either lower rates (and realize the losses from the new valuation from their creditors) or liquidate the property. The proceeds of these taxes can go towards the building and maintenance of affordable housing in the district their collected from. This should encourage liquidation of speculative properties in hot markets and allow those without capitol to compete against those living parasitically off of their "investments". Obviously this isn't perfect, and I'm open to admitting it's a terrible plan. But can we at least try something FFS? So long as people are homeless and can't afford to buy homes near their jobs I don't think anyone is entitled to profiting off of renting property. Also worth trying: Eminent domain land and task the national guard or army engineers with building minimally viable affordable housing condos. Attach a jobs program to train the un/under-employed from the area and scale up to the size of the problem.
readams 6y ago
Below market rate housing is, by definition, always in short supply.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  This isn’t true if the government generates more via subsidies.
  - _-___________-_ 6y ago
    That will just push down the market rate so that it's not below market rate any more, won't it?
    - mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
      I don’t think so, why would that happen? I would expect it to actually increase the market rate because setting aside some amount of the supply at below market rate / subsidized means that there is a smaller remaining supply than if they hadn’t done that.
      - readams 6y ago
        Market rate is the price where supply and demand are equal. If you set price below market rate, the demand will be higher than the supply. So if you create enough below market rate housing that there is no longer a shortage, then it must mean that the supply and demand are equal at that price, which means that it is no longer below market rate.
jiriknesl 6y ago
It has a couple of issues: 1. There's no right to live somewhere. If you cannot afford it, it doesn't matter you grew up in the place or that you like the place a lot. 2. No place is inflatable. You can increase density, but only to some point. 3. Have you seen how housing built in this style looks like? Most of them are concrete cubes. You can find them anywhere in Eastern Europe. It's not desirable. Let's imagine a beautiful town on a small island. Neat houses and everything. Place for 100 houses. But now, 1000 families decide to live here. So the politician replaces those 100 family houses with a five huge 100 unit buildings. Locals get units, living is more affordable for everyone. The place is destroyed. Nobody wants to live there anymore. So those 1000 people find another beautiful island with 100 neat houses...

by foota 6y ago

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago

This may depend on where you are, but around here I’d have very low confidence that the government would be capable of efficiently delivering quality housing at a low price. Edit: Ah, I’m realizing now that you may have meant delivering it to the occupants at a low price out of their pocket, and not necessarily at a low cost overall.

dheera 6y ago

> supplying government housing to anyone at a low price Singapore does exactly this with the HDB flats.

refurb 6y ago
Not quite a “low price”. A 2 bed HDB costs around $500k SGD. And the median salary is ~10-15% lower than the US. Way cheaper than a private condo ($1M), but still a significant barrier to many people in Singapore especially since you can’t buy one if you’re single until you’re over 35.

exporectomy 6y ago

> Imo we should just solve this issue once and for all by supplying government housing to anyone at a low price, but there seems to be little political will for that. Where would that end? If you always build more to accommodate any poor or homeless people, they'll come from other cities to enjoy the cheap housing.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
This is a national problem requiring a federal solution. Anything less will be exploited by desperate people. Don't hate the poor players. Hate the rich exploiting them for profit.
- jboog 6y ago
  What would you propose the federal solution would be?
  - kelnos 6y ago
    I guess you could require municipalities greater than a certain (fairly small) size construct and maintain some public housing, with the required unit count related to population in some way. If you applied that uniformly across the US, no one city or town would become hot spots for migration. I don't think this is really a workable policy, however. Not even sure it'd be constitutional for the federal government to do this. And public housing has a reputation for being lowest-common-denominator, poorly-built, and poorly-maintained. If you drive through the south of the Potrero Hill neighborhood in SF, you'll see a lot of public housing, and... frankly, it doesn't look particularly pleasant to live there. I'm sure there are much worse options, but the housing there doesn't look in great shape.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    A federal housing guarantee. In every instance where someone cannot find affordable and sufficient housing for themselves and their family then they are entitled to the live in an unoccupied unit that meets their families needs (1 bedroom per kid and 1 for parents, at most 30 minutes by, public transit from their primary job, or car if they have a reliable vehicle and the income to maintain it) for at most 30% of their income. Their primary employer pays half the difference in cost and the property owner absorbs the rest. If this kills a business then so be it. Businesses are not entitled to impoverished workers. Vacant properties should be taxed at an increasing rate sufficient to force the owners hand to either lower rates (and realize the losses from the new valuation from their creditors) or liquidate the property. The proceeds of these taxes can go towards the building and maintenance of affordable housing in the district their collected from. This should encourage liquidation of speculative properties in hot markets and allow those without capitol to compete against those living parasitically off of their "investments". Obviously this isn't perfect, and I'm open to admitting it's a terrible plan. But can we at least try something FFS? So long as people are homeless and can't afford to buy homes near their jobs I don't think anyone is entitled to profiting off of renting property. Also worth trying: Eminent domain land and task the national guard or army engineers with building minimally viable affordable housing condos. Attach a jobs program to train the un/under-employed from the area and scale up to the size of the problem.

readams 6y ago

Below market rate housing is, by definition, always in short supply.

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
This isn’t true if the government generates more via subsidies.
- _-___________-_ 6y ago
  That will just push down the market rate so that it's not below market rate any more, won't it?
  - mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
    I don’t think so, why would that happen? I would expect it to actually increase the market rate because setting aside some amount of the supply at below market rate / subsidized means that there is a smaller remaining supply than if they hadn’t done that.
    - readams 6y ago
      Market rate is the price where supply and demand are equal. If you set price below market rate, the demand will be higher than the supply. So if you create enough below market rate housing that there is no longer a shortage, then it must mean that the supply and demand are equal at that price, which means that it is no longer below market rate.

jiriknesl 6y ago

It has a couple of issues: 1. There's no right to live somewhere. If you cannot afford it, it doesn't matter you grew up in the place or that you like the place a lot. 2. No place is inflatable. You can increase density, but only to some point. 3. Have you seen how housing built in this style looks like? Most of them are concrete cubes. You can find them anywhere in Eastern Europe. It's not desirable. Let's imagine a beautiful town on a small island. Neat houses and everything. Place for 100 houses. But now, 1000 families decide to live here. So the politician replaces those 100 family houses with a five huge 100 unit buildings. Locals get units, living is more affordable for everyone. The place is destroyed. Nobody wants to live there anymore. So those 1000 people find another beautiful island with 100 neat houses...