4 ms·

There's enough houses. There just shouldn't be people owning more than 2.

yardstick 6y ago
I agree with the sentiment but disagree with the 2 house limit. For example a family holiday house should be ok. I would put the limit around 10 homes, and if any are rentals then any capital gains should be taxed more harshly unless sold to someone who will owner occupy for at least say 3 years. Yes I’m sure there are loopholes in what I’m describing but it’s the general concept I’m trying to show.
adrianN 6y ago
I'm sure that there are not enough houses in central Tokyo for everyone who wants to live in central Tokyo.
whatshisface 6y ago
Without landlords, how would I be able to rent a house? Would I have to get loans whenever I moved, even if temporarily? All that would do is replace a mix of landlords and bankers with bankers. Renting money to buy something that you later sell to return the money is the same as renting the thing directly, except you're dealing with a huge bank instead of a midsize management company / wealthy owner-manager.
- jjav 6y ago
  > Renting money to buy something that you later sell to return the money is the same as renting the thing directly Largely true, except that by renting it directly you're also paying the additional profit margin for the middleman who took out the mortgage (rented the money) for you to be able to rent it directly.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
epistasis 6y ago
That's ridiculous, limiting people to owning one house wouldn't be nearly enough homes. But, let's say that were the case, somehow. Why is your solution to stop people from owning more homes, rather than letting more homes be built? Why choose austerity over abundance? There's a clear reason to choose austerity: it always, literally always, privileges existing power over those with less. However, most people who want to entrench existing power and oppress those with less don't admit it openly, instead they couch this undesirable anti-egalitarianism in obscure arguments to hide their true motives. This is the stage we are at in California. People who have gained enormous real estate wealth through luck, which has let them exploit an entire class of extremely productive workers, know they can not create abundance on their own, but must instead farm workers like cattle. So they embrace this austerity couched in other terms. Limiting people from owning more than one home will not actually produce enough for everyone that wants to live in highly desirable areas. But forwarding unworkable proposals will continue to create luxury goods (housing near food jobs) as luxury, rather than opening them up to more people.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  >Why choose austerity over abundance? Indeed, abundance is the way to go, then why bother investing? An anecdote - There was an oversupply of apartments in my city a few years ago, prices were dropping - oh no! So the response? Developers stopped building, there are foundations sitting around in a number of places that were planned to be built, but apartment development has basically stopped in the city. In a few years there'll be a shortage and no doubt the developers will start up again. The incentives are all screwed up, if they kept building then prices would drop, but the profit isn't there at the moment so they sit idle.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    Isn't that the system working? If a house costs more to build than anyone would pay for it, wouldn't it would be a bad idea to build it?
    - chadcmulligan 6y ago
mjevans 6y ago
You should have to live in a house for at least 35% of the year to not pay EXTREME taxes on it. Notably that's 70% among two houses and 30% in slack that can go where-ever. However we also still need __way__ more housing to get out of the 2 generation debt in many places and 3-5 in E.G. major Californian cities.
- jjav 6y ago
  > You should have to live in a house for at least 35% of the year to not pay EXTREME taxes on it. This would incentivize ownership since renting out would be prohibitive. But for anyone who'd like to rent, those extreme taxes will just be passed on to them.

I agree with the sentiment but disagree with the 2 house limit. For example a family holiday house should be ok. I would put the limit around 10 homes, and if any are rentals then any capital gains should be taxed more harshly unless sold to someone who will owner occupy for at least say 3 years. Yes I’m sure there are loopholes in what I’m describing but it’s the general concept I’m trying to show.

adrianN 6y ago

I'm sure that there are not enough houses in central Tokyo for everyone who wants to live in central Tokyo.

whatshisface 6y ago

Without landlords, how would I be able to rent a house? Would I have to get loans whenever I moved, even if temporarily? All that would do is replace a mix of landlords and bankers with bankers. Renting money to buy something that you later sell to return the money is the same as renting the thing directly, except you're dealing with a huge bank instead of a midsize management company / wealthy owner-manager.

jjav 6y ago
> Renting money to buy something that you later sell to return the money is the same as renting the thing directly Largely true, except that by renting it directly you're also paying the additional profit margin for the middleman who took out the mortgage (rented the money) for you to be able to rent it directly.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

epistasis 6y ago

That's ridiculous, limiting people to owning one house wouldn't be nearly enough homes. But, let's say that were the case, somehow. Why is your solution to stop people from owning more homes, rather than letting more homes be built? Why choose austerity over abundance? There's a clear reason to choose austerity: it always, literally always, privileges existing power over those with less. However, most people who want to entrench existing power and oppress those with less don't admit it openly, instead they couch this undesirable anti-egalitarianism in obscure arguments to hide their true motives. This is the stage we are at in California. People who have gained enormous real estate wealth through luck, which has let them exploit an entire class of extremely productive workers, know they can not create abundance on their own, but must instead farm workers like cattle. So they embrace this austerity couched in other terms. Limiting people from owning more than one home will not actually produce enough for everyone that wants to live in highly desirable areas. But forwarding unworkable proposals will continue to create luxury goods (housing near food jobs) as luxury, rather than opening them up to more people.

chadcmulligan 6y ago
>Why choose austerity over abundance? Indeed, abundance is the way to go, then why bother investing? An anecdote - There was an oversupply of apartments in my city a few years ago, prices were dropping - oh no! So the response? Developers stopped building, there are foundations sitting around in a number of places that were planned to be built, but apartment development has basically stopped in the city. In a few years there'll be a shortage and no doubt the developers will start up again. The incentives are all screwed up, if they kept building then prices would drop, but the profit isn't there at the moment so they sit idle.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  Isn't that the system working? If a house costs more to build than anyone would pay for it, wouldn't it would be a bad idea to build it?
  - chadcmulligan 6y ago

mjevans 6y ago

You should have to live in a house for at least 35% of the year to not pay EXTREME taxes on it. Notably that's 70% among two houses and 30% in slack that can go where-ever. However we also still need __way__ more housing to get out of the 2 generation debt in many places and 3-5 in E.G. major Californian cities.

jjav 6y ago
> You should have to live in a house for at least 35% of the year to not pay EXTREME taxes on it. This would incentivize ownership since renting out would be prohibitive. But for anyone who'd like to rent, those extreme taxes will just be passed on to them.