5 ms·

Housing situation in Germany is so fucked Housing situation in London is so fucked Housing situation in Spain is so fucked Housing situation in Canada is so

by kuu 5y ago

Housing situation in Germany is so fucked Housing situation in London is so fucked Housing situation in Spain is so fucked Housing situation in Canada is so fucked .... I'm not an expert, but I see a pattern there...

mjevans 5y ago
Add the USA to that list. Housing needs to not be an investment.
avh02 5y ago
I used to live in Dubai - i got there at almost peak rent/real estate... I look at rents now, and they're just under half what i was paying. Sometimes tides turn the other way too.
- durnygbur 5y ago
  I would prefer location where my chance to find female mate is greater than 0, and where I will not be on the hook for saying, writing, or doing something trivial and then persecuted under pretext of consuming alcohol.
  - avh02 5y ago
    That's a completely different story - and there are obviously many reasons I left Dubai. But Dubai is not _entirely_ that repressed (believe it or not, you may date someone. (but technically, no sex outside marriage - didn't know anyone caught on that one though)). There were many caveats and "watch outs" for sure - the _general_ rule was "don't be a stupid drunk", "don't publicly insult anyone", "no overt PDA in public" and you were fine. Obviously that's not to everyone's taste and wasn't always uniformly applied.
- romanovcode 5y ago
  Yeah but who wants to live in Dubai anyway. The only reason to be there is to not pay income tax.
  - avh02 5y ago
    Honestly, one great advantage it had was a good airport (and at least two other major hubs nearby for cheap transit flights with virtually no layover (e.g: there were ~25 flights a day to Doha at some point)) I made some great trips from Dubai - in Berlin now, every trip is a choice between crappy layovers or expensive airlines. There have been a few surprising exceptions (finnair being one)
- dukeyukey 5y ago
  The way I understand it, investment is pouring into real-estate in countries thought to be long-term stable, mostly by investors in less-stable countries. The UAE has a lot going for it, but geopolitical stability isn't one of them.
patrickk 5y ago
The whole Anglosphere seems to have issues with housing, in addition to those places you mention. It seems to be a common cultural issue where people gamble on property like crazy. I'm from Ireland, and this is true there (in the desirable urban areas where semi-decent jobs exist), it's true in the UK[1], it's true in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand banned foreigners from buying property[2]. Among Brits, there's a (small) trend of retirees going off and buying a French Chateau and doing it up, because the cost of doing so will be the same or cheaper than buying a very modest place in many urban areas in the UK. This is spurred on by a popular TV show[3] I'm not sure what the answer is. More construction, rent controls and banning foreigners from owning property, none of it seems to really fix the problem. Construction is often too slow, rent controls can put in place conditions for landlords neglecting properties, and banning foreigners will bring other problems too. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/comments/lvx0xg/property_prices_in_the_uk_are_too_damn_high/ https://old.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/comments/lvx0xg/pro... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/new-zealand-bans-most-foreigners-from-buying-homes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/new-zealand-bans-most-foreig... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_the_Chateau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_the_Chateau
- corty 5y ago
  All the western countries go through urbanisation, and have been for the last few decades. Back in the days, industry would build a factory in a smaller country town with a few thousand inhabitants and employ half the population there. Nowadays, this rarely happens anymore, only big cities get any industrial development of larger scales. All the office-based parts of the economy also gravitate towards larger cities (often unnecessarily). So demand for big-city-housing is rising permanently. This wasn't as much of a problem in the last decades. But then, central banks flooded the market with cheap money, making most "safe" investments unviable. Therefore the only "safe" investment left is real-estate which also drives up prices in addition to the increase in demand. And here we are. How do we fix it? Get central banks to stop printing cheap money. No idea how that will work out, because it also has other consequences beside the housing market. And stop urbanisation, make the countryside more viable for industry, commerce, office space. Improve transport around the countryside and suburbs. Curb speculation by promoting home-ownership (for the home you live in, not the 20 you rent out) through tax incentives and other measures (currently, in Germany, you pay lower taxes when renting out a property than when living in the same property, because when renting it out the mortgage payments are "business expenses").
stareatgoats 5y ago
Sweden too. Not an expert either, but isn't the privatization of housing all over the industrialized world at the root of this, coupled with the currently ubiquitous need to crowd together in the cities? People have been able to buy properties in the city centers at fantasy prices, because of low interests and favorable mortgage arrangements and with the expectation that the prices will go on rising forever. Which - spoiler ahead - they won't. Cities will within a decade or two have lost their luminosity, with the giant shift towards remote work that is about to take place, in parallel with the wiping out of brick-and-mortar businesses. Prices will reflect this, sooner or later.
- amelius 5y ago
  > Which - spoiler ahead - they won't. Cities will within a decade or two have lost their luminosity, with the giant shift towards remote work that is about to take place, in parallel with the wiping out of brick-and-mortar businesses. Prices will reflect this, sooner or later. That's the question as those in power wouldn't want to suffer the consequences.

by kuu 5y ago

mjevans 5y ago

Add the USA to that list. Housing needs to not be an investment.

avh02 5y ago

I used to live in Dubai - i got there at almost peak rent/real estate... I look at rents now, and they're just under half what i was paying. Sometimes tides turn the other way too.

durnygbur 5y ago
I would prefer location where my chance to find female mate is greater than 0, and where I will not be on the hook for saying, writing, or doing something trivial and then persecuted under pretext of consuming alcohol.
- avh02 5y ago
  That's a completely different story - and there are obviously many reasons I left Dubai. But Dubai is not _entirely_ that repressed (believe it or not, you may date someone. (but technically, no sex outside marriage - didn't know anyone caught on that one though)). There were many caveats and "watch outs" for sure - the _general_ rule was "don't be a stupid drunk", "don't publicly insult anyone", "no overt PDA in public" and you were fine. Obviously that's not to everyone's taste and wasn't always uniformly applied.
romanovcode 5y ago
Yeah but who wants to live in Dubai anyway. The only reason to be there is to not pay income tax.
- avh02 5y ago
  Honestly, one great advantage it had was a good airport (and at least two other major hubs nearby for cheap transit flights with virtually no layover (e.g: there were ~25 flights a day to Doha at some point)) I made some great trips from Dubai - in Berlin now, every trip is a choice between crappy layovers or expensive airlines. There have been a few surprising exceptions (finnair being one)
dukeyukey 5y ago
The way I understand it, investment is pouring into real-estate in countries thought to be long-term stable, mostly by investors in less-stable countries. The UAE has a lot going for it, but geopolitical stability isn't one of them.

patrickk 5y ago

The whole Anglosphere seems to have issues with housing, in addition to those places you mention. It seems to be a common cultural issue where people gamble on property like crazy. I'm from Ireland, and this is true there (in the desirable urban areas where semi-decent jobs exist), it's true in the UK[1], it's true in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand banned foreigners from buying property[2]. Among Brits, there's a (small) trend of retirees going off and buying a French Chateau and doing it up, because the cost of doing so will be the same or cheaper than buying a very modest place in many urban areas in the UK. This is spurred on by a popular TV show[3] I'm not sure what the answer is. More construction, rent controls and banning foreigners from owning property, none of it seems to really fix the problem. Construction is often too slow, rent controls can put in place conditions for landlords neglecting properties, and banning foreigners will bring other problems too. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/comments/lvx0xg/property_prices_in_the_uk_are_too_damn_high/ https://old.reddit.com/r/britishproblems/comments/lvx0xg/pro... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/new-zealand-bans-most-foreigners-from-buying-homes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/new-zealand-bans-most-foreig... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_the_Chateau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_the_Chateau

corty 5y ago
All the western countries go through urbanisation, and have been for the last few decades. Back in the days, industry would build a factory in a smaller country town with a few thousand inhabitants and employ half the population there. Nowadays, this rarely happens anymore, only big cities get any industrial development of larger scales. All the office-based parts of the economy also gravitate towards larger cities (often unnecessarily). So demand for big-city-housing is rising permanently. This wasn't as much of a problem in the last decades. But then, central banks flooded the market with cheap money, making most "safe" investments unviable. Therefore the only "safe" investment left is real-estate which also drives up prices in addition to the increase in demand. And here we are. How do we fix it? Get central banks to stop printing cheap money. No idea how that will work out, because it also has other consequences beside the housing market. And stop urbanisation, make the countryside more viable for industry, commerce, office space. Improve transport around the countryside and suburbs. Curb speculation by promoting home-ownership (for the home you live in, not the 20 you rent out) through tax incentives and other measures (currently, in Germany, you pay lower taxes when renting out a property than when living in the same property, because when renting it out the mortgage payments are "business expenses").

stareatgoats 5y ago

Sweden too. Not an expert either, but isn't the privatization of housing all over the industrialized world at the root of this, coupled with the currently ubiquitous need to crowd together in the cities? People have been able to buy properties in the city centers at fantasy prices, because of low interests and favorable mortgage arrangements and with the expectation that the prices will go on rising forever. Which - spoiler ahead - they won't. Cities will within a decade or two have lost their luminosity, with the giant shift towards remote work that is about to take place, in parallel with the wiping out of brick-and-mortar businesses. Prices will reflect this, sooner or later.

amelius 5y ago
> Which - spoiler ahead - they won't. Cities will within a decade or two have lost their luminosity, with the giant shift towards remote work that is about to take place, in parallel with the wiping out of brick-and-mortar businesses. Prices will reflect this, sooner or later. That's the question as those in power wouldn't want to suffer the consequences.