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There are some dynamic effects that might be dangerous to ignore. Like lobbying efforts for new construction might increase if there's money to made in construc

There are some dynamic effects that might be dangerous to ignore. Like lobbying efforts for new construction might increase if there's money to made in construction of rental apartments, or more efficient use of square meters (smaller apartments/more used apartments). But overall, yes, I totally agree. It's an allocation problem of a finite resource, with different tradeoffs. My favourite idea, if we are going to keep the rent-controls, is to use a lottery.

jrochkind1 5y ago
What do you like better about a lottery vs the current "waiting list" system? (If we ignore the grey-area-legal sublets and market-rate-rentals that exist now and could exist or not in either system). They're both kind of "everyone is equal, you don't get a leg up becuase of how much money you have or other status, everyone gets a chance for this limited in-demand resource" approaches, at least on their faces... the same portion of everyone interested actually gets a house either way... I'm confusing myself trying to think through the practical experienced implications of a lottery (which you can keep entering every year) vs multi-year-long waiting list. I mean, I guess obviously the lottery stops privilging those who expressed their desire longest ago/first! I'm not sure if this is good or what. I guess it would give younger people, or people who don't plan out their whole life in advance, a better chance?
- filleokus 5y ago
  (We've reached the default threading limit, so unsure if this will be visible...) 1: I don't believe there's a moral value attached to being in the waiting list. Everything else equal (completley ignoring personal situations, current housing, income etc), everyone waiting "deserves" an apartment the same amount. 2: My view is that there's actually an inverse relationship between "deservedness" (taking personal situation in to account) and amount of time waiting, especially on decade timescales. People who have been waiting for 20 years are older, have had more time to potentially save money, are arguably more likely to have a resonable housing situation. Basically they are "point wealthy", they weren't forced to spend their queuing points on a bad apartment after 8 years, they are still collecting more points waiting for the nicer ones. And the fact that they can do that, to some extent, indicate that they are in a better situation. (2b: It would eliminate the absurd situation when people live 30 years of their life in an expensive house, collecting queue points, and then sell the house and move into a rent controlled apartment.) 3: It would incentivise/allow a centralisation of the allocation system and increase mobility between cities. Right now each city have one or a few different queues. People are generally not signed up to all queues across the country, because of hassle and cost (each queue is like 0-20 USD / year). So if I wanted to move to say Gothenburg, I would start from zero and be years away from an apartment. Because of this, there is no interest from anyone to create a centralised queue. If everyone joined the central queue at birth, it would be meaningless! But with a lottery based system, a central queue would be no problem. I could just select the cities I'm interested in at the moment, and have the same chance as everyone else. I could take a "bad" apartment, because I'm still in the lottery and might win a better one to upgrade,

jrochkind1 5y ago

What do you like better about a lottery vs the current "waiting list" system? (If we ignore the grey-area-legal sublets and market-rate-rentals that exist now and could exist or not in either system). They're both kind of "everyone is equal, you don't get a leg up becuase of how much money you have or other status, everyone gets a chance for this limited in-demand resource" approaches, at least on their faces... the same portion of everyone interested actually gets a house either way... I'm confusing myself trying to think through the practical experienced implications of a lottery (which you can keep entering every year) vs multi-year-long waiting list. I mean, I guess obviously the lottery stops privilging those who expressed their desire longest ago/first! I'm not sure if this is good or what. I guess it would give younger people, or people who don't plan out their whole life in advance, a better chance?

filleokus 5y ago
(We've reached the default threading limit, so unsure if this will be visible...) 1: I don't believe there's a moral value attached to being in the waiting list. Everything else equal (completley ignoring personal situations, current housing, income etc), everyone waiting "deserves" an apartment the same amount. 2: My view is that there's actually an inverse relationship between "deservedness" (taking personal situation in to account) and amount of time waiting, especially on decade timescales. People who have been waiting for 20 years are older, have had more time to potentially save money, are arguably more likely to have a resonable housing situation. Basically they are "point wealthy", they weren't forced to spend their queuing points on a bad apartment after 8 years, they are still collecting more points waiting for the nicer ones. And the fact that they can do that, to some extent, indicate that they are in a better situation. (2b: It would eliminate the absurd situation when people live 30 years of their life in an expensive house, collecting queue points, and then sell the house and move into a rent controlled apartment.) 3: It would incentivise/allow a centralisation of the allocation system and increase mobility between cities. Right now each city have one or a few different queues. People are generally not signed up to all queues across the country, because of hassle and cost (each queue is like 0-20 USD / year). So if I wanted to move to say Gothenburg, I would start from zero and be years away from an apartment. Because of this, there is no interest from anyone to create a centralised queue. If everyone joined the central queue at birth, it would be meaningless! But with a lottery based system, a central queue would be no problem. I could just select the cities I'm interested in at the moment, and have the same chance as everyone else. I could take a "bad" apartment, because I'm still in the lottery and might win a better one to upgrade,