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This person seems to be on a crusade to eliminate all landlords and have everyone own there own house. While this sounds good, there are a ton of reasons someon

This person seems to be on a crusade to eliminate all landlords and have everyone own there own house. While this sounds good, there are a ton of reasons someone would rent and not own. (less permanent, don't want to be responsible for maintenance ...) And if it is just smaller landlords, who don't do the amount of leverage available only to big corporations. The market will work itself out in terms of affordability. I.E. rents get too high people will buy house prices get too high people will rent. Of course, more houses will and better zoning laws, it something everyone can agree will make houses more affordable. The author seems to be going overboard in terms of house ownership. Also, he seems to think that because house construction has been in lull for the last decade it will be slow forever, if house price get very high, it will attract home builders. As they say "The best cure for high prices is high prices"

mistrial9 5y ago
this person seems to be "ABC THINGS I SAY THEY ARE SAYING" is exactly not-constructive .. do you understand that in a debate, you can always start by restating the opposite party's position in negative and extreme terms? It gets no points.
YossarianFrPrez 5y ago
In addition, most real estate is developed by developers who raise (other people's) money to purchase the property and redevelop it. These funds come from several places, but some of ultimate sources of such funds are... public pension funds (and possibly university endowments), who place their money with real estate lending groups. I'm not saying that ours is a good system, nor am I saying that it is well-executed. But an honest discussion of renting should include the fact that some of the "felt squeeze" of rent ultimately reaches back to pension funds that want to disburse regular payments to pensioners. (Regular payments come from having a certain percentage return on the money in the fund. The percentage return comes, in part, from investing in real estate redevelopment deals, which increase in value when the value/profit from a property is increased. Value/profit are increased via more units and higher rents.) This being said, the medium author does make some good points after accounting for the performative open letter tone, like about AirBnb's suing-cities-as-a-service as a business model, and the effect of Airbnb on local markets.
gizmo686 5y ago
There are also second order political implications to widespread home ownership. You greatly increase the number of land owners, which greatly increases their power as a political block. This leads to policies that drive up the value/cost of land. The dynamics here are actually backwards from most markets. Normally by diffusing ownership over a large population you decrease the power of the owner lobby, since no individual cares enough to vote on it; whereas the concentrated owners have the resources and motivation to be a powerful special interest group. However, for housing, even with individual ownership the house would still be most people's largest asset. Further, in the concentrated ownership situation the class of renters is still motivated to vote on the issue because housing is such a major portion of their lives.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  the British-historical system is to require an address and license from every adult. A version of that land ownership system is what succeeded in colonizing North America USA, against many active, competing systems over time. Is it a shock that the same system that competes well at an earlier stage, becomes toxic and moribund in later stages? Well, the diffuse ownership you mention delays the changes to re-adjust, and here we are. source: California resident

mistrial9 5y ago

this person seems to be "ABC THINGS I SAY THEY ARE SAYING" is exactly not-constructive .. do you understand that in a debate, you can always start by restating the opposite party's position in negative and extreme terms? It gets no points.

YossarianFrPrez 5y ago

In addition, most real estate is developed by developers who raise (other people's) money to purchase the property and redevelop it. These funds come from several places, but some of ultimate sources of such funds are... public pension funds (and possibly university endowments), who place their money with real estate lending groups. I'm not saying that ours is a good system, nor am I saying that it is well-executed. But an honest discussion of renting should include the fact that some of the "felt squeeze" of rent ultimately reaches back to pension funds that want to disburse regular payments to pensioners. (Regular payments come from having a certain percentage return on the money in the fund. The percentage return comes, in part, from investing in real estate redevelopment deals, which increase in value when the value/profit from a property is increased. Value/profit are increased via more units and higher rents.) This being said, the medium author does make some good points after accounting for the performative open letter tone, like about AirBnb's suing-cities-as-a-service as a business model, and the effect of Airbnb on local markets.

gizmo686 5y ago

There are also second order political implications to widespread home ownership. You greatly increase the number of land owners, which greatly increases their power as a political block. This leads to policies that drive up the value/cost of land. The dynamics here are actually backwards from most markets. Normally by diffusing ownership over a large population you decrease the power of the owner lobby, since no individual cares enough to vote on it; whereas the concentrated owners have the resources and motivation to be a powerful special interest group. However, for housing, even with individual ownership the house would still be most people's largest asset. Further, in the concentrated ownership situation the class of renters is still motivated to vote on the issue because housing is such a major portion of their lives.

mistrial9 5y ago
the British-historical system is to require an address and license from every adult. A version of that land ownership system is what succeeded in colonizing North America USA, against many active, competing systems over time. Is it a shock that the same system that competes well at an earlier stage, becomes toxic and moribund in later stages? Well, the diffuse ownership you mention delays the changes to re-adjust, and here we are. source: California resident