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Houses can be homes to live in or can be an investment. They cannot be both. Since spending considerable labour and materials building concrete boxes for the ul

Houses can be homes to live in or can be an investment. They cannot be both. Since spending considerable labour and materials building concrete boxes for the ultimate purpose of speculation is silly, then it must be the former.

coralreef 5y ago
What is an investment defined as? Because I'm pretty sure someone can buy a home, rent it out and make a monthly return on it, thus satisfying both a place to live and investment. Or live it in themselves as they ride the speculative wave.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Optimizing construction for investments leads to different houses, apartments and even neighborhoods than optimizing for living - the same way as optimizing your site for ad revenue leads to a completely different structure than optimizing it for actually being useful to your visitors/customers.
- andrepd 5y ago
  > Because I'm pretty sure someone can buy a home, rent it out and make a monthly return on it, thus satisfying both a place to live and investment. No, they are inserting themselves in the process as a middle-man providing absolutely no service or added value. All they have is capital, a monopoly on capital wrt. the person renting the house. This lets them add a drastic markup on the monthly price of housing for the person renting, as a direct first-order effect, PLUS, as an indirect effect this mechanism incentivises speculation and raises house prices even more.
  - coralreef 5y ago
    Renting out a house is a service. Being a landlord means legal responsibilities and liabilities. Houses need to be up to code, maintained, insured, and this is expensive. Grass needs to be cut, pipes need to be fixed, appliances need to be in working order. The person who wants to rent a house has obviously chosen not to, or cannot afford to, buy a house. They get the upside of having to take no financial risk, ie. fire, tornado, flooding, economic/housing market collapse, etc. The downside is they do not have ownership and make no market gains.
Retric 5y ago
As long as homes are being used there is little difference between them. The important bit to keep speculation rational is to keep occupancy rates high, a simple tax on unoccupied homes seems like the logical solution.
notanzaiiswear 5y ago
Bullshit. Of course buying your own house is also an investment decision. You speculate that its future value minus your initial investment (and plus the "extra joy" you get out of being a homeowner) is worth more than what you would have paid in rent in the same time.
imtringued 5y ago
Building housing for others to live in is an investment and we should encourage it. The problem is that houses don't exist in isolation, they are built on land. Most of the value is in the land. Land is valuable because taxes pay for public services and you need to be in close proximity of public services to benefit from them. Investing into land is effectively investing in the exclusion of other people, which is why the land owner should compensate the government for the public services he is receiving.
- andrepd 5y ago
  Ah, a fellow Georgist I see ;)

coralreef 5y ago

What is an investment defined as? Because I'm pretty sure someone can buy a home, rent it out and make a monthly return on it, thus satisfying both a place to live and investment. Or live it in themselves as they ride the speculative wave.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
Optimizing construction for investments leads to different houses, apartments and even neighborhoods than optimizing for living - the same way as optimizing your site for ad revenue leads to a completely different structure than optimizing it for actually being useful to your visitors/customers.
andrepd 5y ago
> Because I'm pretty sure someone can buy a home, rent it out and make a monthly return on it, thus satisfying both a place to live and investment. No, they are inserting themselves in the process as a middle-man providing absolutely no service or added value. All they have is capital, a monopoly on capital wrt. the person renting the house. This lets them add a drastic markup on the monthly price of housing for the person renting, as a direct first-order effect, PLUS, as an indirect effect this mechanism incentivises speculation and raises house prices even more.
- coralreef 5y ago
  Renting out a house is a service. Being a landlord means legal responsibilities and liabilities. Houses need to be up to code, maintained, insured, and this is expensive. Grass needs to be cut, pipes need to be fixed, appliances need to be in working order. The person who wants to rent a house has obviously chosen not to, or cannot afford to, buy a house. They get the upside of having to take no financial risk, ie. fire, tornado, flooding, economic/housing market collapse, etc. The downside is they do not have ownership and make no market gains.

Retric 5y ago

As long as homes are being used there is little difference between them. The important bit to keep speculation rational is to keep occupancy rates high, a simple tax on unoccupied homes seems like the logical solution.

notanzaiiswear 5y ago

Bullshit. Of course buying your own house is also an investment decision. You speculate that its future value minus your initial investment (and plus the "extra joy" you get out of being a homeowner) is worth more than what you would have paid in rent in the same time.

imtringued 5y ago

Building housing for others to live in is an investment and we should encourage it. The problem is that houses don't exist in isolation, they are built on land. Most of the value is in the land. Land is valuable because taxes pay for public services and you need to be in close proximity of public services to benefit from them. Investing into land is effectively investing in the exclusion of other people, which is why the land owner should compensate the government for the public services he is receiving.

andrepd 5y ago
Ah, a fellow Georgist I see ;)