45 ms·

In some countries with absurdly high house prices, I think some level of nationalisation of housing is an eventual inevitability. Much like Seoul, places like S

In some countries with absurdly high house prices, I think some level of nationalisation of housing is an eventual inevitability. Much like Seoul, places like Sydney are so expensive that unless you already own a house, or are eventually going to inherit one, no amount of hard work or education can reliably get you into the market. Entry level prices within 25 miles of the city are around A$1.5m for a detached house, and apartments are predominantly 1 or 2 bedrooms and poorly built, so not really suitable for families. Many people suggest ‘moving west’ to the new suburbs being built, but even 30-40 miles out the prices are still around a million dollars. Given an average full time wage in the range of $50k, saving a deposit after rent is almost impossible. Not totally impossible, but very close to…

Guthur 5y ago
And places like Sydney are expensive in no small part because of issues like negative gearing and zoning controls, all in direct control of the government. Also the government is under no incentive to change the status quo because like any good mafia they take their cut of every transaction with stamp duty "oh you two want to trade, where's mine?".
- PebblesHD 5y ago
  You’re not wrong, but I would hope that by the time we work ourselves into a situation where there is no unskilled labour within commuting distance of where the work is, the government might finally realise that lack of workers is bad for business, which seems to be the main concern. I’m still wondering if we will reach a point where normal people don’t have any disposable money to spend in shops because it’s all going to landlords and utilities/basics, and if at that point they might go ‘oh wait that’s bad’
  - killtimeatwork 5y ago
    I can't really see politicians allowing the inflated housing market to deflate. So many people will lose years/decades worth of saving this way - that would mean a lot of angry voters, not to mention another potential banking crash, as mortgages would no longer be backed by houses of enough value. I think high housing prices in developed world are going to stay with us for a long time.
- RNCTX 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - Guthur 5y ago
    Sorry I'm not sure what nonsense you're implying.
    - dang 5y ago
      Breaking the site guidelines like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. You may not feel you owe them better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - Guthur 5y ago
        Please can you illuminate me on what rule I actually broke, the OP was implying something about me that was unsubstantiated and in my view clearly nonsense?
        dang 5y ago
        "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3." "Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine." "Be kind. Don't be snarky." Note that if we go to your GP comment and take out the parts that break those guidelines, there's nothing left of it. That's a good clue, actually - it means you probably shouldn't have replied. The parent comment was obviously breaking the site guidelines and should have been flagged and left alone. That's another guideline in fact: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - RNCTX 5y ago
      Corporations are the government. Trying to pretend like one is in any way contrary to the other in industrialized nations is a display of your own naïveté.
thriftwy 5y ago
Why can't people move to some other city if the current one is to expensive? How would nationalization actually deal with situation when there's much more people who want to live in Seoul than houses? A 15 years long waiting list?
- PebblesHD 5y ago
  This usually boils down the the chicken and egg problem of infrastructure and jobs. In Korea, the majority of the population is within the Seoul area, so most of the jobs are there and all the infrastructure to support them is concentrated there. Sydney and Melbourne are much the same in Australia, and the results are the same, where as soon as you leave these centres, there are no jobs or infrastructure available. As mentioned by another commenter above, Tokyo did this right with central planning and a more decentralised business district, where ‘Tokyo’ is basically 4 or 5 cities around each other, and there is infrastructure and transport there to support the intended population.
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    > Tokyo did this right with central planning and a more decentralised business district What central planning? A more decentralised business district is what happens if you don't make it illegal. People will buy up residential property and turn it into commercial or office if it's not illegal to do so. It's not about planning. It would be more accurate to call it not planning. > there is infrastructure and transport there to support the intended population. Again, no one intended this. They didn't decide to make Tokyo this size. They just didn't actively get in the way. They built the infrastructure and transport that they had good reason to believe there was demand for. In contrast the NYC subway system is basically teh same as when it was taken over by the government and public transport is significantly worse than 1940 insofar as there are no street cars.
  - thriftwy 5y ago
    Then you will just have different classes: "people who have the public apartment" and "people who don't, and have to stay out of opportunities". The inequality: still there.
barry-cotter 5y ago
And yet Tokyo does not have this problem despite growing 50% in population over the last two decades. If you make building housing illegal prices rise. Demand and supply are going to meet somewhere and if you restrict supply prices will rise. If you restrict it more they'll rise more or faster. Compare San Francisco, Seattle and Houston in a US context. The more you restrict supply the more prices rise.
- PebblesHD 5y ago
  I completely agree, but Tokyo also has sensible tax policies to encourage providing housing, and a government that aims for zero unemployment. I really like their model of ensuring jobs are available so people have money to consume private sector housing, and that there is always such housing available because there is always someone to consume it. There’s about 50 seperate policies places like Sydney and Seoul would need to change to head down that path, but the interests of those in power are largely in keeping prices high it seems…
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    If there is demand for housing and you do not make supplying that demand illegal someone will supply it. People live in dormitories in Hong Kong right now. Perfectly safe but middle class busybodies don't like flophouses, SROs or dormitories so they make it illegal. If it was legal to provide housing in San Francisco in dorms it would be done. If it was legal to build residential skyscrapers in New York Queens would look like Brooklyn if not Manhattan. Make building housing legal and the market will provide.
    - xyzzy123 5y ago
      When you build roads, you get more traffic. I wonder if the following is true? When you build more apartments you get more density and more inward migration and more concentration of opportunity, until the marginal migrant can't afford or doesn't want to live there. The same sort of people are miserable when there's more density as when there was less, except there's more of them. [NOTE: I mostly agree with you and this comment is a bit of a non-sequitur but I hadn't thought about the idea that the problem might actually be "moloch" (in slate star codex terms)].
refurb 5y ago
Aren’t prices a good signal to not move there? Or is the goal to have all our housing and jobs concentrated into one city? I’ve spent time in SE Asia and those countries would love to go back in time to avoid have cities with >10M people in them.
rodgerd 5y ago
It's worth noting most housing in Singapore is state-owned
- odiroot 5y ago
  And yet Singapore has low taxes (by some considered even a tax haven) and is not a welfare state. That is by design, LKY having been a big supporter of personal responsibility.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Singapore has low income taxes but high CPF (forced savings for retirement, health, housing, etc) requirements - 20% of gross income on top income taxes. The total take isn’t that low. And Singapore is most definitely a welfare state - just not a super generous one. Housing, healthcare, education are all heavily subsidized but also very strongly means tested. If you’re truly destitute in Singapore you will have a place to live, free healthcare and lots of government support.
    - odiroot 5y ago
      > Singapore has low income taxes but high CPF (forced savings for retirement, health, housing, etc) requirements - 20% of gross income on top income taxes. The total take isn’t that low. Which, compared to western states, isn't taken away from you. It's your own private pool of money, just with a restricted use. The government is just aware, people are not great at saving for their future, so they have to be forced to do it properly. Housing is not really subsidised, it's just build and sold without markup. Singapore's healthcare is also one of the "cheapest" and most efficient in the world.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    In my opinion income tax should be massively reduced in favor of land value taxes.
- refurb 5y ago
  It is. 99 year lease, you don’t own it. Can’t get one unless you’re married or over 35. Most people live with their parents until they move out. Lottery system and severely oversubscribed (can take multiple tries to get allocated a place) and once you “win” up to 5 year wait while it’s built (govt isn’t interested in overbuilding again). Lucky folks get one of the super desirable locations and after owning for 5 years sell it for big profit.
bluecalm 5y ago
Housing is expensive because there is a lot of demand. By nationalizing or similar policy forcing people to sell cheaper all you achieve is creation of a class of preferential buyers (who are allowed to buy cheaply or get housing for free from the government) while excluding others from the market altogether. Those policies just hide the demand it won't magically disappear. Things you can do are: -increasing supply by changing laws around zoning, allow building more/higher etc. -introduce policies that makes it more attractive to live in less populated areas where land is cheaper (hard to say what works but maybe better/faster public transportation, more wfh, preferential tax treatment for companies that move to other areas, if enough of that happens new business/population hubs might start)
sumedh 5y ago
> apartments are predominantly 1 or 2 bedrooms and poorly built It is just amazing that Australia does not good regulations for building apartments. You work hard, you save money, buy an apartment and then you find out there are some major structural issues in the building.

Guthur 5y ago

And places like Sydney are expensive in no small part because of issues like negative gearing and zoning controls, all in direct control of the government. Also the government is under no incentive to change the status quo because like any good mafia they take their cut of every transaction with stamp duty "oh you two want to trade, where's mine?".

PebblesHD 5y ago
You’re not wrong, but I would hope that by the time we work ourselves into a situation where there is no unskilled labour within commuting distance of where the work is, the government might finally realise that lack of workers is bad for business, which seems to be the main concern. I’m still wondering if we will reach a point where normal people don’t have any disposable money to spend in shops because it’s all going to landlords and utilities/basics, and if at that point they might go ‘oh wait that’s bad’
- killtimeatwork 5y ago
  I can't really see politicians allowing the inflated housing market to deflate. So many people will lose years/decades worth of saving this way - that would mean a lot of angry voters, not to mention another potential banking crash, as mortgages would no longer be backed by houses of enough value. I think high housing prices in developed world are going to stay with us for a long time.
RNCTX 5y ago
[flagged]
- Guthur 5y ago
  Sorry I'm not sure what nonsense you're implying.
  - dang 5y ago
    Breaking the site guidelines like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. You may not feel you owe them better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - Guthur 5y ago
      Please can you illuminate me on what rule I actually broke, the OP was implying something about me that was unsubstantiated and in my view clearly nonsense?
      - dang 5y ago
        "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3." "Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine." "Be kind. Don't be snarky." Note that if we go to your GP comment and take out the parts that break those guidelines, there's nothing left of it. That's a good clue, actually - it means you probably shouldn't have replied. The parent comment was obviously breaking the site guidelines and should have been flagged and left alone. That's another guideline in fact: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - RNCTX 5y ago
    Corporations are the government. Trying to pretend like one is in any way contrary to the other in industrialized nations is a display of your own naïveté.

thriftwy 5y ago

Why can't people move to some other city if the current one is to expensive? How would nationalization actually deal with situation when there's much more people who want to live in Seoul than houses? A 15 years long waiting list?

PebblesHD 5y ago
This usually boils down the the chicken and egg problem of infrastructure and jobs. In Korea, the majority of the population is within the Seoul area, so most of the jobs are there and all the infrastructure to support them is concentrated there. Sydney and Melbourne are much the same in Australia, and the results are the same, where as soon as you leave these centres, there are no jobs or infrastructure available. As mentioned by another commenter above, Tokyo did this right with central planning and a more decentralised business district, where ‘Tokyo’ is basically 4 or 5 cities around each other, and there is infrastructure and transport there to support the intended population.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  > Tokyo did this right with central planning and a more decentralised business district What central planning? A more decentralised business district is what happens if you don't make it illegal. People will buy up residential property and turn it into commercial or office if it's not illegal to do so. It's not about planning. It would be more accurate to call it not planning. > there is infrastructure and transport there to support the intended population. Again, no one intended this. They didn't decide to make Tokyo this size. They just didn't actively get in the way. They built the infrastructure and transport that they had good reason to believe there was demand for. In contrast the NYC subway system is basically teh same as when it was taken over by the government and public transport is significantly worse than 1940 insofar as there are no street cars.
- thriftwy 5y ago
  Then you will just have different classes: "people who have the public apartment" and "people who don't, and have to stay out of opportunities". The inequality: still there.

barry-cotter 5y ago

And yet Tokyo does not have this problem despite growing 50% in population over the last two decades. If you make building housing illegal prices rise. Demand and supply are going to meet somewhere and if you restrict supply prices will rise. If you restrict it more they'll rise more or faster. Compare San Francisco, Seattle and Houston in a US context. The more you restrict supply the more prices rise.

PebblesHD 5y ago
I completely agree, but Tokyo also has sensible tax policies to encourage providing housing, and a government that aims for zero unemployment. I really like their model of ensuring jobs are available so people have money to consume private sector housing, and that there is always such housing available because there is always someone to consume it. There’s about 50 seperate policies places like Sydney and Seoul would need to change to head down that path, but the interests of those in power are largely in keeping prices high it seems…
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  If there is demand for housing and you do not make supplying that demand illegal someone will supply it. People live in dormitories in Hong Kong right now. Perfectly safe but middle class busybodies don't like flophouses, SROs or dormitories so they make it illegal. If it was legal to provide housing in San Francisco in dorms it would be done. If it was legal to build residential skyscrapers in New York Queens would look like Brooklyn if not Manhattan. Make building housing legal and the market will provide.
  - xyzzy123 5y ago
    When you build roads, you get more traffic. I wonder if the following is true? When you build more apartments you get more density and more inward migration and more concentration of opportunity, until the marginal migrant can't afford or doesn't want to live there. The same sort of people are miserable when there's more density as when there was less, except there's more of them. [NOTE: I mostly agree with you and this comment is a bit of a non-sequitur but I hadn't thought about the idea that the problem might actually be "moloch" (in slate star codex terms)].

refurb 5y ago

Aren’t prices a good signal to not move there? Or is the goal to have all our housing and jobs concentrated into one city? I’ve spent time in SE Asia and those countries would love to go back in time to avoid have cities with >10M people in them.

rodgerd 5y ago

It's worth noting most housing in Singapore is state-owned

odiroot 5y ago
And yet Singapore has low taxes (by some considered even a tax haven) and is not a welfare state. That is by design, LKY having been a big supporter of personal responsibility.
- refurb 5y ago
  Singapore has low income taxes but high CPF (forced savings for retirement, health, housing, etc) requirements - 20% of gross income on top income taxes. The total take isn’t that low. And Singapore is most definitely a welfare state - just not a super generous one. Housing, healthcare, education are all heavily subsidized but also very strongly means tested. If you’re truly destitute in Singapore you will have a place to live, free healthcare and lots of government support.
  - odiroot 5y ago
    > Singapore has low income taxes but high CPF (forced savings for retirement, health, housing, etc) requirements - 20% of gross income on top income taxes. The total take isn’t that low. Which, compared to western states, isn't taken away from you. It's your own private pool of money, just with a restricted use. The government is just aware, people are not great at saving for their future, so they have to be forced to do it properly. Housing is not really subsidised, it's just build and sold without markup. Singapore's healthcare is also one of the "cheapest" and most efficient in the world.
- imtringued 5y ago
  In my opinion income tax should be massively reduced in favor of land value taxes.
refurb 5y ago
It is. 99 year lease, you don’t own it. Can’t get one unless you’re married or over 35. Most people live with their parents until they move out. Lottery system and severely oversubscribed (can take multiple tries to get allocated a place) and once you “win” up to 5 year wait while it’s built (govt isn’t interested in overbuilding again). Lucky folks get one of the super desirable locations and after owning for 5 years sell it for big profit.

bluecalm 5y ago

Housing is expensive because there is a lot of demand. By nationalizing or similar policy forcing people to sell cheaper all you achieve is creation of a class of preferential buyers (who are allowed to buy cheaply or get housing for free from the government) while excluding others from the market altogether. Those policies just hide the demand it won't magically disappear. Things you can do are: -increasing supply by changing laws around zoning, allow building more/higher etc. -introduce policies that makes it more attractive to live in less populated areas where land is cheaper (hard to say what works but maybe better/faster public transportation, more wfh, preferential tax treatment for companies that move to other areas, if enough of that happens new business/population hubs might start)

sumedh 5y ago

> apartments are predominantly 1 or 2 bedrooms and poorly built It is just amazing that Australia does not good regulations for building apartments. You work hard, you save money, buy an apartment and then you find out there are some major structural issues in the building.