3 ms·

> one way to drive prices in your city down is to have some even that renders it undesirable (..., defund the police ...) there are so many problems with your

by zemo 5y ago

> one way to drive prices in your city down is to have some even that renders it undesirable (..., defund the police ...) there are so many problems with your post but the assumption that defunding the police is necessarily going to cause prices to collapse is probably the most obviously biased one. the idea that you should view housing as simply a matter of supply and demand and not consider any externalities is an abominable position. All people need shelter, it's not something that people opt into for the enjoyment of it alone. By the logic you have presented, the top 1% of people banding together and buying up all of the housing and squeezing everyone else is perfectly fine if it makes the numbers look nice, regardless of how it affects people's lives. The way you have framed the problem is inhumane. Another way to make rent more affordable is to raise the tax rate on income generated from residential rentals to the point that people are not buying up all of the housing stock for the sake of investment alone. Income from residential rentals is taxed at the same rate as ordinary income, the kind you get from actually doing something. Why would anyone work if they can just own someone else's house instead?

qaq 5y ago
All people need shelter but people are not entitled to shelter in any place of their choosing. Your proposed solution will increase rent prices for people who can't afford to buy a house while pushing the housing prices down and making them more affordable to middle class. So essentially you are making house purchasing more affordable to middle class at the expense of the poor and investors.
- zemo 5y ago
  > people are not entitled to shelter in any place of their choosing I don't think that's a useful framing, because it's again putting the framing in terms of market dynamics in a vacuum. People don't pick where they're born, they don't pick who their parents are, and they don't pick the socioeconomic status that they're born into or have as children. The majority of people are born somewhere and cannot really afford to leave. For example, 72% of Americans live in or near the city where they were raised (https://www.northamerican.com/infographics/where-they-grew-up https://www.northamerican.com/infographics/where-they-grew-u...). Most people don't have the agency to pick where they live based on price alone, because other non-market factors become comparatively larger when you have less money. If you can pick where you live based on price and how interesting it sounds, congratulations, that is privileged position. That's not to shame that position or anything, I'm just saying that the problem has to be viewed from the standpoint that most people aren't in that position. People are interdependent with their relatives, their friends, and their neighbors. Moving costs more than simply the price sticker of your new home minus the price sticker of your old home: the social costs are enormous. I think that a basic right of modern societies should be that people should not be priced out of their homes because of the whims of investors. So again, I think the idea that these things should be viewed through the lens of market dynamics alone is inhumane. > Your proposed solution will increase rent prices for people who can't afford to buy a house while pushing the housing prices down and making them more affordable to middle class. ok maybe. My point isn't that I have the perfect solution, my point is that there are far more levers to pull than what was being suggested, and that I do not want to live in a society that considers the problem by only looking at markets and pricing.
  - qaq 5y ago
    I hold the opposite view it should be purely viewed through market dynamics in terms of solutions to societal problems we are trying to solve. As soon as you try to come up with the solution that ignores them you immediately get 2nd order effects that might be directly undermining your original goals. If there is lack of housing any solution that does not meaningfully increase the supply of houses will fail. (I am an immigrant so have pretty decent grasp on sacrifices one makes to move to get access to better opportunities).
seoaeu 5y ago
You can't solve a housing shortage by charging landlords more taxes any more than you can solve a famine by charging farmers more taxes. If there aren't enough homes for everyone who wants to live in a city, then part of the solution has to be building more homes.
xyzelement 5y ago
> the idea that you should view housing as simply a matter of supply and demand and not consider any externalities is an abominable position Comrade, I am speaking about "how it works" not "what would be really nice if..." > Income from residential rentals is taxed at the same rate as ordinary income, the kind you get from actually doing something. I can tell you have never owned an apartment or a house. The amount of money and time that goes into maintaining a property, managing risk of bad tenants, etc is really high. Not to mention property taxes which is likely something you've not heard about (or, at least you don't mention that in your post when talking about the tax burden.)
- zemo 5y ago
  > I can tell you have never owned an apartment or a house. I own my home and I pay property taxes, nice try though. > Comrade, I am speaking about "how it works" not "what would be really nice if..." faced with "the rent going up is a problem for working class people" you're instantly taking the side of investors and positioning it through this lens: > I want to make sure people understand the dynamics. the problem is not that people don't UnDeRsTaNd ThE dYnAmIcS, the problem is that the dynamics actively incentivize the creation of an investor and speculator class that owns a substantial portion of the housing stock and drives price up based on speculation and not based on any actual need to use the product. The supply is artificially held low by the investor and speculator class, my argument is that this is actively harmful and that the idea that the only way to raise supply is to build more houses is wrong, because your framing assumes a vacancy rate of zero, which no major city has.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    They're specifically framing it as understanding the dynamics and answering the question "What will make rents go down? Only two things". There's very little sympathy or opinion in their post.
UncleEntity 5y ago
> Another way to make rent more affordable is to raise the tax rate on income generated from residential rentals to the point that people are not buying up all of the housing stock for the sake of investment alone. Wouldn’t that just mean there would less rental opportunities because people wouldn’t rent out properties due to the increased tax burden? Not really seeing how such a plan would work out since it would increase rents across the board from lack of supply and the higher taxes being passed along to renters.
- zemo 5y ago
  sure, jack up property taxes instead of rental income taxes. The point is not the specific mechanic, the point is the desired outcome should be to reduce the number of residential properties purchased for investment and speculation. Zillow owning 7k houses doesn't actually do anything good for society; that's 7k houses that people aren't living in. People buying houses shouldn't be forced to compete with the search engine that they're using to buy houses.

by zemo 5y ago

qaq 5y ago

All people need shelter but people are not entitled to shelter in any place of their choosing. Your proposed solution will increase rent prices for people who can't afford to buy a house while pushing the housing prices down and making them more affordable to middle class. So essentially you are making house purchasing more affordable to middle class at the expense of the poor and investors.

zemo 5y ago
> people are not entitled to shelter in any place of their choosing I don't think that's a useful framing, because it's again putting the framing in terms of market dynamics in a vacuum. People don't pick where they're born, they don't pick who their parents are, and they don't pick the socioeconomic status that they're born into or have as children. The majority of people are born somewhere and cannot really afford to leave. For example, 72% of Americans live in or near the city where they were raised (https://www.northamerican.com/infographics/where-they-grew-up https://www.northamerican.com/infographics/where-they-grew-u...). Most people don't have the agency to pick where they live based on price alone, because other non-market factors become comparatively larger when you have less money. If you can pick where you live based on price and how interesting it sounds, congratulations, that is privileged position. That's not to shame that position or anything, I'm just saying that the problem has to be viewed from the standpoint that most people aren't in that position. People are interdependent with their relatives, their friends, and their neighbors. Moving costs more than simply the price sticker of your new home minus the price sticker of your old home: the social costs are enormous. I think that a basic right of modern societies should be that people should not be priced out of their homes because of the whims of investors. So again, I think the idea that these things should be viewed through the lens of market dynamics alone is inhumane. > Your proposed solution will increase rent prices for people who can't afford to buy a house while pushing the housing prices down and making them more affordable to middle class. ok maybe. My point isn't that I have the perfect solution, my point is that there are far more levers to pull than what was being suggested, and that I do not want to live in a society that considers the problem by only looking at markets and pricing.
- qaq 5y ago
  I hold the opposite view it should be purely viewed through market dynamics in terms of solutions to societal problems we are trying to solve. As soon as you try to come up with the solution that ignores them you immediately get 2nd order effects that might be directly undermining your original goals. If there is lack of housing any solution that does not meaningfully increase the supply of houses will fail. (I am an immigrant so have pretty decent grasp on sacrifices one makes to move to get access to better opportunities).

seoaeu 5y ago

You can't solve a housing shortage by charging landlords more taxes any more than you can solve a famine by charging farmers more taxes. If there aren't enough homes for everyone who wants to live in a city, then part of the solution has to be building more homes.

xyzelement 5y ago

> the idea that you should view housing as simply a matter of supply and demand and not consider any externalities is an abominable position Comrade, I am speaking about "how it works" not "what would be really nice if..." > Income from residential rentals is taxed at the same rate as ordinary income, the kind you get from actually doing something. I can tell you have never owned an apartment or a house. The amount of money and time that goes into maintaining a property, managing risk of bad tenants, etc is really high. Not to mention property taxes which is likely something you've not heard about (or, at least you don't mention that in your post when talking about the tax burden.)

zemo 5y ago
> I can tell you have never owned an apartment or a house. I own my home and I pay property taxes, nice try though. > Comrade, I am speaking about "how it works" not "what would be really nice if..." faced with "the rent going up is a problem for working class people" you're instantly taking the side of investors and positioning it through this lens: > I want to make sure people understand the dynamics. the problem is not that people don't UnDeRsTaNd ThE dYnAmIcS, the problem is that the dynamics actively incentivize the creation of an investor and speculator class that owns a substantial portion of the housing stock and drives price up based on speculation and not based on any actual need to use the product. The supply is artificially held low by the investor and speculator class, my argument is that this is actively harmful and that the idea that the only way to raise supply is to build more houses is wrong, because your framing assumes a vacancy rate of zero, which no major city has.
- judge2020 5y ago
  They're specifically framing it as understanding the dynamics and answering the question "What will make rents go down? Only two things". There's very little sympathy or opinion in their post.

UncleEntity 5y ago

> Another way to make rent more affordable is to raise the tax rate on income generated from residential rentals to the point that people are not buying up all of the housing stock for the sake of investment alone. Wouldn’t that just mean there would less rental opportunities because people wouldn’t rent out properties due to the increased tax burden? Not really seeing how such a plan would work out since it would increase rents across the board from lack of supply and the higher taxes being passed along to renters.

zemo 5y ago
sure, jack up property taxes instead of rental income taxes. The point is not the specific mechanic, the point is the desired outcome should be to reduce the number of residential properties purchased for investment and speculation. Zillow owning 7k houses doesn't actually do anything good for society; that's 7k houses that people aren't living in. People buying houses shouldn't be forced to compete with the search engine that they're using to buy houses.