4 ms·

> Have economists model how these things will actually effect the markets with the goal of turning residential housing into a bad investment and dropping prices

by dgfitz 5y ago

> Have economists model how these things will actually effect the markets with the goal of turning residential housing into a bad investment and dropping prices. I imagine the costs would still get passed down to the tenants. Ignoring that for a second, rental housing isn’t “an evil thing that needs to go away.” Rental housing is very much a fundamental need for a lot of people. Military members who move every 3 years, college students, city residents who don’t plan on buying in the city but want to live there for some years while in the workforce, separated spouses need 2 places to live, the list goes on. This snap judgment of “down with landlords, let’s destroy the rental market” doesn’t seem like a great idea.

colechristensen 5y ago
It's not "no more landlords", but removing many of them from the market, reducing competition. Many people want to own but are priced out of the market, and many people who do own end up leaving very large chunks of their incomes as bank profits. I'm focusing on the middle of the market where people would buy if prices were more affordable, not edges of the market where people would only buy if housing was basically given away.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Private landlords are basically lenders. The houses are there for anyone to buy. The landlords-to-be have the cash, or credit rating and scope for risk taking, to buy these houses and rent them out. I’m not saying they are some kind of godsend, rather that they are present precisely because renters wouldn’t buy the houses they live in, for whatever reason. If you take away the private landlords, you’d need to find that capital elsewhere, and it seems poor people don’t have it. State-owned housing? Mutual housing? Promoting good transport so people can live further out? Lots of solutions I think, but not sure adding friction to the current set up will do anything.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    Landlords compete with aspiring homeowners, raising prices. Raising prices benefit landlords as what they get to charge for their “cost of capital” gains a higher proportion vs their cost of actually maintaining the property. I’m talking explicitly about lowering the cost of housing by reducing the amount of capital in the market from landlords.
    - rich_sasha 5y ago
      Right, and where do the renters live? Someone needs to own the houses. Not every renter is on the cusp of buying. If you make houses more expensive for landlords and don’t introduce some other source of housing, at best it’ll be a wash: lower prices for houses but extra taxes meaning landlords charge more or less the same rent. Or maybe prices won’t move much but landlords will charge more rent to cover their higher costs.
      - colechristensen 5y ago
        We are not at risk of an abundance of empty housing with nobody to live in it. You lower prices by reducing competition from landlords, then more people who rent will buy. There's a long way to go before you get to the point of people who don't want to buy a house feeling forced to do so because they can't find a rental. I don't know the name of the logical fallacy, but the argument you're making is imaging a far away extreme situation being undesirable and using that to justify not making moderate changes.
        rich_sasha 5y ago
        No, this is just what happens the world over when lawmakers make buy-to-let more expensive. Rents go up...
Valgrim 5y ago
The amount of people who "need" to rent for whatever reason is at least an order of magnitude smaller than the amount of people who are forced to rent because all available housing is for rent instead of for sale. For example, there are a lot of people buying cars, and a lot less people renting cars, and for similars reason you stated above. If the housing market was balanced (as in not "completely cornered by landlords"), i'd expect a similar ratio of housing rental vs ownership, even taking into account the depreciating nature of cars.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  There are loads of people leasing cars, which is basically a fixed term rental.
- beerandt 5y ago
  People build houses all the time. It's not just rent or buy.
bigodbiel 5y ago
The problem with rental housing today is that most of it is turning being bought up by Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) run by the likes of Blackrock and Vanguard and not “mom and pop pension fund”. These same investors actually pay >15% above market value effectively inflating prices, and monopolizing entire neighborhoods.
bsedlm 5y ago
> rental housing isn’t “an evil thing that needs to go away.” I disagree, rental housing is a thing that does need to go away, or at least be severly limited. Because there's a strong trend towards corporations owning all housing and then everybody must rent from them. (as a milenial my chances of owning the place I live in are small... specially in big cities; I looked into it, I would need to get a loan and then pay the loan amount twice over for the next 30 years to buy a shitty small appartment without a real kitchen).
- dgfitz 5y ago
  You’re contradicting yourself. Where would you live right now if you weren’t renting? You’re also creating artificial limitations. Nobody said you’re entitled to own the place your currently live, you’re creating that restriction. 200k gets you a whole lot of house in the south and Midwest. Choosing to live in a city and bitch about affordability is quite a millennial thing to do though, since you’ve already self-identified.
  - bsedlm 5y ago
    > You’re contradicting yourself. Where would you live right now if you weren’t renting? my parent's house? a friend's couch? My own appartment or house? (I suppose even millenials could inherit property). I do not understand why you are saying that I'm contradicting myself. What I do see, is that you seem to be defending the custom of having to pay a recurrent fee to have a roof over your head, a custom which I stand against.
    - dgfitz 5y ago
      I’m not defending it, simply pointing out glaring holes in your logic
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]

by dgfitz 5y ago

colechristensen 5y ago

It's not "no more landlords", but removing many of them from the market, reducing competition. Many people want to own but are priced out of the market, and many people who do own end up leaving very large chunks of their incomes as bank profits. I'm focusing on the middle of the market where people would buy if prices were more affordable, not edges of the market where people would only buy if housing was basically given away.

rich_sasha 5y ago
Private landlords are basically lenders. The houses are there for anyone to buy. The landlords-to-be have the cash, or credit rating and scope for risk taking, to buy these houses and rent them out. I’m not saying they are some kind of godsend, rather that they are present precisely because renters wouldn’t buy the houses they live in, for whatever reason. If you take away the private landlords, you’d need to find that capital elsewhere, and it seems poor people don’t have it. State-owned housing? Mutual housing? Promoting good transport so people can live further out? Lots of solutions I think, but not sure adding friction to the current set up will do anything.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Landlords compete with aspiring homeowners, raising prices. Raising prices benefit landlords as what they get to charge for their “cost of capital” gains a higher proportion vs their cost of actually maintaining the property. I’m talking explicitly about lowering the cost of housing by reducing the amount of capital in the market from landlords.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    Right, and where do the renters live? Someone needs to own the houses. Not every renter is on the cusp of buying. If you make houses more expensive for landlords and don’t introduce some other source of housing, at best it’ll be a wash: lower prices for houses but extra taxes meaning landlords charge more or less the same rent. Or maybe prices won’t move much but landlords will charge more rent to cover their higher costs.
    - colechristensen 5y ago
      We are not at risk of an abundance of empty housing with nobody to live in it. You lower prices by reducing competition from landlords, then more people who rent will buy. There's a long way to go before you get to the point of people who don't want to buy a house feeling forced to do so because they can't find a rental. I don't know the name of the logical fallacy, but the argument you're making is imaging a far away extreme situation being undesirable and using that to justify not making moderate changes.
      - rich_sasha 5y ago
        No, this is just what happens the world over when lawmakers make buy-to-let more expensive. Rents go up...

Valgrim 5y ago

The amount of people who "need" to rent for whatever reason is at least an order of magnitude smaller than the amount of people who are forced to rent because all available housing is for rent instead of for sale. For example, there are a lot of people buying cars, and a lot less people renting cars, and for similars reason you stated above. If the housing market was balanced (as in not "completely cornered by landlords"), i'd expect a similar ratio of housing rental vs ownership, even taking into account the depreciating nature of cars.

thegrimmest 5y ago
There are loads of people leasing cars, which is basically a fixed term rental.
beerandt 5y ago
People build houses all the time. It's not just rent or buy.

bigodbiel 5y ago

The problem with rental housing today is that most of it is turning being bought up by Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT) run by the likes of Blackrock and Vanguard and not “mom and pop pension fund”. These same investors actually pay >15% above market value effectively inflating prices, and monopolizing entire neighborhoods.

bsedlm 5y ago

> rental housing isn’t “an evil thing that needs to go away.” I disagree, rental housing is a thing that does need to go away, or at least be severly limited. Because there's a strong trend towards corporations owning all housing and then everybody must rent from them. (as a milenial my chances of owning the place I live in are small... specially in big cities; I looked into it, I would need to get a loan and then pay the loan amount twice over for the next 30 years to buy a shitty small appartment without a real kitchen).

dgfitz 5y ago
You’re contradicting yourself. Where would you live right now if you weren’t renting? You’re also creating artificial limitations. Nobody said you’re entitled to own the place your currently live, you’re creating that restriction. 200k gets you a whole lot of house in the south and Midwest. Choosing to live in a city and bitch about affordability is quite a millennial thing to do though, since you’ve already self-identified.
- bsedlm 5y ago
  > You’re contradicting yourself. Where would you live right now if you weren’t renting? my parent's house? a friend's couch? My own appartment or house? (I suppose even millenials could inherit property). I do not understand why you are saying that I'm contradicting myself. What I do see, is that you seem to be defending the custom of having to pay a recurrent fee to have a roof over your head, a custom which I stand against.
  - dgfitz 5y ago
    I’m not defending it, simply pointing out glaring holes in your logic
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]