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Is it always less risky? What happens when the price of apartments triples or quadruples over the years but your income stagnates or even goes down? You’d bette
by freyr 5y ago
Is it always less risky? What happens when the price of apartments triples or quadruples over the years but your income stagnates or even goes down? You’d better have rent control, which is generally a bad economic policy overall, and you’d better love your apartment because you will be stuck there. When I lived in SF, many of my older neighbors were in this situation.
If you own and can afford your fixed-rate mortgage, you are much less likely to be in this situation, or worse, homeless.
- sofixa 5y agoRegulating big rent increases for existing tenants isn't a bad economic policy if you compensate through other means ( e.g. you ensure there's a path to homeownership for those tenants, so they don't stay forever, and that new housing stock for affordable rent is added frequently). In France there's a maximum amount you can increase a tenant's rent with, defined yearly based on market prices. Combined with one of the most popular investment vehicles, which is a buy new ( thus incentivising construction) to rent (at defined affordable prices) programme which gets you tax breaks for 10 years, and after that most people usually sell. Alongside that cities are mandated by law to have a certain percentage of "social"(affordable) housing available, so when private construction adds housing stock, cities have to add on top of it. That helps keep renting affordable while also making sure new construction appears.