5 ms·

>>>all current landlords would have to setup an estate plan to transition ownership to heirs for use as a primary residence if they did not already own one, and

>>>all current landlords would have to setup an estate plan to transition ownership to heirs for use as a primary residence if they did not already own one, and the excess could be sold at auction to those who don’t already own a primary residence, or to those who are trading up or down to another house. My mother spent 30+ years paying off her mortgage, busting her ass to ensure that I would inherit her property free-and-clear. I'm just beginning to setup the place with a property management company, and already my projections indicate it is the #2 source of income and wealth in our family over the next 10 years (my income is #1, wife's income a VERY distant #3). Property ownership, and leveraging assets to acquire more assets, isn't used exclusively by the already-wealthy 1%. It's also used by middle-class minorities, living well within their means, to climb the ladder out of the working class and into the capitalist class. I'm finally starting to see a light at the end of the wage-slavery tunnel. My primary residence is outside the US, and I have no intention or expectation that I would ever penalize my children by forcing them to reside in the crumbling, socially-fractured dystopian hellhole of America. I would absolutely fly MYSELF back to the States, perhaps even augmented with personally-hired SE Asian "security contractors" (far more affordable than US veterans) to defend my family's assets with lethal force if someone tried to implement this insanity. "Do-gooders" and their unintended consequences really grind my gears.

TomVDB 5y ago
You agree that the US is a hellhole for many people, but you don’t seem to realize that you’re part of the problem. (Note that I’m part of the problem too, by renting out our previous house so that my kid may eventually be able to live close to us, but at least I’m not a hypocrite, knowingly or not, about it.)
genocidicbunny 5y ago
> I'm finally starting to see a light at the end of the wage-slavery tunnel. Congrats. I wish the same could be said of the people that are going to be beholden to wage slavery to rent the residence that you own and they get nothing out of at the end of their leases. > My primary residence is outside the US, and I have no intention or expectation that I would ever penalize my children by forcing them to reside in the crumbling, socially-fractured dystopian hellhole of America. But you're okay contributing to making America more of a hellhole for others? If you don't reside in the US, and you have no intention of living in the US, nor having your family live there, but you own property that you extract rent on, you are the EXACT problem that people complain about. How about you sell your US properties and buy ones where you live? After all, the US is a hellhole, why would you want to own a piece of it. Those 'do-gooders' that you complain about, may be wrong, but they're trying to better the situation. You seem to content to shit all over it instead. That makes you no better than said 'do-gooders' and if anything quantifiably worse.
- CapricornNoble 5y ago
  >>>I wish the same could be said of the people that are going to be beholden to wage slavery to rent the residence that you own and they get nothing out of at the end of their leases. Almost every urban development thread on HN is full of comments about how Americans need to abandon the idea of single-family home ownership and move into apartments. How is renting out a SFH any different from a small-time landlord than owns a property with 10 tenants? Either way the inhabitants leave the relationship with no change in their ownership of the underlying physical land. >>>But you're okay contributing to making America more of a hellhole for others? Middle-class rental property owners aren't even on my Top100 list of Things Making America a Hellhole. >>>If you don't reside in the US, and you have no intention of living in the US, nor having your family live there, but you own property that you extract rent on, you are the EXACT problem that people complain about. You've basically just described "Foreign Investment". Renting property is protection from the elements, without the long-term financial risk of a mortgage. Likewise, working a job is a means to generate income, either in the absence of accumulated capital (for starting your own business), or when the laborer is unwilling to risk their own capital. So if renting out our family home is apparently immoral, is it also immoral to open a factory and employ American workers, while I live overseas? In both cases I am levering my possession of private property, which I am not personally using, to amplify the accrual of wealth to myself. I'm considering sub-dividing my property and building 1-2 additional houses on the currently-unused land. If zoning weren't an issue, I could tear down the existing home and replace it with a 3-unit apartment building. Would I still be "the exact problem" if I now owned a luxury condo building instead of 3 single-family units? >>>How about you sell your US properties and buy ones where you live? My US property is severely undervalued because it is in a historically-black neighborhood with a poor-performing school system. I was quoted a sale price of ~$275k....while houses barely 1.5km away in the white neighborhoods, with fewer physical features/amenities than our home, are selling for $450k. If I ever sell it at all, it will be after the neighborhood sufficiently gentrifies and home prices normalize with the surrounds. As for buying a home here (Japan), why would I undergo all the various transaction costs involved (FX risk, agent commissions, etc...) just to physically shift the source of my revenue? With the current exchange rates, it's more advantageous in purchasing-power terms to collect an income in USD, and spend JPY. It's also generally a better risk-management strategy to hold physical assets during periods of high inflation (like now), so I wouldn't want to sell the US house and just sit on the cash either. So if I bought a house here, I would lose on the transaction costs, gain nothing in nominal wealth (break even on house price), lose qualitatively on the physical features (you're not getting a 4-bedroom house with an inground pool for $400k in Japan), and lose on purchasing-power-parity of my rental income. >>>Those 'do-gooders' that you complain about, may be wrong, but they're trying to better the situation. You seem to content to shit all over it instead. That makes you no better than said 'do-gooders' and if anything quantifiably worse. Yes, because all too frequently, doing something is objectively worse than doing nothing. I've seen it a million times in the military: new officers come in, always trying to shake up the status quo and "improve" things....but they have a terribly limited understanding of the depth of the organization's problems...so they force us to implement poorly-thought-out adjustments to our business practices. Then they are out the door to another office barely 1 year later. The constant churn of bad ideas leaves the organization unable to build institutional proficiency, worse than if we had just stuck with one set of mediocre solutions for ~5 years instead. So when someone suggests that the solution to America's housing problem is "get the central government to seize and redistribute private property", I absolutely consider my position quantifiably better than their suggestion.

TomVDB 5y ago

You agree that the US is a hellhole for many people, but you don’t seem to realize that you’re part of the problem. (Note that I’m part of the problem too, by renting out our previous house so that my kid may eventually be able to live close to us, but at least I’m not a hypocrite, knowingly or not, about it.)

genocidicbunny 5y ago

> I'm finally starting to see a light at the end of the wage-slavery tunnel. Congrats. I wish the same could be said of the people that are going to be beholden to wage slavery to rent the residence that you own and they get nothing out of at the end of their leases. > My primary residence is outside the US, and I have no intention or expectation that I would ever penalize my children by forcing them to reside in the crumbling, socially-fractured dystopian hellhole of America. But you're okay contributing to making America more of a hellhole for others? If you don't reside in the US, and you have no intention of living in the US, nor having your family live there, but you own property that you extract rent on, you are the EXACT problem that people complain about. How about you sell your US properties and buy ones where you live? After all, the US is a hellhole, why would you want to own a piece of it. Those 'do-gooders' that you complain about, may be wrong, but they're trying to better the situation. You seem to content to shit all over it instead. That makes you no better than said 'do-gooders' and if anything quantifiably worse.

CapricornNoble 5y ago
>>>I wish the same could be said of the people that are going to be beholden to wage slavery to rent the residence that you own and they get nothing out of at the end of their leases. Almost every urban development thread on HN is full of comments about how Americans need to abandon the idea of single-family home ownership and move into apartments. How is renting out a SFH any different from a small-time landlord than owns a property with 10 tenants? Either way the inhabitants leave the relationship with no change in their ownership of the underlying physical land. >>>But you're okay contributing to making America more of a hellhole for others? Middle-class rental property owners aren't even on my Top100 list of Things Making America a Hellhole. >>>If you don't reside in the US, and you have no intention of living in the US, nor having your family live there, but you own property that you extract rent on, you are the EXACT problem that people complain about. You've basically just described "Foreign Investment". Renting property is protection from the elements, without the long-term financial risk of a mortgage. Likewise, working a job is a means to generate income, either in the absence of accumulated capital (for starting your own business), or when the laborer is unwilling to risk their own capital. So if renting out our family home is apparently immoral, is it also immoral to open a factory and employ American workers, while I live overseas? In both cases I am levering my possession of private property, which I am not personally using, to amplify the accrual of wealth to myself. I'm considering sub-dividing my property and building 1-2 additional houses on the currently-unused land. If zoning weren't an issue, I could tear down the existing home and replace it with a 3-unit apartment building. Would I still be "the exact problem" if I now owned a luxury condo building instead of 3 single-family units? >>>How about you sell your US properties and buy ones where you live? My US property is severely undervalued because it is in a historically-black neighborhood with a poor-performing school system. I was quoted a sale price of ~$275k....while houses barely 1.5km away in the white neighborhoods, with fewer physical features/amenities than our home, are selling for $450k. If I ever sell it at all, it will be after the neighborhood sufficiently gentrifies and home prices normalize with the surrounds. As for buying a home here (Japan), why would I undergo all the various transaction costs involved (FX risk, agent commissions, etc...) just to physically shift the source of my revenue? With the current exchange rates, it's more advantageous in purchasing-power terms to collect an income in USD, and spend JPY. It's also generally a better risk-management strategy to hold physical assets during periods of high inflation (like now), so I wouldn't want to sell the US house and just sit on the cash either. So if I bought a house here, I would lose on the transaction costs, gain nothing in nominal wealth (break even on house price), lose qualitatively on the physical features (you're not getting a 4-bedroom house with an inground pool for $400k in Japan), and lose on purchasing-power-parity of my rental income. >>>Those 'do-gooders' that you complain about, may be wrong, but they're trying to better the situation. You seem to content to shit all over it instead. That makes you no better than said 'do-gooders' and if anything quantifiably worse. Yes, because all too frequently, doing something is objectively worse than doing nothing. I've seen it a million times in the military: new officers come in, always trying to shake up the status quo and "improve" things....but they have a terribly limited understanding of the depth of the organization's problems...so they force us to implement poorly-thought-out adjustments to our business practices. Then they are out the door to another office barely 1 year later. The constant churn of bad ideas leaves the organization unable to build institutional proficiency, worse than if we had just stuck with one set of mediocre solutions for ~5 years instead. So when someone suggests that the solution to America's housing problem is "get the central government to seize and redistribute private property", I absolutely consider my position quantifiably better than their suggestion.