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Houses in the US couldn't serve as intergenerational asset simply because they are built of wood with average livespan of ~70 years. While in Europe houses are

Houses in the US couldn't serve as intergenerational asset simply because they are built of wood with average livespan of ~70 years. While in Europe houses are generally build of brick or cement and last centuries.

spacedcowboy 5y ago
My (paid for) house in the Bay Area was built ~70 years ago, and it’s just fine, thanks :) As a European living over here for the last two decades, I agree that European houses are generally sturdier (my parents house pre-dates the USA, I don’t expect mine to last that long), but when you’re spending 6 figures on something, looking after it is a good policy. Catching problems early is the key - as soon as you notice something, fix it and fix the cause…
senkora 5y ago
I think it is clear that the parent is using home-ownership to include land-ownership.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Don’t know how it is in most of Europe, but I think that, in the UK, you don’t actually own the land your house sits on; Lord Such-and-Such owns it, and collects rent from you. In the US, we own the land, and that is usually the real value. I’m the proud owner of a 0.125-acre New York postage stamp. It’s in a fairly affluent area, so is fairly valuable. In Wyoming, they’d laugh at it. I think Japan is similar.
  - timthorn 5y ago
    No, that's not the universal case in the UK. My freehold gives me ownership of my house and the land on which it is built. You're right that most of the value of the property is in the land and not the building though.
  - midhhhthrow 5y ago
    You don’t really own it. That’s just a legal construct. If you have to pay rent to the government (property taxes) to “keep” it then you don’t really own it
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      In Virginia, you need to pay taxes for your car (at least, you used to. Not sure if they still do). This was different from registration, and applied, even if your car is sitting in your driveway without plates. I think they also used to charge tax for significant-value property, like computers.
  - brnaftr361 5y ago
    You're paying taxes, yeah? And if you were to overlook those tax payments, what would become of your supposed ownership? And subject to eminent domain? Not to mention the many laws of the lands and social expectations besides. How much do you really own?
    - MichaelBurge 5y ago
      In that sense, you don't own your body either: At any time, the government could send goons to shoot you or jail you or harvest your kidneys. Even if you leave the country, they could put a bounty on your head or send assassins. Sure, there's courts and laws, but they pick the judges and can choose to change the laws. They could pass a constitutional amendment tomorrow giving themselves the right to harvest your kidneys, the same way local counties can pass a law at any time raising your property taxes. And, even if you argue that you have rights under the current government, empires don't last forever. 300 years from now, who's to say barbarians won't be ransacking the house you left to your kids? In that sense, your rights are only contingent on the barbarians being too scared to attack, and not absolute. So if your argument is, "You can't own a house because the government could take it away", it seems like you have no hope and no possible policy change would give you any "true rights" to anything.
      - jokethrowaway 5y ago
        What you say is absolutely correct. While you have governments that can legally steal everything from you just because they can, you'll never really be free. That said, there are degrees of freedom. Property taxes in the US are very high so I consider it an inferior degree of freedom compared to owning a house in a country where I don't have property taxes. The more corporation / income tax I have to pay the less free I am, hence why I'll move to a country which charge less corporation / income tax. Sure, I'm still owned by the government because they have soldiers and guns and I have none - but at least I can live my life as close as possible to how I'd like to live it. It is possible to fix this situation once and for all: abolish the government and its idea of legitimacy, let people organise their own defence from the goons of other countries by paying voluntarily. You won't end up with a much different system, you'll still have some people not paying anything and some people paying more to defend their community - but at least I would pay voluntarily what's needed for my defence without enriching the politicians, fake intermediaries with empty promises, and it wouldn't be coerced out of me under threat of fines and imprisonment.
  - LMYahooTFY 5y ago
    > but I think that, in the UK, you don’t actually own the land your house sits on; Lord Such-and-Such owns it, and collects rent from you. I've never heard this before. Is this actually true? Is this some background technical legal truth that isn't noticed in practice?
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Called a leasehold. Not all property is like this though.
      - pydry 5y ago
        Like, 85% in London though.
        rowanajmarshall 5y ago
        About 34% of London is leasehold: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/leasehold-dwellings-2019-to-2020/leasehold-dwellings-2019-to-2020 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/leasehold-dwellings...
        pydry 5y ago
        Ok, maybe I should have specified "under £650k within zones 1, 2 and 3". I'm sure Roman Abramovich's mansion is freehold as are all those semidetached houses on the outskirts with a 55 minute commute to the centre.
    - Cederfjard 5y ago
      To be clear, anyone can own the freehold that you’re leasing the property from. The mention of ”Lord Such-and-Such” could give you the idea that this is some antiquated construct where all lands are somehow truly owned by the nobility, but that’s not how it is.
  - radicalbyte 5y ago
    That is not correct. In the UK, there is a concept of Freehold and Leasehold. In the former case you own the land under and everything built on it. In most of the country you buy the Freehold. The Leasehold gives you ownership of the building but not the land under it. You lease the land from the owner. I've personally considered this form of "ownership" a trap. It has become more common in recent years as a way for sellers to screw buyers. Particular in the London area where demand is always extra high.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      It’s not incorrect, either. I phrased it carefully, to indicate that I don’t know for sure. It describes my grandparents’ house, in Liverpool (I assume it was a “leasehold.” I never knew the official name). I know that my mother did not inherit their house, but there may have been other factors, involved. Technically, I guess I don’t “own” my own land, either, but I pay (significant) taxes on it (because I “own” it, according to the taxing authorities. They don’t tax the bank; they tax me). The taxes are assessed on the total value of the land and the building, and location^3 is a fairly significant coefficient. Land is a weird (but frequently lucrative) investment. You can’t lock it in a safe, and, if your neighbors start a hog farm, you can’t just pick it up and move away.
  - rowanajmarshall 5y ago
    > I think that, in the UK, you don’t actually own the land your house sits on; Lord Such-and-Such owns it, and collects rent from you. This isn't quite right. There's something kinda like that called leasehold, where you basically own an extremely long lease on a property (typically 70+ years, often up to 999 years), with the freehold (outright ownership) sitting beneath it. Generally it's used on apartment blocks and certain new-builds in specific areas (e.g. they're more common in London, but outright banned in Scotland outside of some pre-existing edge cases). There's a good chance the whole thing will be functionally reformed out of existence in the near future (see here https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/leasehold-reform-in-england-and-wales/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/leasehold-reform-in-eng...). But in any case, the vast majority of UK property is sold freehold, or as you put it "we own the land, and that is usually the real value".
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      Thanks for the correction. The only reference I had, was my grandparents’ “named” house, in Liverpool (It was actually a pretty nice place, near the beach, for what that’s worth, in Liverpool). I remember my grandmother, explaining it to me, and that was what I got from it. I was too young to have a decent frame of reference, though.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
The really old homes I’ve seen in Europe are made out of wood oddly enough. Of course, when the house was built in the 1400s, it is probably a ship of Theseus. Well, most homes that are around for a whole have to be maintained, even (especially) if they are made out of concrete or brick.
- ido 5y ago
  I think it depends where in Europe? In Germany and Austria they're mostly made of masonry. Here for example is a 1000+ years old church in Vienna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Rupert%27s_Church,_Vienna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Rupert%27s_Church,_Vienna
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    That church undergoes a lot of maintnence, masonry requires constant repair, so it gets constant repair.
refurb 5y ago
This is a bizarre comment because: 1. there is housing that is >100 years old all over the US, some of it the most expensive in the country. 2. Brick and cement houses are certainly not maintenance free and crumble apart over time 3. Most of the value is the land, not the house
jdblair 5y ago
All houses need maintenance and upkeep to survive. My wood frame house in Oakland was built in 1896. Clearly it lasted longer than 70 years. Brick is a terrible building material in California, due to earthquakes. My brick house in Amsterdam was built in 1886. However, the piles it sat on were wood, which decayed, and the house sank 8 cm. Both needed new foundations, both were gutted and remodeled on the inside to update them to modern standards.
AngryData 5y ago
A decently built wood home will last centuries too if it is maintained.
qeternity 5y ago
The land the asset, less so the structure.

spacedcowboy 5y ago

My (paid for) house in the Bay Area was built ~70 years ago, and it’s just fine, thanks :) As a European living over here for the last two decades, I agree that European houses are generally sturdier (my parents house pre-dates the USA, I don’t expect mine to last that long), but when you’re spending 6 figures on something, looking after it is a good policy. Catching problems early is the key - as soon as you notice something, fix it and fix the cause…

senkora 5y ago

I think it is clear that the parent is using home-ownership to include land-ownership.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Don’t know how it is in most of Europe, but I think that, in the UK, you don’t actually own the land your house sits on; Lord Such-and-Such owns it, and collects rent from you. In the US, we own the land, and that is usually the real value. I’m the proud owner of a 0.125-acre New York postage stamp. It’s in a fairly affluent area, so is fairly valuable. In Wyoming, they’d laugh at it. I think Japan is similar.
- timthorn 5y ago
  No, that's not the universal case in the UK. My freehold gives me ownership of my house and the land on which it is built. You're right that most of the value of the property is in the land and not the building though.
- midhhhthrow 5y ago
  You don’t really own it. That’s just a legal construct. If you have to pay rent to the government (property taxes) to “keep” it then you don’t really own it
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    In Virginia, you need to pay taxes for your car (at least, you used to. Not sure if they still do). This was different from registration, and applied, even if your car is sitting in your driveway without plates. I think they also used to charge tax for significant-value property, like computers.
- brnaftr361 5y ago
  You're paying taxes, yeah? And if you were to overlook those tax payments, what would become of your supposed ownership? And subject to eminent domain? Not to mention the many laws of the lands and social expectations besides. How much do you really own?
  - MichaelBurge 5y ago
    In that sense, you don't own your body either: At any time, the government could send goons to shoot you or jail you or harvest your kidneys. Even if you leave the country, they could put a bounty on your head or send assassins. Sure, there's courts and laws, but they pick the judges and can choose to change the laws. They could pass a constitutional amendment tomorrow giving themselves the right to harvest your kidneys, the same way local counties can pass a law at any time raising your property taxes. And, even if you argue that you have rights under the current government, empires don't last forever. 300 years from now, who's to say barbarians won't be ransacking the house you left to your kids? In that sense, your rights are only contingent on the barbarians being too scared to attack, and not absolute. So if your argument is, "You can't own a house because the government could take it away", it seems like you have no hope and no possible policy change would give you any "true rights" to anything.
    - jokethrowaway 5y ago
      What you say is absolutely correct. While you have governments that can legally steal everything from you just because they can, you'll never really be free. That said, there are degrees of freedom. Property taxes in the US are very high so I consider it an inferior degree of freedom compared to owning a house in a country where I don't have property taxes. The more corporation / income tax I have to pay the less free I am, hence why I'll move to a country which charge less corporation / income tax. Sure, I'm still owned by the government because they have soldiers and guns and I have none - but at least I can live my life as close as possible to how I'd like to live it. It is possible to fix this situation once and for all: abolish the government and its idea of legitimacy, let people organise their own defence from the goons of other countries by paying voluntarily. You won't end up with a much different system, you'll still have some people not paying anything and some people paying more to defend their community - but at least I would pay voluntarily what's needed for my defence without enriching the politicians, fake intermediaries with empty promises, and it wouldn't be coerced out of me under threat of fines and imprisonment.
- LMYahooTFY 5y ago
  > but I think that, in the UK, you don’t actually own the land your house sits on; Lord Such-and-Such owns it, and collects rent from you. I've never heard this before. Is this actually true? Is this some background technical legal truth that isn't noticed in practice?
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Called a leasehold. Not all property is like this though.
    - pydry 5y ago
      Like, 85% in London though.
      - rowanajmarshall 5y ago
        About 34% of London is leasehold: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/leasehold-dwellings-2019-to-2020/leasehold-dwellings-2019-to-2020 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/leasehold-dwellings...
        pydry 5y ago
        Ok, maybe I should have specified "under £650k within zones 1, 2 and 3". I'm sure Roman Abramovich's mansion is freehold as are all those semidetached houses on the outskirts with a 55 minute commute to the centre.
  - Cederfjard 5y ago
    To be clear, anyone can own the freehold that you’re leasing the property from. The mention of ”Lord Such-and-Such” could give you the idea that this is some antiquated construct where all lands are somehow truly owned by the nobility, but that’s not how it is.
- radicalbyte 5y ago
  That is not correct. In the UK, there is a concept of Freehold and Leasehold. In the former case you own the land under and everything built on it. In most of the country you buy the Freehold. The Leasehold gives you ownership of the building but not the land under it. You lease the land from the owner. I've personally considered this form of "ownership" a trap. It has become more common in recent years as a way for sellers to screw buyers. Particular in the London area where demand is always extra high.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    It’s not incorrect, either. I phrased it carefully, to indicate that I don’t know for sure. It describes my grandparents’ house, in Liverpool (I assume it was a “leasehold.” I never knew the official name). I know that my mother did not inherit their house, but there may have been other factors, involved. Technically, I guess I don’t “own” my own land, either, but I pay (significant) taxes on it (because I “own” it, according to the taxing authorities. They don’t tax the bank; they tax me). The taxes are assessed on the total value of the land and the building, and location^3 is a fairly significant coefficient. Land is a weird (but frequently lucrative) investment. You can’t lock it in a safe, and, if your neighbors start a hog farm, you can’t just pick it up and move away.
- rowanajmarshall 5y ago
  > I think that, in the UK, you don’t actually own the land your house sits on; Lord Such-and-Such owns it, and collects rent from you. This isn't quite right. There's something kinda like that called leasehold, where you basically own an extremely long lease on a property (typically 70+ years, often up to 999 years), with the freehold (outright ownership) sitting beneath it. Generally it's used on apartment blocks and certain new-builds in specific areas (e.g. they're more common in London, but outright banned in Scotland outside of some pre-existing edge cases). There's a good chance the whole thing will be functionally reformed out of existence in the near future (see here https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/leasehold-reform-in-england-and-wales/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/leasehold-reform-in-eng...). But in any case, the vast majority of UK property is sold freehold, or as you put it "we own the land, and that is usually the real value".
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Thanks for the correction. The only reference I had, was my grandparents’ “named” house, in Liverpool (It was actually a pretty nice place, near the beach, for what that’s worth, in Liverpool). I remember my grandmother, explaining it to me, and that was what I got from it. I was too young to have a decent frame of reference, though.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

The really old homes I’ve seen in Europe are made out of wood oddly enough. Of course, when the house was built in the 1400s, it is probably a ship of Theseus. Well, most homes that are around for a whole have to be maintained, even (especially) if they are made out of concrete or brick.

ido 5y ago
I think it depends where in Europe? In Germany and Austria they're mostly made of masonry. Here for example is a 1000+ years old church in Vienna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Rupert%27s_Church,_Vienna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Rupert%27s_Church,_Vienna
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  That church undergoes a lot of maintnence, masonry requires constant repair, so it gets constant repair.

refurb 5y ago

This is a bizarre comment because: 1. there is housing that is >100 years old all over the US, some of it the most expensive in the country. 2. Brick and cement houses are certainly not maintenance free and crumble apart over time 3. Most of the value is the land, not the house

jdblair 5y ago

All houses need maintenance and upkeep to survive. My wood frame house in Oakland was built in 1896. Clearly it lasted longer than 70 years. Brick is a terrible building material in California, due to earthquakes. My brick house in Amsterdam was built in 1886. However, the piles it sat on were wood, which decayed, and the house sank 8 cm. Both needed new foundations, both were gutted and remodeled on the inside to update them to modern standards.

AngryData 5y ago

A decently built wood home will last centuries too if it is maintained.

qeternity 5y ago

The land the asset, less so the structure.