5 ms·

Shelter is or should be a basic human right. Hoarding of housing should thus be viewed as a human rights violation. Between second homes (and third, fourth and

by jmyeet 4y ago

Shelter is or should be a basic human right. Hoarding of housing should thus be viewed as a human rights violation. Between second homes (and third, fourth and fifth homes), AirBnB/VRBO/etc, the ultra-wealthy parking money in real estate, real estate markets catering to the ultra-wealthy by mostly or entirely building properties for the ultra-wealthy, rampant NIMBYism, institutional buying of residential housing and protecting property values becoming a political goal we have a complete mess on our hands. Let's start with this: 1. PUnitiviely taxing any property held by a non-individual as an owner. I'm talking at least 10% of the property's value every year; 2. Banning AirBnB in any case where the owner isn't living on the property; 3. Treating all owners as residents in that city, state and country for tax purposes and taxing their worldwide income accordingly. Let New York be for New Yorkers; 4. Ending tax abatements for ultra-wealthy property development; 5. Properties above 200% of the median value should also be taxed at a much higher rate; 6. Property that isn't occupied the majority of the year should also be taxed punitively.

seoaeu 4y ago
Saying that anyone who can’t afford a down payment has to pay rent + 10% of the total home value in taxes each year is absurd.
FredPret 4y ago
Investing != hoarding In fact investing stimulates new construction, having the exact opposite effect.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  >In fact investing stimulates new construction But this isn’t practically true in most major metropolitan areas. When one makes an investment as large as a home, one of the best ways to protect that investment is to block further construction (reducing supply and therefore raising demand on your investment)
  - FredPret 4y ago
    Well let’s just make that shit illegal and let builders build new houses until supply meets demand. Voila.
    - nemothekid 4y ago
      >"just make that shit illegal" Except those with the money to make investments in real-estate are the very same people who have enough money to make the political system work for them. "Just make that shit illegal" is simply a refusal to understand how complex these incentives are. If it was so simple to just make that shit illegal it would have been done already; we are nearly decade in to the housing crisis in cities like San Francisco and you think people haven't thought about making it illegal? How do you go about doing that? Eventually you will be forced to consider solutions that the GP was referring to.
- deadbunny 4y ago
  Given we're in a multi decade slump in house building I'd argue this is not the case.
  - pempem 4y ago
    It is tremendously hard to build and I dont think its because people don't want to. reason 1: In fact its not investors who block new building, its single home owners who want to 'maintain' their neighborhood. reason 2: CA has passed a number of resolutions allowing for ADUs, splitting of lots etc. However the city is glacial and beyond opaque in its approval, closing out smaller fish who would try to build things by miring them in requirements that are difficult to meet without a corporate set-up
- jmyeet 4y ago
  That's capitalist propaganda. For example, in 2021 investors bought 28% of houses sold in Texas [1]. I say "propaganda" because that's the idea: that market forces will solve the problem. But in reality it's easy to get to a state where a single or small number of market participants effectively corner the market or become so politically powerful that any government works at their behest. This includes blocking new construction to protect and appreciate the value of existing holdings. Just look at how much in the last 6-12 months you've seen stories that go "20 offers on this house and it went $200k over ask all cash". The effect of all this is that it's driving rents through the roof, that is adversely affecting the most vulnerable. [1]: https://localprofile.com/2022/06/07/investors-bought-texas-homes-in-2021/ https://localprofile.com/2022/06/07/investors-bought-texas-h...
  - seoaeu 4y ago
    People still live in the houses owned by investors!
    - thehappypm 4y ago
      No you see, evil investors hoard the housing and put bouncy castles in them.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    Market forces will solve this issue in one year (or however long it takes to build a house). Just make it legal to build new houses. Right now it is practically outlawed due to insane regulations demanded by NIMBYs.
emaginniss 4y ago
For something to be a basic human right, it has to be available without enslaving other people. Free speech - yep, I can speak without forcing anyone else to do anything. Freedom from unreasonable search - yep, I am asking the government to not do something that infringes on my rights. If you start to declare something like housing as a basic human right, then the government has to provide it for you. What if nobody wants to build houses because of your unreasonable taxation strategy that you listed above? Does the government then compel them to build houses? What if the construction workers don't want to put hammer to nail? Does the government enslave them? Be careful what you declare as something that the government owes you, because the government doesn't do anything independently. It is a proxy for other people, so you are essentially saying "everyone else owes me a house and I am willing to use governmental violence to get it."
- neonnoodle 4y ago
  Under the U.S. Constitution, you have a right to an attorney regardless of your ability to pay. Do you think public defenders are enslaved?
  - emaginniss 4y ago
    My father was. He was a corporate attorney in New Jersey in the 80s and the state ran out of public defenders. The state required that all attorneys that were practicing under the NJ Bar serve as a public defender without pay. They got around the slavery aspect by just encoding it as a requirement for maintaining good standing as an attorney.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      That's not slavery. Your father could've quit, changed careers, moved to another state, etc. Slaves don't get to do that.
    - lesuorac 4y ago
      Interesting, federally you get paid [1] but not-federally you don't [2]. [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3006A https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3006A [2]: https://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/supreme-court/1992/126-n-j-591-1.html https://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/supreme-court/1992/1...
awillen 4y ago
The problem with this is that not everyone has the down payment or the desire to be a homeowner. What you're describing would likely increase ownership somewhat, but it would also create an incredibly punitive tax on renters, who tend to be less economically advantaged. If you can't come up with a down payment, then you have to rent. Because you have this captive group of people who don't have any other option, the result of what you're suggesting is that your 10% tax on non-individually owned property will just be passed along to renters. They'll have to pay it, because they have no other choice. The government will collect their tax money, but at the expense of the least advantaged, not the owners of investment properties.
- NoGravitas 4y ago
  None of their proposals include a tax on renters, only on landlords. You're assuming that landlords would be allowed to pass on this cost. And under the current system, they would. But as long as we're proposing hard-to-implement solutions, we might as well include some kind of rent control.
  - awillen 4y ago
    I'm not assuming, I'm responding to a comment which defines a set of proposals, and that set of proposals does not include rent control. I can't really respond to your proposal of rent control, because it has no detail on how that would work (How would a newly build apartment building come up with rents that factor in their costs but not the 10% tax? Does any newly built apartment building just have to lose money every month?). But anyway, rent control is bad because it constrains supply of available units. That's been discussed on HN more times than I can count, so no point in rehashing it here.
llimos 4y ago
I'm generally in favour of letting free markets sort themselves out, but housing isn't a normal market. In a normal market, when demand goes up supply usually follows. If a lot of people are buying Widget A, pushing the price up, more factories will pop up to manufacture Widget A, bringing the price down again. But housing is a zero-sum game - the amount of land is finite, the amount the authorities let you build on is even more limited, so the market can't fix itself, it's not a normal market. That's why you do need some kind of intervention to protect the participants. This is all apart from the fact that it's a basic human need.
- Workaccount2 4y ago
  The free market is a miracle worker in anything that doesn't involve necessities. I don't really count food though because it generally has enough competition and liquidity to keep it in check, but if it gets (really) bad then it too. But medical and housing? Yeah, it has no problem destroying peoples lives.
- ushtaritk421 4y ago
  Housing is not zero sum at current US density levels. You can put one house on a half acre or you can put 3-4 10-story apartment buildings on it with 20 3-bedrooms each. We immorally choose to have a housing shortage to keep the poors out.
  - llimos 4y ago
    Zero-sum because the authorities made it zero-sum is still zero-sum. You can't start a company that says "let's increase the supply of housing because demand is high." You can do that with most other markets. What I think you're saying is it ought to not be zero-sum because there's enough land - perhaps. I was talking about the ability of market participants to increase supply.
- jmyeet 4y ago
  Some people are completely against landlords existing. Perhaps you've mistaken me for one of those? Or perhaps I just didn't explain myself clearly enough? To be clear, I'm not against landlords existing. My guiding principle is that landlords need to exist because forcing people to own property isn't practical or even desirable. There is significant friction with buying and selling houses even if you can get over the financial barriers (eg downpayments). The simplest way I can put it is that I believe in this guiding principle: Landlords should be part of their community. What does this mean? Some examples: 1. I'm all for multifamily housing where the owners have 1-2 rental units on their property. This style of housing exists in small pockets of the US as generally a legacy but is now outlawed almost everywhere (most of the US makes anything other than single family housing illegal to build). 2. In the case where the landlord doesn't live on the property they should (IMHO) generally live in the same locale. This is what I mean when I said "New York should be for New Yorkers". Perhaps a better way to say that is "New York should be by and for New Yorkers". Obviously you can substitute any city name there. NYC is just an example; and 3. When it comes to apartments, generally I favour purpose-built rental apartments being built for this rather than renting out condos. Again though local ownership is better.
0daystock 4y ago
> Shelter is or should be a basic human right. Hoarding of housing should thus be viewed as a human rights violation. What is the basis for this conclusion? Other than an emotionally charged "eat the rich" attitude, I mean.
- tomlockwood 4y ago
  https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/FactSheet21en.pdf https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/FactSheet21en.pdf
  - imchillyb 4y ago
    So, a made-up, non-ratified, document is something every human should just accept? Lolz.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      Each of the three treaties listed in that document have been widely ratified. If "made up" is disqualifying, I've got bad news for you about all rights.
  - 0daystock 4y ago
    When the remedy for a violation of a "human right" is "file a complaint with the UN", it is outright theater. UN has no authority or even rapport to instrument or enforce such a wishful goal, noble as it is. No one gives you rights; certainly they're not granted by a piece of paper. Rights are what you can guarantee and defend yourself and with fellow citizens, through political will or brute force. Everything else is meaningless virtue signaling.
    - tomlockwood 4y ago
thehappypm 4y ago
Good luck with that in America. The US country was literally founded on life, liberty, and property.
_fat_santa 4y ago
The part that wont work about this is it targets the wrong sector of the housing market. Most of the rules you suggest would apply to luxury properties/vacation rentals/etc. Even if the owner were to sell the property, it wouldn't suddenly become affordable. These are the most "visible" homes, but they are a tiny minority of the housing market. The problem as I see it is government regulation. There was a thread on Reddit from a LA property developer that explained why only luxury apartment buildings ever get built. Long story short is there was so much red tape, regulation, etc that building anything but expensive high rise units was unprofitable. I heard somewhere that for the average home in California, you're paying something like a 50-80k premium because of red tape and regulations. The solution isn't to add more rules and regulations, but rather to take them away. The way we are going to get more affordable housing isn't through a program where 10% of a high rise's units are "affordable", but by actually making affordable housing profitable. If a developer can build an "affordable" property and make money on it, we will see more of them.

by jmyeet 4y ago

seoaeu 4y ago

Saying that anyone who can’t afford a down payment has to pay rent + 10% of the total home value in taxes each year is absurd.

FredPret 4y ago

Investing != hoarding In fact investing stimulates new construction, having the exact opposite effect.

nemothekid 4y ago
>In fact investing stimulates new construction But this isn’t practically true in most major metropolitan areas. When one makes an investment as large as a home, one of the best ways to protect that investment is to block further construction (reducing supply and therefore raising demand on your investment)
- FredPret 4y ago
  Well let’s just make that shit illegal and let builders build new houses until supply meets demand. Voila.
  - nemothekid 4y ago
    >"just make that shit illegal" Except those with the money to make investments in real-estate are the very same people who have enough money to make the political system work for them. "Just make that shit illegal" is simply a refusal to understand how complex these incentives are. If it was so simple to just make that shit illegal it would have been done already; we are nearly decade in to the housing crisis in cities like San Francisco and you think people haven't thought about making it illegal? How do you go about doing that? Eventually you will be forced to consider solutions that the GP was referring to.
deadbunny 4y ago
Given we're in a multi decade slump in house building I'd argue this is not the case.
- pempem 4y ago
  It is tremendously hard to build and I dont think its because people don't want to. reason 1: In fact its not investors who block new building, its single home owners who want to 'maintain' their neighborhood. reason 2: CA has passed a number of resolutions allowing for ADUs, splitting of lots etc. However the city is glacial and beyond opaque in its approval, closing out smaller fish who would try to build things by miring them in requirements that are difficult to meet without a corporate set-up
jmyeet 4y ago
That's capitalist propaganda. For example, in 2021 investors bought 28% of houses sold in Texas [1]. I say "propaganda" because that's the idea: that market forces will solve the problem. But in reality it's easy to get to a state where a single or small number of market participants effectively corner the market or become so politically powerful that any government works at their behest. This includes blocking new construction to protect and appreciate the value of existing holdings. Just look at how much in the last 6-12 months you've seen stories that go "20 offers on this house and it went $200k over ask all cash". The effect of all this is that it's driving rents through the roof, that is adversely affecting the most vulnerable. [1]: https://localprofile.com/2022/06/07/investors-bought-texas-homes-in-2021/ https://localprofile.com/2022/06/07/investors-bought-texas-h...
- seoaeu 4y ago
  People still live in the houses owned by investors!
  - thehappypm 4y ago
    No you see, evil investors hoard the housing and put bouncy castles in them.
- FredPret 4y ago
  Market forces will solve this issue in one year (or however long it takes to build a house). Just make it legal to build new houses. Right now it is practically outlawed due to insane regulations demanded by NIMBYs.

emaginniss 4y ago

For something to be a basic human right, it has to be available without enslaving other people. Free speech - yep, I can speak without forcing anyone else to do anything. Freedom from unreasonable search - yep, I am asking the government to not do something that infringes on my rights. If you start to declare something like housing as a basic human right, then the government has to provide it for you. What if nobody wants to build houses because of your unreasonable taxation strategy that you listed above? Does the government then compel them to build houses? What if the construction workers don't want to put hammer to nail? Does the government enslave them? Be careful what you declare as something that the government owes you, because the government doesn't do anything independently. It is a proxy for other people, so you are essentially saying "everyone else owes me a house and I am willing to use governmental violence to get it."

neonnoodle 4y ago
Under the U.S. Constitution, you have a right to an attorney regardless of your ability to pay. Do you think public defenders are enslaved?
- emaginniss 4y ago
  My father was. He was a corporate attorney in New Jersey in the 80s and the state ran out of public defenders. The state required that all attorneys that were practicing under the NJ Bar serve as a public defender without pay. They got around the slavery aspect by just encoding it as a requirement for maintaining good standing as an attorney.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    That's not slavery. Your father could've quit, changed careers, moved to another state, etc. Slaves don't get to do that.
  - lesuorac 4y ago
    Interesting, federally you get paid [1] but not-federally you don't [2]. [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3006A https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3006A [2]: https://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/supreme-court/1992/126-n-j-591-1.html https://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/supreme-court/1992/1...

awillen 4y ago

The problem with this is that not everyone has the down payment or the desire to be a homeowner. What you're describing would likely increase ownership somewhat, but it would also create an incredibly punitive tax on renters, who tend to be less economically advantaged. If you can't come up with a down payment, then you have to rent. Because you have this captive group of people who don't have any other option, the result of what you're suggesting is that your 10% tax on non-individually owned property will just be passed along to renters. They'll have to pay it, because they have no other choice. The government will collect their tax money, but at the expense of the least advantaged, not the owners of investment properties.

NoGravitas 4y ago
None of their proposals include a tax on renters, only on landlords. You're assuming that landlords would be allowed to pass on this cost. And under the current system, they would. But as long as we're proposing hard-to-implement solutions, we might as well include some kind of rent control.
- awillen 4y ago
  I'm not assuming, I'm responding to a comment which defines a set of proposals, and that set of proposals does not include rent control. I can't really respond to your proposal of rent control, because it has no detail on how that would work (How would a newly build apartment building come up with rents that factor in their costs but not the 10% tax? Does any newly built apartment building just have to lose money every month?). But anyway, rent control is bad because it constrains supply of available units. That's been discussed on HN more times than I can count, so no point in rehashing it here.

llimos 4y ago

I'm generally in favour of letting free markets sort themselves out, but housing isn't a normal market. In a normal market, when demand goes up supply usually follows. If a lot of people are buying Widget A, pushing the price up, more factories will pop up to manufacture Widget A, bringing the price down again. But housing is a zero-sum game - the amount of land is finite, the amount the authorities let you build on is even more limited, so the market can't fix itself, it's not a normal market. That's why you do need some kind of intervention to protect the participants. This is all apart from the fact that it's a basic human need.

Workaccount2 4y ago
The free market is a miracle worker in anything that doesn't involve necessities. I don't really count food though because it generally has enough competition and liquidity to keep it in check, but if it gets (really) bad then it too. But medical and housing? Yeah, it has no problem destroying peoples lives.
ushtaritk421 4y ago
Housing is not zero sum at current US density levels. You can put one house on a half acre or you can put 3-4 10-story apartment buildings on it with 20 3-bedrooms each. We immorally choose to have a housing shortage to keep the poors out.
- llimos 4y ago
  Zero-sum because the authorities made it zero-sum is still zero-sum. You can't start a company that says "let's increase the supply of housing because demand is high." You can do that with most other markets. What I think you're saying is it ought to not be zero-sum because there's enough land - perhaps. I was talking about the ability of market participants to increase supply.
jmyeet 4y ago
Some people are completely against landlords existing. Perhaps you've mistaken me for one of those? Or perhaps I just didn't explain myself clearly enough? To be clear, I'm not against landlords existing. My guiding principle is that landlords need to exist because forcing people to own property isn't practical or even desirable. There is significant friction with buying and selling houses even if you can get over the financial barriers (eg downpayments). The simplest way I can put it is that I believe in this guiding principle: Landlords should be part of their community. What does this mean? Some examples: 1. I'm all for multifamily housing where the owners have 1-2 rental units on their property. This style of housing exists in small pockets of the US as generally a legacy but is now outlawed almost everywhere (most of the US makes anything other than single family housing illegal to build). 2. In the case where the landlord doesn't live on the property they should (IMHO) generally live in the same locale. This is what I mean when I said "New York should be for New Yorkers". Perhaps a better way to say that is "New York should be by and for New Yorkers". Obviously you can substitute any city name there. NYC is just an example; and 3. When it comes to apartments, generally I favour purpose-built rental apartments being built for this rather than renting out condos. Again though local ownership is better.

0daystock 4y ago

> Shelter is or should be a basic human right. Hoarding of housing should thus be viewed as a human rights violation. What is the basis for this conclusion? Other than an emotionally charged "eat the rich" attitude, I mean.

tomlockwood 4y ago
https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/FactSheet21en.pdf https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/FactSheet21en.pdf
- imchillyb 4y ago
  So, a made-up, non-ratified, document is something every human should just accept? Lolz.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Each of the three treaties listed in that document have been widely ratified. If "made up" is disqualifying, I've got bad news for you about all rights.
- 0daystock 4y ago
  When the remedy for a violation of a "human right" is "file a complaint with the UN", it is outright theater. UN has no authority or even rapport to instrument or enforce such a wishful goal, noble as it is. No one gives you rights; certainly they're not granted by a piece of paper. Rights are what you can guarantee and defend yourself and with fellow citizens, through political will or brute force. Everything else is meaningless virtue signaling.
  - tomlockwood 4y ago

thehappypm 4y ago

Good luck with that in America. The US country was literally founded on life, liberty, and property.

_fat_santa 4y ago

The part that wont work about this is it targets the wrong sector of the housing market. Most of the rules you suggest would apply to luxury properties/vacation rentals/etc. Even if the owner were to sell the property, it wouldn't suddenly become affordable. These are the most "visible" homes, but they are a tiny minority of the housing market. The problem as I see it is government regulation. There was a thread on Reddit from a LA property developer that explained why only luxury apartment buildings ever get built. Long story short is there was so much red tape, regulation, etc that building anything but expensive high rise units was unprofitable. I heard somewhere that for the average home in California, you're paying something like a 50-80k premium because of red tape and regulations. The solution isn't to add more rules and regulations, but rather to take them away. The way we are going to get more affordable housing isn't through a program where 10% of a high rise's units are "affordable", but by actually making affordable housing profitable. If a developer can build an "affordable" property and make money on it, we will see more of them.