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Like another comment here mentioned, housing is complicated. People don't want to live in a random house in the middle of nowhere ('roof over your head'). Some

• greggeter 4y ago
• missedthecue 4y ago
  It's amazing how many people in government globally refuse to understand this. The UK government has just been talking about inheritable 50 year mortgages. No one wants to build more housing. I think it might help people understand to put it in terms like this: there are 100 housing units out there and 150 people. How do we solve the problem?
  • pydry 4y ago
    Land is an asset. It needs to be a liability. Virtually every other problem is either a distraction or an indirect consequence (e.g. NIMBYs, too much luxury housing) of this core issue.
    • glyphy177 4y ago
      Life is all about asset liability truth right.
    • missedthecue 4y ago
      Can you explain how making housing even more costly houses the extra 50 people?
      • ItsMonkk 4y ago
        When people speculate on land it doesn't get used as much as it should. By having people pay for the value of the land, that either forces them to make use of it, increasing housing supply, or get rid of it, which then the next person who buys will make use of it. Even a partial land value tax like we see in certain PA cities[0] yields real results and after implementing the tax vacant land went away and current homeowners actually saw a tax decrease. When you tax land value, the initial price of the property drops to offset, which makes it easier for less wealthy people to afford a down payment. A perfect land value tax would set the price of land at zero with a hefty month tax payment. If this raises more tax money then the government can meaningfully spend, you simply give it back evenly to the community. Note that, just like the carbon fee and dividend system, still incentivizes that people use as little land as they can. [0]: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/6/non-glamorous-gains-the-pennsylvania-land-tax-experiment https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/3/6/non-glamorous-g...
        • missedthecue 4y ago
          This sounds like the quick way to create a nation of renters. Otherwise, people would be priced out of their homes in short order by the ever increasing LVT. Which of course, isn't a bug, but the feature of Georgism (a family of 4 living making a home there probably won't permanently be the most efficient form of land use on that plot)
• danpalmer 4y ago
  > Deregulate construction, get rid of unions, prioritize developer rights over tenant or homeowner rights. These all assume that the cost of new development is the building/development itself. It isn't. It's the land. The correct solution to this is a land tax based on the assessed value of the land.
  • HEmanZ 4y ago
    Don't many states/cities (if we're talking US) already do this?
    • RHSeeger 4y ago
      I think there may be a disconnect here (and I apologize if there isn't; this is not my wheelhouse)... 1. Some people talk about "land tax" meaning a tax on the value of _only_ the land. So you pay a tax based on the land, but not anything built on it. 2. Some people talk about "land tax" meaning a tax on the value of the property if you were to sell it; including any construction on it. This is the common situation in the US, to the best of my knowledge. The former, taxing _only_ the land, is what (I believe) a lot of people are talking about when they say it will promote more/better construction on the existing land. Because you're paying the same tax regardless of what is built on it, so build whatever it the most useful for you.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • fennecfoxen 4y ago
    [UI confusion led me to think this was a reply in a nyc specific comment chain. It’s still relevant but less perfectly so.] You land-tax to make sure the most efficient buildings end up using the land. But the construction industry in towns like SF and NYC is mostly constrained by what you can get approved, which comes down to connections and what politician-pleasing giveaways you have to tack on. And expensive downtown Manhattan land has lots of potential competition, but with transportation infrastructure costs running $2 billion a mile (!!!!!)
  • toss1 4y ago
• beisenpress 4y ago
  You're right that building more housing is the solution. But we don't need to get rid of unions or deregulate construction. The main issue is land use regulation [0]. We just need to let developers build. [0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/glaeser/files/why_is_manhattan_so_expensive_regulation_and_the_rise_in_house_prices.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/glaeser/files/why_is_manha...
  • glyphy177 4y ago
    Yup just "build more housing" simplistic to point of stupidity.
• _8j50 4y ago
  You are right that throwing money at it isn't a solution. But corporations should not own residencial housing and no one should be allowed to sell propery at a meaningful profit if they own multiple properties. The government should excecise it's power of taxation to take the profits of an investment housing sell (as defined above: multiple property owner selling at profit) with something like a 95% tax on profit and use that to build competitive housing (not for the homeless but for the regular person). It is doable politically but only if there is support with the people. This bullshit about your housing being an equity investment and other related sentiment needs to go away.
  • mjevans 4y ago
    I agree, except E.G. retired 'snowbirds' really love a stable climate and might have two homes in different climate zones. There's also the case where someone is selling one home and moving into another. The tax break should be made if someone's primary residence is occupied for at least 35% of a tax year. A number intentionally just a tiny bit bigger than one third, so the break can only apply to a maximum of two homes, but low enough to be flexible.
    • _8j50 4y ago
      I mean, they can still own multiple properties and sell it close to the original purchase price, I am just saying they can't make a profit from the sale of their second or third property.
  • rib3ye 4y ago
    Incentivizing individual home ownership I get, but killing the home flipping market, I don’t. Personality, I don’t want to renovate an out of date home, I just want to move in and done with it. Taxing flippers to death doesn’t seem progressive to me.
    • _8j50 4y ago
      That's the first argument I usually get as well. I am very much saying end flipping. I don't know what is progressive about that at all. But to be practical, perhaps loosening the profit tax based on how long you owned it makes sense. Perhaps 1% for every year owned? That way you can flip it, live in it 20 years and sell it with inflation adjusted 20% profit?
• MattRix 4y ago
  A huge amount of housing issues across North America are due to zoning issues, with areas that don’t allow high density housing to be built (or where the residents fight fiercely against it). You don’t need to deal with most of the other problems you mentioned if you fix this first. The other issue is vacancy. 10% of homes are unoccupied. Coming up with ways to fill even some of those properties would be hugely impactful.
  • glyphy177 4y ago
    Yeah it's all zoning gods.
  • lolinder 4y ago
    > The other issue is vacancy. 10% of homes are unoccupied. This is the second time I've seen this number thrown around, but as near as I can tell it's completely wrong[0]. Homeowner vacancy has never reached higher than 3%, and the 10% figure was rental vacancy at the height of the last recession: it's now 5.8%. Aside from the fact that the number itself is outdated, it also lumps the entire US into a single category. Most of the land in the US isn't suffering from a housing crisis, and including homes in those areas in one big national vacancy rate doesn't help understand the degree to which vacancy is playing a role in the big cities. You need to be looking at vacancy by neighborhood, not by country. [0] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/housing-vacancy-rates-near-historic-lows.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/housing-vacan...
• rojobuffalo 4y ago
  I would start by making property taxes substantially higher for non-owner-occupied property. If you are rent-seeking rather than residing on the property you should pay way more, maybe 4x or higher, in taxes. Housing prices would crash and that would be the point; but everyone who owns property would be against it because they don't want to see their assets drop in value. The counter-argument people make is "that would de-incentivize investment which would reduce the future housing supply". But I call b.s. on that. Residents would be able to afford new construction and maintenance if those things had lower price pressure. It should raise the bar on an investor attempting to profit by owning property. They should need to do a substantially better job at maintaining and increasing the value of real estate to justify owning it instead of a resident.
  • capitalsigma 4y ago
    Even if the vacancy rate is 10%, that hardly seems likely to cause a "crash."
  • MontyCarloHall 4y ago
    >but everyone who owns property would be against it because they don't want to see their net-worth drop. They would be against it because it would mean they can never move, since they are now underwater on their mortgages. Most people who only own one property don’t care about its impact on their net worth unless they are planning on downsizing, since they can’t just liquidate the house to purchase other things as they can with other assets.
    • oblio 4y ago
      It depends on where they want to move. For national policies prices should drop nation wide, ergo people would still be able to move inside the same country (probably 99% of relocations). And if they don't sell, they wouldn't care much. Yeah, annoying, but as long as you pay the installments, not much changes in practice.
      • MontyCarloHall 4y ago
• bamboozled 4y ago
  housing is complicated My bullshit detector went off right here. Housing isn't complicated. It's only complicated by investment money being involved. Having a roof over ones head is a basic human right. In Australia, the market is so hot, very few young people can afford anything, if you're living in a nice place, you can easily be kicked out after your rent doubles. I know of good, professional people who migrated to Australia and went back to their home country of this behavior. It's complicated because we've made it complicated. I also think it's why we're living in a world with a lot less creativity. Who can make nice things when all we're doing is racing to the bottom to make ends meet ?
  • yasp 4y ago
    > Having a roof over ones head is a basic human right. Prove it.
    • josh_p 4y ago
      https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma... Article 25
      • yasp 4y ago
        An organization saying X doesn't make X true. Perhaps OP meant to write "According to the UN, having a roof over ones head is a basic human right."
        • z9znz 4y ago
          "We" as evolved social animals have pretty universally come to the agreement that humans should have a few basic necessities, such as food, water, shelter, (and less agreed but equally important) personal safety. I could ask if you continuing to live is your human right. I'm not sure there's any absolute decree that everyone can agree on that says you deserve to live. However, we evolved people tend to assume that every human deserves to continue living (at least until our differences become too great, at which time we sometimes just kill each other). Therefore, your demand for proof that having shelter is a human right is bunk.
• theplumber 4y ago
  It looks like you can't see the real issue: too many people want to live in NYC. If you make it cheaper to own, build or rent in NYC even more people will come and the there will not be enough housing. Perhaps people should be encouraged to live somewhere else/in more places? Living in NYC is not a human right either.
  • thr0wawayf00 4y ago
    The problem is that when the cost of living goes up, it tends to force out poorer residents that have been there for many years. Encouraging people to just live somewhere else because they can no longer afford the home they've owned for decades undermines the entire premise of home ownership because it means that you may own the deed today, but you only control the property as long as the financial system underpinning your local real estate market operates within a range that you can afford. And in 40 years when you're retired and on a fixed income that assumed you'd be paying a property tax rate that has now doubled and you can no longer afford the property, then it becomes your turn to GTFO and make room for the people who can afford it.
    • coryrc 4y ago
      I don't feel bad for the millionaire elderly taking up inordinate amount of space so young people can't afford anything. However, if you feel differently, we could make gains in property tax payable on death or property sale.
      • theplumber 4y ago
        I find it right that millionaire and less millionare eldery don't fell bad for young people whining that they can't live anywhere else except the "old town"/city center / downtown of the old people. The value of the land is really given by the people living there.
    • theplumber 4y ago
      >>Encouraging people to just live somewhere else because they can no longer afford the home they've owned for decades undermines the entire premise of home ownership Who is to blame that you stagnated financially all these years and the place you lived increased in value? You could sell the property you own and move somewhere else(cheaper) "living like a millionare". Chances are that if you are too poor to afford tax on the property you own or the places around (i.e restaurants surely got more expensive too) then you don't fell like you belong there anymore. You find the place hostile. Your friends may have moved as well or now they are too rich to hang out with you. If you don't want to get into this situation you should either make sure you have enough money when you retire or plan your retirement somewhere else or just consider that buying a property in the world's biggest financial center doesn't mean you will afford it forever. Change is part of life. Also consider that when you purchased your house you increased the value of the properties around and forced some people to move somewhere elese too. It's the circle of life, survival of the fittest.
• mnd999 4y ago
  > Deregulate construction, get rid of unions, prioritize developer rights over tenant or homeowner rights. That’s how you build slums. Which I think is what you’re proposing.
  • jefftk 4y ago
    Most people in favor of the regulating construction are talking about removing density restrictions, not building codes.
  • xeromal 4y ago
    Pretty sure that's the point they're making. It doesnt' sound like they're proposing it.
• mgh2 4y ago
  > Some people prefer to be homeless on the street versus getting to a roof over their head that they don't like. ... why is this the top comment?
  • aembleton 4y ago
    Because there was far more to the comment than that single sentence. On the balance of the comment, I felt that it contributed to the discussion, so I up voted it. If you consider it not helpful in the discussion, then please down vote it. This will help to lower its ranking.
• joe__f 4y ago
  "Some people prefer to be homeless on the street versus getting [...] a roof over their head that they don't like" Do you have a reference to back up this statement? Have you ever spoken to any homeless people and asked them what they think about this? Clearly there are some limits in which your statement holds; I would prefer to be homeless in a city in the UK than held in a forced labour camp with housing for example. I think once you include some basic minimum requirements very few people would prefer to be homeless.
  • seibelj 4y ago
    Every single homeless person in Boston can get free transitional housing but the Mass and Cass street area is still packed with tents and drug users
    • solfox 4y ago
      Yet isn't this more due to control and oversight versus desire or location? Perhaps the options that are presented to them as "free" contain other entanglements that tips the scales towards camping?
    • criddell 4y ago
      What is required of the homeless to qualify? Often there are big strings attached like you have to be sober or at least be working towards that. They often don't want to help addicts who don't want to quit using.
      • seibelj 4y ago
        Right there will never be something good enough. They want an amazing hotel they can shoot up and congregate and party in with all of their druggie friends. It’s totally reasonable to expect a bare minimum of compliance in order to get taxpayer funded housing. I don’t know if you have friends or family who are heroin addicts but I can promise you they are not pleasant people to be around, especially when they start stealing to fund their habit.
      • taxcoder 4y ago
• gtowey 4y ago
  > . But you have to make it cheap. Deregulate construction, get rid of unions, prioritize developer rights over tenant or homeowner rights. What's insane is that we never consider the obvious alternative. GOVERNMENTS HAVE TO PAY FOR THE HOUSING THEY NEED. It's true that developers will not build if they can't make a profit. So we raise money through taxes and treat housing like an investment in our future. This American notion of "free market or nothing" has left us with unlivable cities of sprawling suburban houses because that's where the profit is. But that's not what's good for our long term future. It turns out you can't laissez-faire your way to good urban planning
  • xboxnolifes 4y ago
    > This American notion of "free market or nothing" has left us with unlivable cities of sprawling suburban houses because that's where the profit is. But that's not what's good for our long term future. It turns out you can't laissez-faire your way to good urban planning. While I agree America needs to put in some serious work into urban planning, the current and recent past of the US urban planning is anything but laissez-faire: strict zoning, housing codes, permits for most major building actions, minimum parking requirements...
    • gtowey 4y ago
      > : strict zoning, housing codes, permits for most major building actions, minimum parking requirements... Yeah, a bit of hyperbole. It seems more that the mess of regulations are just patches on top of patches, sometimes with conflicting intent and not with much long term design. And a lot of it is controlled at a extremely local level. This means we end up with paradoxes where everyone acknowledges that we need more houses, nobody wants to densify areas near themselves. It's always someone else's problem. It's the same story with power shortages in California. We need more generation but plant after plant was denied because the locals objected to the proposal for building near them. It's clear we need planning at the state level and override local municipalities to force development. If they complain then the response should be "you had your chance to solve it and blew it. Too late now. "
• snidane 4y ago
  > So, what instead? You want to build more housing in NYC? Great, that should work. But you have to make it cheap. > because that's the only way a developer can recoup their enormous land acquisition, There you go - in order to make it cheap you need a land tax, nothing else will work (alternatives have been rehashed over and over decades by georgists). Without land tax the property market is stalled without market clearing and both tenants and developers get stuck. You won't find a solution by catering to either. The solution resides outside of this left and right dimension. If you want the real solution, you go asks georgists. If you want to score politics points with YIMBYs or NIMBYs you keep beating the same dead horse forever.
  • foogazi 4y ago
    > There you go - in order to make it cheap you need a land tax How would land-taxing make it cheap ?
    • scatters 4y ago
      Because you're buying the tax liability as well as the benefit of the potential rent. Under a perfect land tax those are equal, so the price of all land is zero.
• bwestergard 4y ago
  "get rid of unions" I am as YIMBY as they come regarding zoning, but this is a complete non-sequitur. It also shows a casual disregard for basic republican values: the right to freely associate and to withhold one's labor. An international comparative perspective, as well as a regional perspective, do not suggest that construction union density can explain the widespread housing affordability crisis in the U.S. Only 12.6% of American construction workers are union, and residential construction is a less union dense subsector than commercial real-estate or large-scale infrastructure. Many countries have both dramatically lower housing costs and higher union density in the construction trades that the United States [1]. Within the U.S., it's clear there are problems provisioning housing where construction workers on residential projects are rarely if ever union (e.g. Virginia, Florida). 1. https://data.oecd.org/price/housing-prices.htm https://data.oecd.org/price/housing-prices.htm
  • RHSeeger 4y ago
    >> get rid of unions > I am as YIMBY as they come regarding zoning, but this is a complete non-sequitur. It also shows a casual disregard for basic republican values: the right to freely associate and to withhold one's labor. It does no such thing. Rather, it's noting that unions raise the cost of many things they are associated with; especially construction. The value added by the union being in place isn't being questioned (or even commented on). Just the fact that they add cost. The same is true of safety regulations. Those regulations (generally) add a lot of value by keeping people safe/alive. But every safety regulation _also_ adds to the cost. Pointing out that they add to the cost in no way belittles their benefit or the desire to have them.
• kodah 4y ago
  I've struggled to buy a house almost my entire adult life. I'll add some nuance to things you said, and hopefully that can connect the dots for some folks. I don't like looking at a house as an investment, but it currently is. I'm a very frugal person and I save as much of my money as I can. Nevertheless, at 33, when I first met with my financial planner one of the first things she told me was that I'd already maxed out and exhausted places I could legally stick my money for long term investment... besides a house. There are a couple alternatives, but they likely won't be around long. One was a life insurance market account that you push money into every month - turns out, due to it's tax free nature, it can rival the growth of a home. Historically, when houses were lower barrier to entry, they were the simplest and most effective form of saving money. Next, location. I don't need to live somewhere fancy, but when I bought a starter home ($200k) in Dallas the only place I could afford was about 45 minutes north of the city. My commutes to any place I could work were long. Prior to this I had moved to the country to save money to buy that house. My commute was 2.5 hours every day. Even with mass transportation, my commute would be long due to the size of the DFW metroplex. This weighed on me every day. I was missing time with my dogs and family. I was trapped in a scenario with a bunch of tradeoffs that all yielded similar results just as the Dallas market was heating up. Quite literally, the only reason I got my house is because no one bid on it. It had been hit by a tornado and leveled a year prior. People were very superstitious about buying the house.
• gentleman11 4y ago
  Everyone says there is a housing shortage, yet only the extremely poor live on the streets. So, there is no housing shortage: there are housing units available for almost everyone who has an income. Almost all the houses are just owned by landlords instead of by residents, where the owner uses the property as an investment rather than as a home. The only shortage is in homes that are not investment properties
• tacitusarc 4y ago
  So why isn’t the focus on making more places where people want to live?