5 ms·

Here's a hot take: nobody anywhere should be able to purchase land they're not allowed to live on.

bushbaba 4y ago
Here’s a hot take. China did it right by not selling land and only selling a 75 year land lease agreement. US would be better off if land was owned by the people and reclaimed by the people after a generational time period.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Leasehold comes with its own problems. Part of why China now has a imploding property market is that governments got addicted to leasehold revenues to keep taxes low, and so encouraged a lot of artificial scarcity. Affordability is much worse there; house prices in NYC are 10.5x income, SF is 12, LA is 13. Shanghai has a house to income price ratio of 47
- refurb 4y ago
  Singapore does this too (very little land is freehold). It looks great in China and Singapore because, well, the leases haven’t run out yet. They’ve just started to in Singapore and the end result is “you have until the end of the month to leave and you receive $0 compensation”. As a result they have to spend a ton of money on social housing and create massive disruption in the lives of seniors. There is no free lunch here.
pjc50 4y ago
So, like H1B but worse; if you're an immigrant but not a permanent resident, if you get stopped at the border for a visa error your house gets seized? (it's quite bizarre how this story seems to have brought out a desire on HN for Soviet levels of state controlled farming!)
- vkou 4y ago
  It's not bizarre, when you consider that the why of the communist revolution was driven by a popular desire for land reform. (Also Bread and Peace, neither of which could be offered by the provisional government of the February revolution. [1]) And nothing about our current land use and tax policy results in good land use. It can, at best, result in good land use for some of the people owning it, but that doesn't optimize for what is good for anyone else. If you let the situation rot too much, the same factors that drove that revolution can result in similar political instability. I don't believe we are close to that point, though. [1] Of course, ironically, a coup backed by a strong public desire for peace resulted in a civil war which was in every respect worse than World War I for every participant.
chrisseaton 4y ago
You think the state should own all land except residential?
- gadflyinyoureye 4y ago
  Functionally they own all land. There’s just contract law blocking the direct seizure.
bparsons 4y ago
I would go further. No one should be able to purchase land they do not live on.
- 8bitsrule 4y ago
  I would go further still: No one should be able to purchase a house unless they agree to live in it for at least a year. And, one at a time.
  - c_o_n_v_e_x 4y ago
    Seems like this would limit the supply of housing, though I don't know what problem it is that you're trying to solve?
  - refurb 4y ago
    I would go further and say you can only buy one house your entire life.

Here’s a hot take. China did it right by not selling land and only selling a 75 year land lease agreement. US would be better off if land was owned by the people and reclaimed by the people after a generational time period.

bobthepanda 4y ago
Leasehold comes with its own problems. Part of why China now has a imploding property market is that governments got addicted to leasehold revenues to keep taxes low, and so encouraged a lot of artificial scarcity. Affordability is much worse there; house prices in NYC are 10.5x income, SF is 12, LA is 13. Shanghai has a house to income price ratio of 47
refurb 4y ago
Singapore does this too (very little land is freehold). It looks great in China and Singapore because, well, the leases haven’t run out yet. They’ve just started to in Singapore and the end result is “you have until the end of the month to leave and you receive $0 compensation”. As a result they have to spend a ton of money on social housing and create massive disruption in the lives of seniors. There is no free lunch here.

pjc50 4y ago

So, like H1B but worse; if you're an immigrant but not a permanent resident, if you get stopped at the border for a visa error your house gets seized? (it's quite bizarre how this story seems to have brought out a desire on HN for Soviet levels of state controlled farming!)

vkou 4y ago
It's not bizarre, when you consider that the why of the communist revolution was driven by a popular desire for land reform. (Also Bread and Peace, neither of which could be offered by the provisional government of the February revolution. [1]) And nothing about our current land use and tax policy results in good land use. It can, at best, result in good land use for some of the people owning it, but that doesn't optimize for what is good for anyone else. If you let the situation rot too much, the same factors that drove that revolution can result in similar political instability. I don't believe we are close to that point, though. [1] Of course, ironically, a coup backed by a strong public desire for peace resulted in a civil war which was in every respect worse than World War I for every participant.

chrisseaton 4y ago

You think the state should own all land except residential?

gadflyinyoureye 4y ago
Functionally they own all land. There’s just contract law blocking the direct seizure.

bparsons 4y ago

I would go further. No one should be able to purchase land they do not live on.

8bitsrule 4y ago
I would go further still: No one should be able to purchase a house unless they agree to live in it for at least a year. And, one at a time.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 4y ago
  Seems like this would limit the supply of housing, though I don't know what problem it is that you're trying to solve?
- refurb 4y ago
  I would go further and say you can only buy one house your entire life.