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Not sure how you came to think I said rental should not exist. I think governments should regulate to ensure housing markets are fair, with a primary goal of e

Not sure how you came to think I said rental should not exist. I think governments should regulate to ensure housing markets are fair, with a primary goal of ensuring people who want to own a house can buy one. I fundamentally believe that it should be within the means of anyone who wants to own a house to have one. That means firefighters, kindergarten teachers, garbage collection workers, receptionists, old and young people - all those people who frankly have zero chance right now. Governments should use they tools they have to discourage monopoly style property hoarding. Housing should not be used at hotel rooms - I disagree with the cored concept of AirBNB because residential housing should be for the ordinary lives of citizens,m not for investors to make money from travel holidays. Things like AirBNB distort the market. I am against residential housing being sold to non citizens/permanent residents.

bombcar 4y ago
Who would own these rentals if not the landlords/rich?
danielmarkbruce 4y ago
Rather than worry about hoarding, what if it was just easier to build more of it? Look at zoning in SF bay area. Or Sydney.
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  Ahhh, the old "supply is the solution!" response. "More supply will solve insane pricing!" is what governments and property investors like to say. It sure sounds plausible - sounds like market economics doesn't it..... if there's so much of something on the market that supply outstrips demand then prices MUST go down, right? Seems like a ridiculous idea to me that so many houses will be built that prices will crash down to the level that anyone can buy them. In fact I think what happens when there is more supply is that investors buy more houses to put renters into. It will never happen that so many houses will be built that they become so cheap that the pricing will crash. Property developers love to say "more supply!" because it makes them more money, that's all - they know more supply will never drives prices down so much that anyone could afford a house.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    > when there is more supply is that investors buy more houses to put renters into. Where would the investors create these new renters from? Immigration and net-new household formation are two sources. (If rental properties are cheaper, people might move out of their parents house earlier, might take fewer [possibly zero] roommates, or might move to a location because the rent is cheap. All of those factors seem quite small compared to a contemplated large increase in housing supply. However, you can only make so many new households by driving the price of rent down. At some point, either new households stop being able to soak up the supply or investors aren't willing to keep pushing the price of rentals down.) Turn the problem around. If we assume as a given that some people can't afford houses at the level of supply that currently exists, does not increasing the supply help those hopeful buyers at all?
  - danielmarkbruce 4y ago
    >> Seems like a ridiculous idea to me that so many houses will be built that prices will crash down to the level that anyone can buy them There is an entire history of business where that exact thing happens (assuming anyone isn't literal). Watch the markets for energy (increased drilling causes prices to drop), metals (mines come online, prices drop), ag commodities... and real estate. There was a massive overbuild in the US during the late 90's and early 2000s, which resulted in a big drop in prices. See here: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/housing-starts#:~:text=Housing%20Starts%20in%20the%20United,units%20in%20April%20of%202009 https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/housing-starts#:~.... The US needed around 1-1.2 million houses to cover new household formation during that period. Massive overbuild. Now look at prices: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ASPUS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ASPUS Notice the dip after there had been a build up of supply? Prices dropped about 30%. Then notice the shortage of building for several years... and a run up in prices shortly after? The old supply and demand... Just using common sense - land is a gigantic part of the cost of a house. If zoning laws made it such that you can build more units on a given piece of land...how could prices do anything but go down? The old "supply is the solution" is old because it has been true since the beginning of humans buying and selling things.
    - 4y ago
vaidhy 4y ago
>I am against residential housing being sold to non citizens/permanent residents. How to say xenophobic without saying it.. Any tax payer should be treated equally..
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Assuming the most logical reading of that is (non-(citizens/permanent residents)), those are mostly all tax payers [either current or near-future]. I agree it's abhorrent xenophobic policy if meant to be ((non-citizens)/(permanent residents)), but I read it as naturally meaning the other.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    It's xenophobic either way.
    - Nursie 4y ago
      Yeah it's really not, it's about trying to keep the housing market about housing the local population rather than allowing in investor funds from overseas which warps it, changes what gets built at what price, and drives people into rental rather than ownership. If you don't have the right to live somewhere, why should you be competing in the housing market and pricing out the local population? Particularly if the nature of your competition is to keep properties mostly empty while speculating on price (see, for example, a lot of the high-end apartment development in London). It's not xenophobia, it's a fundamental disagreement in what housing is actually for.
      - twblalock 4y ago
        No, it's a fundamental agreement about what property rights are really for.
        Nursie 4y ago
        Not everyone agrees that property rights are absolute or supreme. Some of us think markets should be set up to help people, not the other way around, particularly where human needs like housing are involved. It's certainly not clear that a preference for housing people over capital is 'xenophobic'.

bombcar 4y ago

Who would own these rentals if not the landlords/rich?

danielmarkbruce 4y ago

Rather than worry about hoarding, what if it was just easier to build more of it? Look at zoning in SF bay area. Or Sydney.

andrewstuart 4y ago
Ahhh, the old "supply is the solution!" response. "More supply will solve insane pricing!" is what governments and property investors like to say. It sure sounds plausible - sounds like market economics doesn't it..... if there's so much of something on the market that supply outstrips demand then prices MUST go down, right? Seems like a ridiculous idea to me that so many houses will be built that prices will crash down to the level that anyone can buy them. In fact I think what happens when there is more supply is that investors buy more houses to put renters into. It will never happen that so many houses will be built that they become so cheap that the pricing will crash. Property developers love to say "more supply!" because it makes them more money, that's all - they know more supply will never drives prices down so much that anyone could afford a house.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  > when there is more supply is that investors buy more houses to put renters into. Where would the investors create these new renters from? Immigration and net-new household formation are two sources. (If rental properties are cheaper, people might move out of their parents house earlier, might take fewer [possibly zero] roommates, or might move to a location because the rent is cheap. All of those factors seem quite small compared to a contemplated large increase in housing supply. However, you can only make so many new households by driving the price of rent down. At some point, either new households stop being able to soak up the supply or investors aren't willing to keep pushing the price of rentals down.) Turn the problem around. If we assume as a given that some people can't afford houses at the level of supply that currently exists, does not increasing the supply help those hopeful buyers at all?
- danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  >> Seems like a ridiculous idea to me that so many houses will be built that prices will crash down to the level that anyone can buy them There is an entire history of business where that exact thing happens (assuming anyone isn't literal). Watch the markets for energy (increased drilling causes prices to drop), metals (mines come online, prices drop), ag commodities... and real estate. There was a massive overbuild in the US during the late 90's and early 2000s, which resulted in a big drop in prices. See here: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/housing-starts#:~:text=Housing%20Starts%20in%20the%20United,units%20in%20April%20of%202009 https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/housing-starts#:~.... The US needed around 1-1.2 million houses to cover new household formation during that period. Massive overbuild. Now look at prices: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ASPUS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ASPUS Notice the dip after there had been a build up of supply? Prices dropped about 30%. Then notice the shortage of building for several years... and a run up in prices shortly after? The old supply and demand... Just using common sense - land is a gigantic part of the cost of a house. If zoning laws made it such that you can build more units on a given piece of land...how could prices do anything but go down? The old "supply is the solution" is old because it has been true since the beginning of humans buying and selling things.
  - 4y ago

vaidhy 4y ago

>I am against residential housing being sold to non citizens/permanent residents. How to say xenophobic without saying it.. Any tax payer should be treated equally..

sokoloff 4y ago
Assuming the most logical reading of that is (non-(citizens/permanent residents)), those are mostly all tax payers [either current or near-future]. I agree it's abhorrent xenophobic policy if meant to be ((non-citizens)/(permanent residents)), but I read it as naturally meaning the other.
- twblalock 4y ago
  It's xenophobic either way.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    Yeah it's really not, it's about trying to keep the housing market about housing the local population rather than allowing in investor funds from overseas which warps it, changes what gets built at what price, and drives people into rental rather than ownership. If you don't have the right to live somewhere, why should you be competing in the housing market and pricing out the local population? Particularly if the nature of your competition is to keep properties mostly empty while speculating on price (see, for example, a lot of the high-end apartment development in London). It's not xenophobia, it's a fundamental disagreement in what housing is actually for.
    - twblalock 4y ago
      No, it's a fundamental agreement about what property rights are really for.
      - Nursie 4y ago
        Not everyone agrees that property rights are absolute or supreme. Some of us think markets should be set up to help people, not the other way around, particularly where human needs like housing are involved. It's certainly not clear that a preference for housing people over capital is 'xenophobic'.