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Every time I hear someone say “something someone else does on their property it lowers my property value”… I respond with “with investment comes risk. either yo

Every time I hear someone say “something someone else does on their property it lowers my property value”… I respond with “with investment comes risk. either your house is your house or its an investment. But that does not make ALL houses investments. If the risk is too much, pop smoke before the value is too low.” I’m told I just “don’t get it.” No. I don’t get it. That’s the problem. :p

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bberenberg 4y ago
Why should an investor not exercise agency to try and influence the outcome of their investment?
- Gracana 4y ago
  Because of the harm they cause to the people around them, as discussed in the comments here.
- FpUser 4y ago
  And why should I give a fuck about what investor wishes. In my opinion bar direct / illegal actions like throwing garbage in neighbour's property we should be left alone from interference.
- flandish 4y ago
  Oh I think they should attempt to register their opinion, but in the end, that’s as far as it can go - if we truly “care” about a human’s right to private enjoyment of their own “property.”
- friend_and_foe 4y ago
  Now rephrase that taking into account the fact that said investor enacting his will onto another person without their consent. If what I do with my property negatively affects your investment perhaps you should've taken that into account when conducting your risk analysis instead of throwing a fit and making your problems my problem.
  - davidgay 4y ago
    So clearly, I can start a toxic chemicals factory in my basement, next to your house? (I'll move elsewhere of course) Or, absolute principles are rarely absolutely applicable.
    - deleted 4y ago
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    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - ajkjk 4y ago
      I feel like your argument undermined itself? There is a clear argument against your neighbor having a toxic chemical factory that has nothing to do with investment values, such as "it makes my home an unsafe place to live". The whole point here is that the point of homes is to be homes, not investments.
    - friend_and_foe 4y ago
      There's a clear distinction here: risk to other people and their property. There's a reason people who make arguments for controlling other people's behavior have to come up with over the top, ridiculous scenarios with obvious answers. If you're trying to find an answer, find the principles and work from there and you'll find absolute principles are fine. There's no risk to you or your property if I decide to have a car with the hood up parked in my driveway.
      - noduerme 4y ago
        What if you have a different car with its hood up on your property every day? What if you're painting them and venting it out of your garage? Toxic chemicals is not a wild scenario, it's the logical next step. [edit] I'm somewhat surprised by the contention that merely stating this hypothetical is "emboldening" the investor class. Pardon: >> EMBOLDENING THE SUPPORT FOR THE INVESTMENT OWNING CLASS whatever that means. I bring it up as it was my experience as a renter whose quality of life (not investment value) was substantially impacted when I lived next to people who were operating a quasi-legal home auto repair shop. I think it's unfair to assume that anyone asking where a line should be drawn on what someone can do on their property is carrying water for faceless, inhumane capitalist corporate investor-vampires, or whatever. And BTW, doing whatever you want on your property at the expense of the neighbors' quality of life or investment value? Kinda antisocial as well.
- jjulius 4y ago
  Because this is my home, not your investment. Invest in something else if people living their lives on their own property seems like too much of a risk to your "investment".
  - chasd00 4y ago
    my property my rules is a slippery slope. For example, many cities require you to purchase a permit to have a garage sale because neighbors don't want you running a flea market out of your yard.
- kaesar14 4y ago
  This is how we got to a housing crisis.
- Nifty3929 4y ago
  They should - and they should fail. It should not surprise us that people try to use the force of government to achieve their personal goals. But we should be mad at ourselves for voting for politicians and legislators that allow the government to wield this power in the first place.
- jonfw 4y ago
  I'd expect them to consider the implications of their actions towards others before exercising their agency. Nobody is excused from ethics just because money is at stake
api 4y ago
"Housing cannot be simultaneously affordable and a good investment." Housing as an investment first and a place to live second is a disease. It penalizes the poor, new arrivals, and the young, transferring wealth from these groups to people who bought homes back before the disease took hold. This is not wealth earned by working hard or creating value. Instead it's wealth extracted by obstructing value creation to collect rent from a captive audience. Most of those benefiting from this condition would never have been able to buy in today, but "I've got mine, fuck you." Any place dominated by this dynamic has zero claim to any kind of liberal or progressive title. This includes the supposed liberal bastion of the San Francisco Bay Area, a massively distorted housing market that creates one of the widest divisions between rich and poor anywhere in the US. Places like Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina are more progressive than San Francisco because a working class person can afford a home. Most of the country has this disease to some extent, but obviously there are a few hot spots that are particularly bad. I picked on SF because it's among the worst and also among the most sanctimonious, continuously holding itself up as some kind of progressive bastion while implementing what amounts to red lining on a massive scale. Unfortunately I can't think of any solution to this problem that isn't painful. Either we inflate the rest of the economy until a loaf of bread is $15 but housing is reasonable again or we let housing collapse.
- xwdv 4y ago
  I’d be careful calling this a disease. The fact is, for many people having a home that they build equity in is the closest they’ll ever get to some kind of “savings” account. When the home is paid off in 30 years they no longer need money saved up to buy a retirement home because they will have full equity of their house which may have gone up substantially in value. They could then sell this property and downsize and continue to live off the proceeds from the equity they sold. If homes weren’t investments, it means people would have to be a lot more serious about saving and investing money for the future, and frankly that just isn’t going to happen at scale given human behavior.
  - api 4y ago
    That's the disease: the use of housing as one's primary source of savings and retirement funding. There are alternatives like pensions, improving social security and medicare/medicaid, etc. The de-prioritization and gutting of these has probably contributed to housing taking their place. But housing isn't a sustainable answer. It's basically done. Current generations can never see the kind of housing appreciation their parents did. Prices simply can't go up much more except in areas that are undervalued and never saw a run-up in previous decades. New buyers today risk the opposite: straining to buy into overvalued markets only to see them crash and leave them underwater. Housing as a source of retirement funding is a one-generation-and-done phenomenon. Personally I would not touch real estate in overvalued metros today unless I were rich and could afford to lose 25-50% of the value of the home. If interest rates don't come back down to near-zero and/or if the trend toward telework and geographic decentralization continues, these areas could very well crash.
danudey 4y ago
Please lower my property value so that my property taxes go down, thanks.
nonameiguess 4y ago
It's unfortunate but telling that the code site has this wording, but there is a steelman version of this type of sentiment. Sufficient neighborhood blight can have a direct impact on the quality of life of the people living in the neighborhood, even if they don't plan to ever sell their house and don't care about resale value. I would argue this is far more the case with things like ostentatious lighting, noise violations, and bad smells than with something like non-functional cars being visible in driveways, and this doesn't personally bother me. I do my own repairs and my next-door neighbor has been working on a project RV for nearly two years now, which I'm also fine with. However, I am absolutely not fine with the party house AirBNB next door to me on the other side that is constantly hosting bachelor and bachelorette parties with DJs and strippers playing loud music on Sunday night when I need to get up early in the morning to work on Monday, also filling up the entire street with vehicles and leaving nowhere to park for people who actually live here. So yeah, that I'll complain about.
jandrese 4y ago
"Property value" is the biggest cop out. When someone says that what they really mean is "I don't like the look of that", but they can't just say that, it has to have a vague monetary penalty for them to be taken seriously. Whenever someone hits you with that make sure you get them to document the reduction in their property value in dollars, including methodology. It's not possible, houses sell for whatever someone buys it for and you can't know the mind of buyers. Maybe the fact that your door is off-tan instead of off-medium-tan will make some buyer reduce their offer on a house 5 doors down by $20,000, but there's no way to prove that.
- jakogut 4y ago
  I learned in my home buying process that values are mostly meaningless, and completely subject to what buyers will offer. When you buy a house, the bank orders an appraisal to ensure the property is worth the offered price, in case of foreclosure. What's the first thing the appraiser looks at to determine value? Comparables, which is an industry term for similar houses/properties in similar areas and what they sold for. What's the best comparable? The offer you made on the property you're attempting to buy. It's cyclical. I agree that people should not be penalized for living in and using their homes. If I buy a house with a garage, you shouldn't get mad that I work on my car and even gasp make some noise during the day while I do it.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    It's terrifying that public education lets someone graduate high school without the most basic understanding of how pricing works.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    The entire appraisal industry is largely a scam IMHO. At most they can tell a bank if an offer is outside the realm of reason for the neighborhood, but that's basically just a search of recent sale prices. They won't even send someone out to look at a property. Last time I went to sell my house the market was in a fairly volatile state and I didn't have a good idea of what a fair price for my house would be. So I called multiple appraisal companies asking if they could give me a fair market value figure I could use for the listing. Not one of them would do it. That's not their business they told me. They basically exist as one of many dubious middlemen that takes a cut out of each home sale while offering little value.
CivBase 4y ago
I don't think it's unreasonable for laws to enforce some level of risk mitigation for consumers making purchases as significant as houses. But a line has to be drawn somewhere and I firmly believe that fining neighbors for having ugly cars in their driveway is far beyond any reasonable line.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  But if a politician gets elected with such a policy being a key election promise - i.e. indicating a majority of residents do agree there should be such a policy - is it still 'far beyond any reasonable line'? Why should you personally get to decide where the reasonable line is? (FWIW, I do actually agree with you, but your and my opinions are just that - opinions).
btilly 4y ago
I value being able to do what I want with my house. I'm willing to pay a premium for that value. I am only willing to consider an HOA if it comes with a steep discount. The more people there are out there who think like I do, the less it makes sense for people to try to tell their neighbors how to live.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
godshatter 4y ago
If for example, a derelict car sitting on my property is causing them monetary distress because it's affecting their property values, I'd suggest they make me an offer for the car. Otherwise, I would advise them to leave my property. Their "investment" is not my worry.
tcmart14 4y ago
Thats my line of thinking. My property is my property and I will do what I damn well please on it. You don't like it? Sounds like a you problem and not a me problem.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bberenberg 4y ago

Why should an investor not exercise agency to try and influence the outcome of their investment?

Gracana 4y ago
Because of the harm they cause to the people around them, as discussed in the comments here.
FpUser 4y ago
And why should I give a fuck about what investor wishes. In my opinion bar direct / illegal actions like throwing garbage in neighbour's property we should be left alone from interference.
flandish 4y ago
Oh I think they should attempt to register their opinion, but in the end, that’s as far as it can go - if we truly “care” about a human’s right to private enjoyment of their own “property.”
friend_and_foe 4y ago
Now rephrase that taking into account the fact that said investor enacting his will onto another person without their consent. If what I do with my property negatively affects your investment perhaps you should've taken that into account when conducting your risk analysis instead of throwing a fit and making your problems my problem.
- davidgay 4y ago
  So clearly, I can start a toxic chemicals factory in my basement, next to your house? (I'll move elsewhere of course) Or, absolute principles are rarely absolutely applicable.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ajkjk 4y ago
    I feel like your argument undermined itself? There is a clear argument against your neighbor having a toxic chemical factory that has nothing to do with investment values, such as "it makes my home an unsafe place to live". The whole point here is that the point of homes is to be homes, not investments.
  - friend_and_foe 4y ago
    There's a clear distinction here: risk to other people and their property. There's a reason people who make arguments for controlling other people's behavior have to come up with over the top, ridiculous scenarios with obvious answers. If you're trying to find an answer, find the principles and work from there and you'll find absolute principles are fine. There's no risk to you or your property if I decide to have a car with the hood up parked in my driveway.
    - noduerme 4y ago
      What if you have a different car with its hood up on your property every day? What if you're painting them and venting it out of your garage? Toxic chemicals is not a wild scenario, it's the logical next step. [edit] I'm somewhat surprised by the contention that merely stating this hypothetical is "emboldening" the investor class. Pardon: >> EMBOLDENING THE SUPPORT FOR THE INVESTMENT OWNING CLASS whatever that means. I bring it up as it was my experience as a renter whose quality of life (not investment value) was substantially impacted when I lived next to people who were operating a quasi-legal home auto repair shop. I think it's unfair to assume that anyone asking where a line should be drawn on what someone can do on their property is carrying water for faceless, inhumane capitalist corporate investor-vampires, or whatever. And BTW, doing whatever you want on your property at the expense of the neighbors' quality of life or investment value? Kinda antisocial as well.
jjulius 4y ago
Because this is my home, not your investment. Invest in something else if people living their lives on their own property seems like too much of a risk to your "investment".
- chasd00 4y ago
  my property my rules is a slippery slope. For example, many cities require you to purchase a permit to have a garage sale because neighbors don't want you running a flea market out of your yard.
kaesar14 4y ago
This is how we got to a housing crisis.
Nifty3929 4y ago
They should - and they should fail. It should not surprise us that people try to use the force of government to achieve their personal goals. But we should be mad at ourselves for voting for politicians and legislators that allow the government to wield this power in the first place.
jonfw 4y ago
I'd expect them to consider the implications of their actions towards others before exercising their agency. Nobody is excused from ethics just because money is at stake

api 4y ago

"Housing cannot be simultaneously affordable and a good investment." Housing as an investment first and a place to live second is a disease. It penalizes the poor, new arrivals, and the young, transferring wealth from these groups to people who bought homes back before the disease took hold. This is not wealth earned by working hard or creating value. Instead it's wealth extracted by obstructing value creation to collect rent from a captive audience. Most of those benefiting from this condition would never have been able to buy in today, but "I've got mine, fuck you." Any place dominated by this dynamic has zero claim to any kind of liberal or progressive title. This includes the supposed liberal bastion of the San Francisco Bay Area, a massively distorted housing market that creates one of the widest divisions between rich and poor anywhere in the US. Places like Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina are more progressive than San Francisco because a working class person can afford a home. Most of the country has this disease to some extent, but obviously there are a few hot spots that are particularly bad. I picked on SF because it's among the worst and also among the most sanctimonious, continuously holding itself up as some kind of progressive bastion while implementing what amounts to red lining on a massive scale. Unfortunately I can't think of any solution to this problem that isn't painful. Either we inflate the rest of the economy until a loaf of bread is $15 but housing is reasonable again or we let housing collapse.

xwdv 4y ago
I’d be careful calling this a disease. The fact is, for many people having a home that they build equity in is the closest they’ll ever get to some kind of “savings” account. When the home is paid off in 30 years they no longer need money saved up to buy a retirement home because they will have full equity of their house which may have gone up substantially in value. They could then sell this property and downsize and continue to live off the proceeds from the equity they sold. If homes weren’t investments, it means people would have to be a lot more serious about saving and investing money for the future, and frankly that just isn’t going to happen at scale given human behavior.
- api 4y ago
  That's the disease: the use of housing as one's primary source of savings and retirement funding. There are alternatives like pensions, improving social security and medicare/medicaid, etc. The de-prioritization and gutting of these has probably contributed to housing taking their place. But housing isn't a sustainable answer. It's basically done. Current generations can never see the kind of housing appreciation their parents did. Prices simply can't go up much more except in areas that are undervalued and never saw a run-up in previous decades. New buyers today risk the opposite: straining to buy into overvalued markets only to see them crash and leave them underwater. Housing as a source of retirement funding is a one-generation-and-done phenomenon. Personally I would not touch real estate in overvalued metros today unless I were rich and could afford to lose 25-50% of the value of the home. If interest rates don't come back down to near-zero and/or if the trend toward telework and geographic decentralization continues, these areas could very well crash.

danudey 4y ago

Please lower my property value so that my property taxes go down, thanks.

nonameiguess 4y ago

It's unfortunate but telling that the code site has this wording, but there is a steelman version of this type of sentiment. Sufficient neighborhood blight can have a direct impact on the quality of life of the people living in the neighborhood, even if they don't plan to ever sell their house and don't care about resale value. I would argue this is far more the case with things like ostentatious lighting, noise violations, and bad smells than with something like non-functional cars being visible in driveways, and this doesn't personally bother me. I do my own repairs and my next-door neighbor has been working on a project RV for nearly two years now, which I'm also fine with. However, I am absolutely not fine with the party house AirBNB next door to me on the other side that is constantly hosting bachelor and bachelorette parties with DJs and strippers playing loud music on Sunday night when I need to get up early in the morning to work on Monday, also filling up the entire street with vehicles and leaving nowhere to park for people who actually live here. So yeah, that I'll complain about.

jandrese 4y ago

"Property value" is the biggest cop out. When someone says that what they really mean is "I don't like the look of that", but they can't just say that, it has to have a vague monetary penalty for them to be taken seriously. Whenever someone hits you with that make sure you get them to document the reduction in their property value in dollars, including methodology. It's not possible, houses sell for whatever someone buys it for and you can't know the mind of buyers. Maybe the fact that your door is off-tan instead of off-medium-tan will make some buyer reduce their offer on a house 5 doors down by $20,000, but there's no way to prove that.

jakogut 4y ago
I learned in my home buying process that values are mostly meaningless, and completely subject to what buyers will offer. When you buy a house, the bank orders an appraisal to ensure the property is worth the offered price, in case of foreclosure. What's the first thing the appraiser looks at to determine value? Comparables, which is an industry term for similar houses/properties in similar areas and what they sold for. What's the best comparable? The offer you made on the property you're attempting to buy. It's cyclical. I agree that people should not be penalized for living in and using their homes. If I buy a house with a garage, you shouldn't get mad that I work on my car and even gasp make some noise during the day while I do it.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  It's terrifying that public education lets someone graduate high school without the most basic understanding of how pricing works.
- jandrese 4y ago
  The entire appraisal industry is largely a scam IMHO. At most they can tell a bank if an offer is outside the realm of reason for the neighborhood, but that's basically just a search of recent sale prices. They won't even send someone out to look at a property. Last time I went to sell my house the market was in a fairly volatile state and I didn't have a good idea of what a fair price for my house would be. So I called multiple appraisal companies asking if they could give me a fair market value figure I could use for the listing. Not one of them would do it. That's not their business they told me. They basically exist as one of many dubious middlemen that takes a cut out of each home sale while offering little value.

CivBase 4y ago

I don't think it's unreasonable for laws to enforce some level of risk mitigation for consumers making purchases as significant as houses. But a line has to be drawn somewhere and I firmly believe that fining neighbors for having ugly cars in their driveway is far beyond any reasonable line.

wizofaus 4y ago
But if a politician gets elected with such a policy being a key election promise - i.e. indicating a majority of residents do agree there should be such a policy - is it still 'far beyond any reasonable line'? Why should you personally get to decide where the reasonable line is? (FWIW, I do actually agree with you, but your and my opinions are just that - opinions).

btilly 4y ago

I value being able to do what I want with my house. I'm willing to pay a premium for that value. I am only willing to consider an HOA if it comes with a steep discount. The more people there are out there who think like I do, the less it makes sense for people to try to tell their neighbors how to live.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

godshatter 4y ago

If for example, a derelict car sitting on my property is causing them monetary distress because it's affecting their property values, I'd suggest they make me an offer for the car. Otherwise, I would advise them to leave my property. Their "investment" is not my worry.

tcmart14 4y ago

Thats my line of thinking. My property is my property and I will do what I damn well please on it. You don't like it? Sounds like a you problem and not a me problem.