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> give wealthy people extra cash and hope some of it came to the rest of us Is letting them run hog wild through our cities replacing neighborhoods with luxury

> give wealthy people extra cash and hope some of it came to the rest of us Is letting them run hog wild through our cities replacing neighborhoods with luxury high rises for foreign investors any different? Obviously we could always use more updated housing in urban areas, but you are either stupid or acting like it when you pretend the argument is not about who should be building that housing and whether anyone should profit from owning it.

hackerlight 3y ago
Everyone, notice the rhetorical sleight of hand operating here. An apartment, perhaps with 2 bedrooms, that costs significantly less than a "modest" or "quaint" single detached house in the same locale is labelled "luxury". That labelling scheme is chosen in order to persuade by way of demonization. But such labelling never gets applied to houses. Three bedroom houses that cost more than 99.9% of all apartments in existence, including the majority of apartments that are labelled as "luxury", never themselves carry the label "luxury". Instead they get endearing labels like "family home". These are the rhetorical tricks that NIMBYs use to push their political agenda to weaponize government in order to ban poor people and keep the price of their house high.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  The luxury label is used by the developers themselves to market their product, whether it be newly built apartments or houses. How can that be a trick by NIMBYs? Everyone knows that luxury means “new”, or at best, “shiny stainless steel appliances and quartz countertops”. The fact that it is new, and so has to comply with the most updated standards, is probably the most luxury aspect of all since materials and connections and whatnot have improved. This designation of new and old is more important in the apartment market than house markets because apartments tend to get neglected by landlords, whereas houses either get updated or can be updated by the owner. Also, in the case of houses, where a lot more money and due diligence is required, simply using luxury to describe them is insufficient, and not very useful to sell new housing developments.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    > How can that be a trick by NIMBYs? It's a rhetorical device that carries no substance, whether it happens to be NIMBYs using it as a political weapon to demonize, or developers using it to sell a product. However, I am going to focus criticism on NIMBYs when they are doing it, since they are the ones being dishonest and hypocritical when they only apply such labels to apartments. At least if a developer/agent was to try to sell a house, they'd try to find similar flowery language in order to market it, instead of only singling out apartments for that treatment in order to push their damaging political agenda.
comte7092 3y ago
What cities are being overrun by “luxury” high rises? Or is that just a dog whistle for “new”?
davidw 3y ago
> whether anyone should profit from owning it. Uh... existing homeowners are the ones making bank hand over fist thanks to the housing shortage: https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2021/03/16/who-benefits-from-the-housing-market-graph-of-the-week/ https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2021/03/16/who-benefits-f...
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Only if they're buying and selling non-primary residences. Otherwise they'll have to buy in the same crazy market, wiping out much of their gains.
  - davidw 3y ago
    It's a bit apples to oranges, sure, but you're still sitting on a pile of money and bearing few of the direct costs of it in places like OR or CA with screwy property taxes. You can borrow against it or sell and go elsewhere, which is a lot better place to be in than someone wishing to purchase and seeing the value of a home go up more than they make in a year.
  - jehb 3y ago
    The gains are not wiped out, they're just not liquid. We bought our first house about seven years ago and are about to sell it. The house appreciated almost 75% over that span of time. We bought a new house in the same price range. I'm just transferring the appreciation of the the first house to the second house. But since it's a higher real dollar amount, I was able to put a much higher percentage down on the new house and get a better total cost of the loan as a result. I still have all of the gains I made, even if they're locked in equity in the house, and was able to leverage them for additional value in reduced interest paid. Because I had more equity from the first house, it also made it easier for me to outbid other bidders, because I didn't have the same debt-to-income constraints they did. Even if the gains aren't liquid, homeowners gain at the expense of non-homeowners.
  - comte7092 3y ago
    You don’t have to sell your house to pull equity out of it.

hackerlight 3y ago

Everyone, notice the rhetorical sleight of hand operating here. An apartment, perhaps with 2 bedrooms, that costs significantly less than a "modest" or "quaint" single detached house in the same locale is labelled "luxury". That labelling scheme is chosen in order to persuade by way of demonization. But such labelling never gets applied to houses. Three bedroom houses that cost more than 99.9% of all apartments in existence, including the majority of apartments that are labelled as "luxury", never themselves carry the label "luxury". Instead they get endearing labels like "family home". These are the rhetorical tricks that NIMBYs use to push their political agenda to weaponize government in order to ban poor people and keep the price of their house high.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
The luxury label is used by the developers themselves to market their product, whether it be newly built apartments or houses. How can that be a trick by NIMBYs? Everyone knows that luxury means “new”, or at best, “shiny stainless steel appliances and quartz countertops”. The fact that it is new, and so has to comply with the most updated standards, is probably the most luxury aspect of all since materials and connections and whatnot have improved. This designation of new and old is more important in the apartment market than house markets because apartments tend to get neglected by landlords, whereas houses either get updated or can be updated by the owner. Also, in the case of houses, where a lot more money and due diligence is required, simply using luxury to describe them is insufficient, and not very useful to sell new housing developments.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  > How can that be a trick by NIMBYs? It's a rhetorical device that carries no substance, whether it happens to be NIMBYs using it as a political weapon to demonize, or developers using it to sell a product. However, I am going to focus criticism on NIMBYs when they are doing it, since they are the ones being dishonest and hypocritical when they only apply such labels to apartments. At least if a developer/agent was to try to sell a house, they'd try to find similar flowery language in order to market it, instead of only singling out apartments for that treatment in order to push their damaging political agenda.

comte7092 3y ago

What cities are being overrun by “luxury” high rises? Or is that just a dog whistle for “new”?

davidw 3y ago

> whether anyone should profit from owning it. Uh... existing homeowners are the ones making bank hand over fist thanks to the housing shortage: https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2021/03/16/who-benefits-from-the-housing-market-graph-of-the-week/ https://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2021/03/16/who-benefits-f...

paulryanrogers 3y ago
Only if they're buying and selling non-primary residences. Otherwise they'll have to buy in the same crazy market, wiping out much of their gains.
- davidw 3y ago
  It's a bit apples to oranges, sure, but you're still sitting on a pile of money and bearing few of the direct costs of it in places like OR or CA with screwy property taxes. You can borrow against it or sell and go elsewhere, which is a lot better place to be in than someone wishing to purchase and seeing the value of a home go up more than they make in a year.
- jehb 3y ago
  The gains are not wiped out, they're just not liquid. We bought our first house about seven years ago and are about to sell it. The house appreciated almost 75% over that span of time. We bought a new house in the same price range. I'm just transferring the appreciation of the the first house to the second house. But since it's a higher real dollar amount, I was able to put a much higher percentage down on the new house and get a better total cost of the loan as a result. I still have all of the gains I made, even if they're locked in equity in the house, and was able to leverage them for additional value in reduced interest paid. Because I had more equity from the first house, it also made it easier for me to outbid other bidders, because I didn't have the same debt-to-income constraints they did. Even if the gains aren't liquid, homeowners gain at the expense of non-homeowners.
- comte7092 3y ago
  You don’t have to sell your house to pull equity out of it.