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Lahaina residents worry a rebuilt Maui could slip to the hands of rich outsiders
- bama-med 3y agoI might get down-voted for this, but this is exactly what my wife and I have been discussing over the weekend. We're looking for good deals on property in Lahaina as a result of this.
- tech_ken 3y agoCan't downvote you but impressed at your tolerance for that scummy feeling
- unforeseen9991 3y agoSociopaths don't get that feeling
- wysewun 3y agoMaybe let the land stop burning before you think about that.
- jacquesm 3y agoForgive me for breaking HN etiquette but you're a complete asshole.
- Coffeewine 3y agoOn one hand yes, on the other you can't buy without someone trying to sell. If someone is trying to sell after a disaster they presumably need the money more than they need title to destroyed land.
- jacquesm 3y agoSo you help them to hang on to it if that is what they want. To sell your ancestral land under duress on account of a natural disaster to a bunch of wealthy outsiders is horrible. It is remarkable that this even needs to be explained, especially in the context of TFA. If people were going to move out of their own accord already or if this natural disaster has soured them on living there then that's one thing. But to aim to profit of this before the bodies are in the ground and the ashes have cooled is sick to a degree that I don't have any polite terms to describe it. Show some humanity.
- gruez 3y agoI don't understand why buyers are getting flak in this case. Are they coercing existing owners into selling? The recent fires probably were the reason why many are selling, but they're not exactly started by the buyers[1]. Presumably the reason why existing owners are selling is that they can't afford the repair costs, or figure that they won't be able to afford future repair costs if there was another fire. If that's the case, isn't the existance of buyers a strictly good thing? If they want to continue living in Maui, they can continue to do so. If they don't want to, there's at least someone willing to pay for it. Obviously it'd be better if they weren't in a circumstance where they had to sell, or if OP decided to give money to them no strings attached rather than having to hand over the house, but neither of those are realistic options. [1] Except in a vague sense of "the forest fires were caused by climate change, and they contributed 0.00001% to climate change like every other american", but it's unclear why they should attract more blame than you or me.
- jacquesm 3y agoNo, they're attempting to profit from others misery by thinking of buying up the land they have title to during a time when those people there are probably not in a position to refuse even an unfair offer.
- gruez 3y ago>No, they're attempting to profit from others misery Do you also get upset that construction workers profit after a disaster, because all the demand that it creates? >when those people there are probably not in a position to refuse even an unfair offer. You know what's worse than having your house burnt down, not having enough money to fix it, so you have to accept an "unfair offer" and move to Oklahoma or whatever? Having your house burnt down, not having enough money to fix it, and going homeless because you can neither fix your house nor sell it to buy one somewhere else. The problem seems to be that you think the two options are: 1) Rich people are offering to buy the house, and the homeowner is forced to sell and move out :( 2) The homeowner isn't forced to sell and lives happily ever after :D When in reality the second option doesn't exist and is a fabricated option[1]. The homeowner's house is burnt down. He doesn't have the money to fix it. He's already homeless. Not having the "unfair offer" isn't going to magically fix his house or give him money. The only way for him to live happily ever after is if he gets an infusion of cash somehow (eg. government aid or private donations), which has nothing to do with the "unfair offer". As long as the people making offers to buy the house also aren't simultaneously lobbying against government aid or whatever, they're not making the situation any worse. On the contrary, they're making the situation better by giving the homeowner more options. [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gNodQGNoPDjztasbh/lies-damn-lies-and-fabricated-options#Fabricated_Options https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gNodQGNoPDjztasbh/lies-damn-...
- orangecat 3y agoAnd yet, he's helping more than you are. This is a perfect example of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics: https://web.archive.org/web/20220705105128/https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220705105128/https://blog.jaib...
- jacquesm 3y agoI'm sorry but I don't subscribe to vulture capitalism. You could donate to help build it all up, that would be helping, this is just profiting from others' misery.
- qbasic_forever 3y agoBuy some property next to or on the great lakes, like in Michigan's upper peninsula. Hawaii and many, many coastal areas of the US will be underwater in the coming decades as oceans rise. A lot of climate crisis aware folks in the know are saying the great lakes will geographically be one of the best places to ride out the oncoming catastrophe--it's well enough inland yet also near a huge source of fresh water. It's also a gorgeous place that isn't a total tourist trap.
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoThe Great Lakes are utterly miserable for half the year. And that's for people who are USED to living near the Great Lakes. Nobody is going to be "underwater" during their own lifetimes for living in Hawaii.
- qbasic_forever 3y agoWrong, by 2030 there will be a lot less coastal area habitable in Hawaii: https://climate.hawaii.gov/hi-facts/sea-level-rise/ https://climate.hawaii.gov/hi-facts/sea-level-rise/ If you think the great lake region is too cold or wintery, well I got some bad and/or good news about what global warming is doing... it's not going to be frigid winters there for much longer.
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoThere's this atmospheric event. It's called a hurricane. They hit Hawaii all the time. If these homes are not getting inundated with some of the storms that have hit the islands, they aren't going to get inundated any time soon by mere sea level rise. And you can always raise homes.
- baq 3y agoOffers are probably already written. 'Distressed property' they're calling it.
- wmf 3y agoHonestly "distressed" is a polite term for the burned-out remains of a house.
- the_lego 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoYour account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of what you're battling for or against—either way, it's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. I've therefore banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- skyyler 3y ago[flagged]
- cycrutchfield 3y agoYou’ve never understood the concept of property rights?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- chc 3y agoThat's not really here or there. Owning a house does not make it legal to, for example, use it as a brothel. We could just as well say that owning a house does not make it legal to rent out. You'd still have your right to the property.
- orwin 3y agoYou only really own what you're using. The rest is obligation and usury.
- giantg2 3y agoThe only rights are what the government says you can do with their land that they've given you title to.
- skyyler 3y agoI understand the concept just fine. I just find it interesting that people allow landlords to exist.
- cycrutchfield 3y agoWhat do you find interesting about it? Renting out property in general? Or is it something specifically to do with housing? If I have a house and want to rent out an unused bedroom, your preference would be that I shouldn't be allowed to do this?
- weeksie 3y ago> "I'm more concerned of big land developers coming in and seeing this charred land as an opportunity to rebuild," Of course, people like that will organize to block these big bad developers making housing even more expensive and the only people who will be able to afford to live there will be the rich.
- nwienert 3y agoHawaii doesn’t want lots of development, don’t try and force it on them. What America should do at large is block all non resident investment in non commercial real estate, period. Would do a hell of a lot more for housing than all the nonsense about building more.
- weeksie 3y agoWell, it's not even a matter of that. If they don't want new development then the price of what's already there will only skyrocket and that will end up excluding the residents. In other words, by refusing to develop, the residents of Hawaii are displacing their own natives, unless they happen to own land. This alternative system where the only folks allowed to own property are those who are born there is something I hear a lot of anti-housing people advocate and it's disturbingly similar to the hukou[1] system, which we probably don't want to emulate. 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou
- nwienert 3y agoThat system already exists in Hawaii actually. There’s lots of land you can’t own as a non-native.
- weeksie 3y agoIf you're arguing that Hawaii should be returned to the Natives and they should have some kind of tribal rule, that's certainly something that you can advocate for. In a world where this part of Hawaii exists within the US system of property rights, you're arguing that we should grant the current landowners (whoever they may be) perpetual rights to the extract land rents. Of course, given how expensive housing becomes when it is restricted in a high-demand location the implication is that the only folks who will be able to live there are the rich.
- jacquesm 3y agoThe same happened to Amsterdam. Almost none of the people that I know that were born there could live there today. Rich outsiders are buying up desirable property all over the world and it is a real problem. They also definitely will use this disaster to grab what they can, mitigating circumstance is that the fact that this may happen again is maybe causing them to pause from doing so: but that in turn should worry the residents as well. I suspect that climate change and the resulting rash of natural disasters (though, technically they are man made it is hard to identify what would have happened normally and what not) will make whole swaths of the planet unfit for human habitation. The refugee crisis that could cause is one that will upset all kinds of apple carts. None of that diminishes this tragedy, and it also doesn't reduce my loathing of the people that would try to profit from a thing like this.
- weeksie 3y agoMunicipalities all over the world refusing to build enough housing (and hotel space) is what's pricing people out. These are all pretty simple problems to solve but there's fractal resistance to making enough room. In New York we built like 100k new units in the 2010s but we grew by 500k people and still, the default position of people who theoretically advocate for cheaper housing is to block new development.
- ethanbond 3y agoBoth are problems
- the_lego 3y agoThis is like proposing to dig a bigger basement to fit more flood water. No matter how much you dig, there will always be more water in the ocean to flow in. In the case of New York, it will never have "enough" housing - what will instead happen is, eventually, it will become so overgrown that it will be unattractive for new arrivals.
- fragmede 3y agoWhere it's the people that attract new arrivals, you may not want to move there, but there are plenty of people who do. Look at world class cities filled with skyscrapers (or even those not), they're still growing, not shrinking.
- miguelazo 3y agoThis is what has already been happening in Puerto Rico after recent natural disasters. Accelerated thanks to the unelected, neoliberal FOMB that Obama put in place.
- techsupporter 3y ago"Residents with insurance or government aid may get funds to rebuild, but those payouts could take years and recipients may find it won't be enough to pay rent or buy an alternate property in the interim." And there's the problem. There's no slack in the existing housing system so there's nowhere for people to be temporarily "displaced" even for people who did everything right and had insurance and savings. So people will absolutely take the quick-money offer made by people who have bought themselves that flexibility elsewhere (e.g. a buyer who lives on the mainland and who can live in their existing house while helping to turn Hawaii into a second-house state). Because we are so wound up in what housing means to our finances and culture, there's no political will to fix this even as climate change worsens. So, like always, people with lesser means--even people with lesser means who did everything correctly--still get screwed.
- 1024core 3y agoThe solution might be to tax second-home owners heavily, and use those funds to fund affordable housing. I visited Maui recently and was surprised to see the number of resorts over there, and the large single-family homes. TBH, after visiting and enjoying the beaches, I was thinking that it would be nice to have a vacation home there. The wife didn't like the idea, so I dropped it. But now I agree with the concerns being expressed by the displaced residents. I think it would be better to rebuild with more dense housing, and more affordable housing. Use this opportunity to put down 5-6 story high buildings with 2-3BR apartments that are affordable. Use eminent domain if you must to get the land. And tax vacation homes heavily: if you don't live in your house at least 240 days a year (roughly, 8 months), then your property taxes will be 10% of the house's appraised value. Use that money for the upkeep of the affordable housing and to build more affordable housing.
- giantg2 3y agoFuck eminent domain. Although I guess that's loosely in keeping with the history of how the native lands were treated.
- DocTomoe 3y ago> Use this opportunity to put down 5-6 story high buildings with 2-3BR apartments that are affordable. Use eminent domain if you must to get the land. So you essentially want to transform a place that is attractive into another slum so that crime can go up and attractiveness sinks, while trampling the rights of homeowners that may have lived there for generations? Sounds like a great idea.
- mavelikara 3y ago> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- DocTomoe 3y ago
- fotta 3y agoThis seems like a syndication of the original AP article: https://apnews.com/article/d8902c3ea55a8ec4d9938865f3f749f7 https://apnews.com/article/d8902c3ea55a8ec4d9938865f3f749f7
- rayiner 3y agoThis is a basic economic problem that puts these folks in a Catch 22. Rebuilding in the aftermath of a natural disaster requires capital. The folks outside Hawaii are the ones with the capital. And being a US state, Hawaii has no ability to discriminate against or set terms on the outside capital. Of course, arguably the alternative to this is probably that many areas take much longer to rebuild, or never get rebuilt at all. But that doesn’t take the sting away from becoming renters to foreign capital on your own soil.
- balderdash 3y agoIs it because of lack of insurance that people have this fear? Or that people will have to move away for a couple of years, may not move back, and then sell?
- HumblyTossed 3y agoLet's say the house that burned was $500k (i have no idea). Insurance pays out $500k. Now, those people have to live for, what, maybe two three years while their house is rebuilt due to how many are destroyed? They have to use some of that $500k to pay rent some place. Many may not be able to then afford the newly rebuild house which will then get sold off to some off-island investor, because, well, then new house will inevitably be more expensive and they've use some of the payout from their old house.
- bell-cot 3y agoCynical reaction: Why the h*ll are the "rich" so attracted to real estate which is at extreme risk of burning to the ground / sliding down the hillside / being devoured by the sea / etc. on ~zero notice? There's something d*mned fishy going on here...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- UtopiaPunk 3y agoAffordable housing is a serious problem across the whole country. Lahaina and similar areas have the additional problem of the land being converted from housing to vacation resorts. Lots of money to be made from rich tourists wanting a tropical beach vacation :(
- HumblyTossed 3y ago100% guaranteed that it will unless the government steps in to protect the people.