8 ms·

Housing Is a Labor Issue: Land owners are taking all the wage gains

88 points by vwoolf 3y ago

mschuster91 3y ago
While I agree that landlords are vampires, that here is wrong: > But there is a stack of research a mile high that shows that the number one thing we need is a lot more housing supply There are millions of units vacant everywhere, be it the US [1] or Germany [2]. The last thing the world needs is more housing construction, especially with the insane CO2 footprint of anything involving concrete. The problem is that rural areas ("flyover states") have been left to rot: no reliable electricity grid, no public transport, basic infrastructure from grocery stores over schools to basic healthcare has closed down, no high-speed Internet which is a necessity for modern life - and particularly the latter is a major contributor in rural flight, as employers move towards more urban areas, which sets off a vicious cycle as the people follow the jobs, and the remaining infrastructure becomes too expensive to maintain. That this neglect is a direct cause of people losing trust in democracy is just the icing on the cake (and again, this also contributes to rural flight as LGBT and women flee far-right areas in droves). We need to invest into rural areas again. [1] https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/16-million-homes-vacant-in-us https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/16-million... [2] https://www.demografie-portal.de/DE/Service/Blog/191028-Wohnungsleerstand-in-Deutschland-Wo-sind-die-Herausforderungen-besonders-gross.html https://www.demografie-portal.de/DE/Service/Blog/191028-Wohn...
- n4r9 3y ago
  Technically I suppose "housing supply" doesn't have to imply "housing construction".
- selestify 3y ago
  > Vermont, Maine, and Alaska have the highest vacancy rates—between 22% and 20%, according to the study. So not really highly desirable metropolises. Places where most people actually want to live have low vacancy rates and not enough housing. > We need to invest into rural areas again. No argument from me there, even though it is less bang for the buck to invest in rural facilities. But doing that doesn’t preclude simultaneously relaxing zoning laws and whatnot that cause housing crises in cities.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >The last thing the world needs is more housing construction, especially with the insane CO2 footprint of anything involving concrete. That self imposed limit is exactly what keeps prices high. Every city has some run down areas that serve no purpose but are wasted space and could be turned into housing. Also, as some others already said it, living in urban areas reduces your footprint versus living far away in the countryside so the CO2 released from dense urban building makes up for it from the scale of people living together compared to low density rural areas which cost more in maintenance, transportation, etc. >There are millions of units vacant everywhere, be it the US [1] or Germany [2]. It doesn't help anyone if those vacant units are not where the jobs and education is, especially that 100% WFH is not even remotely(ha!) mainstream, but return to office has being normalized again in Germany, at best into hybrid arrangements so everyone still needs to live close to the office anyway. I can't carry that cheap rural house with me into the city where my job is. >We need to invest into rural areas again. Germany and other countries could bring life back to rural areas if it mandated employers allow 100% WFH whoever possible as that would get a lot of people moving back to their hometown closer to their family especially if their family could help out with raising kids. It could also cause a surge in birthrates and formation of new families. Instead we normalized living with roomates in your 30's, to work for some corporation who needs you in an expensive city with scarce real-estate, just to do stuff you can do from your laptop from anywhere. We had a good thing going for a while in the pandemic(not the virus, deaths, social distancing, and all that) but the lack of car trips, lack of air and noise pollution, people taking their remote jobs back to live with their families, reduced immigration causing rents to plummet, touristic areas finally livable again, etc. But our dear leaders and their business overlords saw that and said "this is affecting our profits and GDP, we can't have that, we must go back to the way it was before!".
  - LeanderK 3y ago
    I wouldn't return to more rural areas if 100% WFH is possible. Some left it for a reason and not to get better internet. And, at least in germany, many rural areas are not so unattractive. I know plenty rural villages with great internet. Especially in BW public transport is solid, the next bigger population center is close by and there are many jobs. It's just conservative, culturally boring, inflexible and really set in their old ways.
- seydor 3y ago
  While i agree in general, the threat of construction would force the prices to tumble instantly , so it is a good thing.
- bsder 3y ago
  > The problem is that rural areas ("flyover states") have been left to rot The problem is that rural areas don't pay their way. Rural areas only exist at the charity of the cities funding them. If you want rural areas to thrive, you need to figure out how to make them economically viable. That means you need local production to be more cost effective than global production. A good start would be having universal healthcare so hospitals in rural areas would stop closing. Another good start would be to start increasing taxes on imports and subsidizing some exports in order to balance the fact that the US has hollowed out labor by sending it overseas. Alas, the same people who fight against universal healthcare and import excise taxes are also those who live in rural areas. And here we are. And so it will continue.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    > increasing taxes on imports and subsidizing some exports One of those things that sounds great until other countries apply it symmetrically and tax US exports.
    - bsder 3y ago
      > One of those things that sounds great until other countries apply it symmetrically and tax US exports. This is fine. Really. There is nothing wrong with every country being able to support themselves with their local economy. I'm not saying to jack things up to 500%, but a general 5%-10% to make shipping cheap crap around the world have a bit more friction would be a good thing. The goal is to make it economically viable to produce things closer to where they are consumed. And to only produce those things non-locally that have a genuine reason for being produced non-locally.
  - Kretinsky 3y ago
    This is a chicken and egg problem. Reduce public services in rural areas, get population outflow, reduce public services even more. You can stop the vicious circle by increasing the services back to make it attractive and at the same time densify rural cities to make them less costly to cater to.
- nateberkopec 3y ago
  If what you care about is climate change, you should be in favor of cramming people into the smallest possible spaces in urban areas, not putting them in rural areas where they have to drive 20 minutes to get to the grocery store. The carbon footprint of your average city dweller is far lower.
  - sillystate2023 3y ago
    [dead]
  - Kretinsky 3y ago
    It's not only about climate change, most of the effects are to be seen on the biodiversity, the beauty of the countryside (yes, it's important), agricultural production and water supply, as concrete reduces a lot water absorbtion. Lyme disease outbreaks can be attributed in part to the increase in rodents population, which is due to the urban sprawl and the increased difficulty for predators to hunt in suburban areas.
  - kajaktum 3y ago
    Or provide better public transportation?
    - dagw 3y ago
      Public transport is only more environmentally friendly if people actually use it. Out where my parents live it was not uncommon to see busses driving for miles with 0-2 passengers. The problem was that providing good enough public transport that you didn't need a car at all is basically impossible. And since everybody had a car, the number of people that wanted to spend 60+ minutes taking a buss that went 3-4 times a day into town, instead of driving 30 minutes, was basically zero. They eventually cancelled the bus line since it was just too expensive and inefficient to run. The alternative of trying to provide a truly useful public transport service (say 2 buss lines running every 30 mintues) would have been extremely expensive and would have meant even more empty busses.
- pjc50 3y ago
  The population is still growing, however you want to slice it. > The problem is that rural areas ("flyover states") have been left to rot: no reliable electricity grid, no public transport, basic infrastructure from grocery stores over schools to basic healthcare has closed down This narrative also works in the UK, but where the abandoned areas are mostly coastal. Seaside towns with no tourists and no fish. Ex-mining areas. And the same problem of people becoming more rightist as they become more resource-starved, preferring the solution of demonizing people they think shouldn't get resources rather than anything else. Fairly sure this list correlates with high votes for Brexit: https://www.moveiq.co.uk/blog/buying/10-cheapest-places-buy-house-uk/ https://www.moveiq.co.uk/blog/buying/10-cheapest-places-buy-... Let's have a look at Middlesborough since it's at the top and I have ancestors from there. You can get a really cheap house in town, near plenty of infrastructure: https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/62793200/ https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/62793200/ Why is it so cheap? Well, unemployment is really high: https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/new-data-reveals-teesside-areas-24885105 https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/new-data-re... And how did that happen? https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/28/redcar-steel-plant-to-close-with-1700-job-losses https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/28/redcar-stee... Not really sure what central government could do about this, but I'm fairly sure they've not even tried thinking about it.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Why is it so cheap? Well, unemployment is really high: The thing is nobody (with a stable job) wants to live in areas with high unemployment because of all the social issues those areas have.
    - kkfdkerpoe 3y ago
      Depends on the area. Lots of countryside areas have high unemployment statistically, but are actually very chill because there are so few people, and most of them are retirees. With adequate internet connectivity they can be perfect for remote workers.
      - 3y ago
- indymike 3y ago
  > The problem is that rural areas ("flyover states") have been left to rot: no reliable electricity grid, I live in a flyover state in the US. Quality electricity is not a problem, save for areas that are Amish and simply don't use it. Even there, electricity is at the curb, it's just never been run to a home. On the telecom front, most rural areas have WISPs, mobile carriers (5g home internet isn't bad) or local telecom companies (DSL & Fiber) that have also solved this problem. It did take almost 20 years to solve the internet issue, and there are some rural homes that are located geographically where wireless won't work well, but on the whole things are a lot better than you are saying. The real issue in a lot of small towns is that the homes are old and often expensive to maintain, there's little entertainment and most importantly, jobs are still a problem. Between remote workers moving out of the city and the trend towards more onshoring of manufacturing, small towns in my state are starting to show signs of life, finally. > that this neglect is a direct cause of people losing trust in democracy is just the icing on the cake Not sure if you meant to say "icing on the cake" here because it comes across that you are celebrating people losing trust in democracy.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Of course, if everyone's wages would rise X%, it will increase rents and real-estate prices accordingly, as those are always prices as high as the market would bear and the more disposable income the market has, the more it can bear price increases.
- Sakos 3y ago
  Housing is a fixed cost that everyone is required to pay. I can stop buying chicken. I can't stop paying for housing. There are peculiarities about housing as a "product" that make it nonsensical to compare to other products or markets. The housing market can easily increase prices as much as it wants without losing out on revenue or potential gains, and in many markets it has done so to the degree that millions of people are priced out or relegated to spending all their discretionary funds on it, as well as forcing them to reduce their food, heating and/or transport budgets.
  - zabzonk 3y ago
    many homeless people would disagree - food is more important
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      We're not talking about some poor African country suffering form famine. Food affordability is not as big of an issue in the west compared to the cost of housing. We have mastered agriculture, supply chain and economies of scale to have cheap mas produced food that can keep even the poor from starving(and even affording them enough calories to get fat if they wish), but we did the exact opposite for housing so we can monetize it. By design, western housing doesn't have the same political and market dynamics that drive cheap food to also drive cheap houses.
      - zabzonk 3y ago
        the first thing you need is food. i can't understand what you are talking about here - food is not free.
xdennis 3y ago
The problem isn't land owners it's landlords. Renting should be illegal and anyone caught accepting rent should lose his property to the renter. Owning a lot of land/houses isn't really the problem. It's when you're not using them that's the problem. You should just sell and not leech on society by renting.
- zabzonk 3y ago
  i happily rented places for all of the 1970s - things went a bit wild after that
- sillystate2023 3y ago
  [dead]
- cpursley 3y ago
  Could you elaborate more about what you mean and how this would work? Where do young adults live? Where do new residents in a city live?
  - aelhage 3y ago
    Not to mention the people that choose to rent. We can argue over how much landlords deserve, but they should generally be providing a service as well - maintaining the property and shielding the tenant from some of the risk. I wonder if in this hypothetical "no renting" scenario we'd see complete home maintenance service companies take their place. It would be an improvement - you can fire them without moving, but I don't think we could expect them to be any less exploitative than landlords are now.
  - jppittma 3y ago
    There could be a government mortage program like the student loan program.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - 3y ago
cpursley 3y ago
You know there’s a real issue when progressives and libertarians are both in alignment (maybe not on the solutions, but in the problem). A big part of the solution in North America is to change zoning and planning laws to allow for (missing) middle housing and allow for building up. https://missingmiddlehousing.com https://missingmiddlehousing.com
spaceman_2020 3y ago
This story is being repeated across countries and cities. It really is high time there is some serious regulation around home ownership, especially as an investment vehicle. I would even say this is an existential issue for our current civilizational model - the unaffordability of housing is contributing to demographic decline globally.
- nelsonic 3y ago
  Agreed. What regulation would you propose?
  - raziel2p 3y ago
    A simple one would be progressive tax on house ownership. For each house/apartment/whatever you own, you pay N% more tax on it than the previous one.
    - andyferris 3y ago
      We have a simple version of this in many states of Australia. I wonder if it has helped? We are also having similar rent vs wage issues here.
    - giantg2 3y ago
      Until you use LLCs, corps, or trusts to get around that. Even if you didn't get around it that way, landlords will pass the tax onto the tenants.
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      But the higher taxes are then transoformed into higher rents, while at the same time, you still need more housing units in many areas.
      - raziel2p 3y ago
        I do think we still need to build more (correctly sized) housing, counteract urbanization, provide social housing, and I'm in favor of rent control in general. So don't get me wrong, I don't think progressive tax will solve the problem on its own. That being said: Higher taxes could lead to higher rents, but that stops working once the supply of people willing to pay said higher rent is exhausted. At some point landlords won't be able to rent out their place with a profit, at which point you have 2 options: Leave it empty (which should also be illegal, IMO) or sell it (to people who would otherwise have to rent). It could be that there is a potential never-ending supply of rich people wanting to pay rent to live in a place with ever-increasing rent and the gentrification that comes with it, but it seems unlikely to me. In the Netherlands there were recently a set of tax changes increasing taxes on house ownership, which caused companies to sell apartments en mass. Housing prices dipped for a little bit, rent (in the private market) went up, but more people own their own place now. This is the direction you want to go, I think.
throwawa14223 3y ago
Until we stop the mass migration there is no solution to a housing shortage.
Etrnl_President 3y ago
Government artificially restricts the supply of housing through zoning and excess regulation. This creates artificial shortages and inflates prices and rents. A more detailed analcyst: https://mises.org/wire/how-governments-outlaw-affordable-housing https://mises.org/wire/how-governments-outlaw-affordable-hou...
lamontcg 3y ago
It isn't just housing, it is also the medical system and education. These things that basically everyone needs are not getting cheaper over time but are getting more expensive so that they vacuum up as much money as possible. (And it looks like vehicles/transportation is going to go this way as well, with companies licensing all the software in the vehicles to customers on a yearly subscription basis)

88 points by vwoolf 3y ago

While I agree that landlords are vampires, that here is wrong: > But there is a stack of research a mile high that shows that the number one thing we need is a lot more housing supply There are millions of units vacant everywhere, be it the US [1] or Germany [2]. The last thing the world needs is more housing construction, especially with the insane CO2 footprint of anything involving concrete. The problem is that rural areas ("flyover states") have been left to rot: no reliable electricity grid, no public transport, basic infrastructure from grocery stores over schools to basic healthcare has closed down, no high-speed Internet which is a necessity for modern life - and particularly the latter is a major contributor in rural flight, as employers move towards more urban areas, which sets off a vicious cycle as the people follow the jobs, and the remaining infrastructure becomes too expensive to maintain. That this neglect is a direct cause of people losing trust in democracy is just the icing on the cake (and again, this also contributes to rural flight as LGBT and women flee far-right areas in droves). We need to invest into rural areas again. [1] https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/16-million-homes-vacant-in-us https://www.nar.realtor/magazine/real-estate-news/16-million... [2] https://www.demografie-portal.de/DE/Service/Blog/191028-Wohnungsleerstand-in-Deutschland-Wo-sind-die-Herausforderungen-besonders-gross.html https://www.demografie-portal.de/DE/Service/Blog/191028-Wohn...

n4r9 3y ago
Technically I suppose "housing supply" doesn't have to imply "housing construction".
selestify 3y ago
> Vermont, Maine, and Alaska have the highest vacancy rates—between 22% and 20%, according to the study. So not really highly desirable metropolises. Places where most people actually want to live have low vacancy rates and not enough housing. > We need to invest into rural areas again. No argument from me there, even though it is less bang for the buck to invest in rural facilities. But doing that doesn’t preclude simultaneously relaxing zoning laws and whatnot that cause housing crises in cities.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>The last thing the world needs is more housing construction, especially with the insane CO2 footprint of anything involving concrete. That self imposed limit is exactly what keeps prices high. Every city has some run down areas that serve no purpose but are wasted space and could be turned into housing. Also, as some others already said it, living in urban areas reduces your footprint versus living far away in the countryside so the CO2 released from dense urban building makes up for it from the scale of people living together compared to low density rural areas which cost more in maintenance, transportation, etc. >There are millions of units vacant everywhere, be it the US [1] or Germany [2]. It doesn't help anyone if those vacant units are not where the jobs and education is, especially that 100% WFH is not even remotely(ha!) mainstream, but return to office has being normalized again in Germany, at best into hybrid arrangements so everyone still needs to live close to the office anyway. I can't carry that cheap rural house with me into the city where my job is. >We need to invest into rural areas again. Germany and other countries could bring life back to rural areas if it mandated employers allow 100% WFH whoever possible as that would get a lot of people moving back to their hometown closer to their family especially if their family could help out with raising kids. It could also cause a surge in birthrates and formation of new families. Instead we normalized living with roomates in your 30's, to work for some corporation who needs you in an expensive city with scarce real-estate, just to do stuff you can do from your laptop from anywhere. We had a good thing going for a while in the pandemic(not the virus, deaths, social distancing, and all that) but the lack of car trips, lack of air and noise pollution, people taking their remote jobs back to live with their families, reduced immigration causing rents to plummet, touristic areas finally livable again, etc. But our dear leaders and their business overlords saw that and said "this is affecting our profits and GDP, we can't have that, we must go back to the way it was before!".
- LeanderK 3y ago
  I wouldn't return to more rural areas if 100% WFH is possible. Some left it for a reason and not to get better internet. And, at least in germany, many rural areas are not so unattractive. I know plenty rural villages with great internet. Especially in BW public transport is solid, the next bigger population center is close by and there are many jobs. It's just conservative, culturally boring, inflexible and really set in their old ways.
seydor 3y ago
While i agree in general, the threat of construction would force the prices to tumble instantly , so it is a good thing.
bsder 3y ago
> The problem is that rural areas ("flyover states") have been left to rot The problem is that rural areas don't pay their way. Rural areas only exist at the charity of the cities funding them. If you want rural areas to thrive, you need to figure out how to make them economically viable. That means you need local production to be more cost effective than global production. A good start would be having universal healthcare so hospitals in rural areas would stop closing. Another good start would be to start increasing taxes on imports and subsidizing some exports in order to balance the fact that the US has hollowed out labor by sending it overseas. Alas, the same people who fight against universal healthcare and import excise taxes are also those who live in rural areas. And here we are. And so it will continue.
- pjc50 3y ago
  > increasing taxes on imports and subsidizing some exports One of those things that sounds great until other countries apply it symmetrically and tax US exports.
  - bsder 3y ago
    > One of those things that sounds great until other countries apply it symmetrically and tax US exports. This is fine. Really. There is nothing wrong with every country being able to support themselves with their local economy. I'm not saying to jack things up to 500%, but a general 5%-10% to make shipping cheap crap around the world have a bit more friction would be a good thing. The goal is to make it economically viable to produce things closer to where they are consumed. And to only produce those things non-locally that have a genuine reason for being produced non-locally.
- Kretinsky 3y ago
  This is a chicken and egg problem. Reduce public services in rural areas, get population outflow, reduce public services even more. You can stop the vicious circle by increasing the services back to make it attractive and at the same time densify rural cities to make them less costly to cater to.
nateberkopec 3y ago
If what you care about is climate change, you should be in favor of cramming people into the smallest possible spaces in urban areas, not putting them in rural areas where they have to drive 20 minutes to get to the grocery store. The carbon footprint of your average city dweller is far lower.
- sillystate2023 3y ago
  [dead]
- Kretinsky 3y ago
  It's not only about climate change, most of the effects are to be seen on the biodiversity, the beauty of the countryside (yes, it's important), agricultural production and water supply, as concrete reduces a lot water absorbtion. Lyme disease outbreaks can be attributed in part to the increase in rodents population, which is due to the urban sprawl and the increased difficulty for predators to hunt in suburban areas.
- kajaktum 3y ago
  Or provide better public transportation?
  - dagw 3y ago
    Public transport is only more environmentally friendly if people actually use it. Out where my parents live it was not uncommon to see busses driving for miles with 0-2 passengers. The problem was that providing good enough public transport that you didn't need a car at all is basically impossible. And since everybody had a car, the number of people that wanted to spend 60+ minutes taking a buss that went 3-4 times a day into town, instead of driving 30 minutes, was basically zero. They eventually cancelled the bus line since it was just too expensive and inefficient to run. The alternative of trying to provide a truly useful public transport service (say 2 buss lines running every 30 mintues) would have been extremely expensive and would have meant even more empty busses.
pjc50 3y ago
The population is still growing, however you want to slice it. > The problem is that rural areas ("flyover states") have been left to rot: no reliable electricity grid, no public transport, basic infrastructure from grocery stores over schools to basic healthcare has closed down This narrative also works in the UK, but where the abandoned areas are mostly coastal. Seaside towns with no tourists and no fish. Ex-mining areas. And the same problem of people becoming more rightist as they become more resource-starved, preferring the solution of demonizing people they think shouldn't get resources rather than anything else. Fairly sure this list correlates with high votes for Brexit: https://www.moveiq.co.uk/blog/buying/10-cheapest-places-buy-house-uk/ https://www.moveiq.co.uk/blog/buying/10-cheapest-places-buy-... Let's have a look at Middlesborough since it's at the top and I have ancestors from there. You can get a really cheap house in town, near plenty of infrastructure: https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/62793200/ https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/62793200/ Why is it so cheap? Well, unemployment is really high: https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/new-data-reveals-teesside-areas-24885105 https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/new-data-re... And how did that happen? https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/28/redcar-steel-plant-to-close-with-1700-job-losses https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/28/redcar-stee... Not really sure what central government could do about this, but I'm fairly sure they've not even tried thinking about it.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Why is it so cheap? Well, unemployment is really high: The thing is nobody (with a stable job) wants to live in areas with high unemployment because of all the social issues those areas have.
  - kkfdkerpoe 3y ago
    Depends on the area. Lots of countryside areas have high unemployment statistically, but are actually very chill because there are so few people, and most of them are retirees. With adequate internet connectivity they can be perfect for remote workers.
    - 3y ago
indymike 3y ago
> The problem is that rural areas ("flyover states") have been left to rot: no reliable electricity grid, I live in a flyover state in the US. Quality electricity is not a problem, save for areas that are Amish and simply don't use it. Even there, electricity is at the curb, it's just never been run to a home. On the telecom front, most rural areas have WISPs, mobile carriers (5g home internet isn't bad) or local telecom companies (DSL & Fiber) that have also solved this problem. It did take almost 20 years to solve the internet issue, and there are some rural homes that are located geographically where wireless won't work well, but on the whole things are a lot better than you are saying. The real issue in a lot of small towns is that the homes are old and often expensive to maintain, there's little entertainment and most importantly, jobs are still a problem. Between remote workers moving out of the city and the trend towards more onshoring of manufacturing, small towns in my state are starting to show signs of life, finally. > that this neglect is a direct cause of people losing trust in democracy is just the icing on the cake Not sure if you meant to say "icing on the cake" here because it comes across that you are celebrating people losing trust in democracy.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

Of course, if everyone's wages would rise X%, it will increase rents and real-estate prices accordingly, as those are always prices as high as the market would bear and the more disposable income the market has, the more it can bear price increases.

Sakos 3y ago
Housing is a fixed cost that everyone is required to pay. I can stop buying chicken. I can't stop paying for housing. There are peculiarities about housing as a "product" that make it nonsensical to compare to other products or markets. The housing market can easily increase prices as much as it wants without losing out on revenue or potential gains, and in many markets it has done so to the degree that millions of people are priced out or relegated to spending all their discretionary funds on it, as well as forcing them to reduce their food, heating and/or transport budgets.
- zabzonk 3y ago
  many homeless people would disagree - food is more important
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    We're not talking about some poor African country suffering form famine. Food affordability is not as big of an issue in the west compared to the cost of housing. We have mastered agriculture, supply chain and economies of scale to have cheap mas produced food that can keep even the poor from starving(and even affording them enough calories to get fat if they wish), but we did the exact opposite for housing so we can monetize it. By design, western housing doesn't have the same political and market dynamics that drive cheap food to also drive cheap houses.
    - zabzonk 3y ago
      the first thing you need is food. i can't understand what you are talking about here - food is not free.

xdennis 3y ago

The problem isn't land owners it's landlords. Renting should be illegal and anyone caught accepting rent should lose his property to the renter. Owning a lot of land/houses isn't really the problem. It's when you're not using them that's the problem. You should just sell and not leech on society by renting.

zabzonk 3y ago
i happily rented places for all of the 1970s - things went a bit wild after that
sillystate2023 3y ago
[dead]
cpursley 3y ago
Could you elaborate more about what you mean and how this would work? Where do young adults live? Where do new residents in a city live?
- aelhage 3y ago
  Not to mention the people that choose to rent. We can argue over how much landlords deserve, but they should generally be providing a service as well - maintaining the property and shielding the tenant from some of the risk. I wonder if in this hypothetical "no renting" scenario we'd see complete home maintenance service companies take their place. It would be an improvement - you can fire them without moving, but I don't think we could expect them to be any less exploitative than landlords are now.
- jppittma 3y ago
  There could be a government mortage program like the student loan program.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - 3y ago

cpursley 3y ago

You know there’s a real issue when progressives and libertarians are both in alignment (maybe not on the solutions, but in the problem). A big part of the solution in North America is to change zoning and planning laws to allow for (missing) middle housing and allow for building up. https://missingmiddlehousing.com https://missingmiddlehousing.com

spaceman_2020 3y ago

This story is being repeated across countries and cities. It really is high time there is some serious regulation around home ownership, especially as an investment vehicle. I would even say this is an existential issue for our current civilizational model - the unaffordability of housing is contributing to demographic decline globally.

nelsonic 3y ago
Agreed. What regulation would you propose?
- raziel2p 3y ago
  A simple one would be progressive tax on house ownership. For each house/apartment/whatever you own, you pay N% more tax on it than the previous one.
  - andyferris 3y ago
    We have a simple version of this in many states of Australia. I wonder if it has helped? We are also having similar rent vs wage issues here.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    Until you use LLCs, corps, or trusts to get around that. Even if you didn't get around it that way, landlords will pass the tax onto the tenants.
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    But the higher taxes are then transoformed into higher rents, while at the same time, you still need more housing units in many areas.
    - raziel2p 3y ago
      I do think we still need to build more (correctly sized) housing, counteract urbanization, provide social housing, and I'm in favor of rent control in general. So don't get me wrong, I don't think progressive tax will solve the problem on its own. That being said: Higher taxes could lead to higher rents, but that stops working once the supply of people willing to pay said higher rent is exhausted. At some point landlords won't be able to rent out their place with a profit, at which point you have 2 options: Leave it empty (which should also be illegal, IMO) or sell it (to people who would otherwise have to rent). It could be that there is a potential never-ending supply of rich people wanting to pay rent to live in a place with ever-increasing rent and the gentrification that comes with it, but it seems unlikely to me. In the Netherlands there were recently a set of tax changes increasing taxes on house ownership, which caused companies to sell apartments en mass. Housing prices dipped for a little bit, rent (in the private market) went up, but more people own their own place now. This is the direction you want to go, I think.

throwawa14223 3y ago

Until we stop the mass migration there is no solution to a housing shortage.

Etrnl_President 3y ago

Government artificially restricts the supply of housing through zoning and excess regulation. This creates artificial shortages and inflates prices and rents. A more detailed analcyst: https://mises.org/wire/how-governments-outlaw-affordable-housing https://mises.org/wire/how-governments-outlaw-affordable-hou...

lamontcg 3y ago

It isn't just housing, it is also the medical system and education. These things that basically everyone needs are not getting cheaper over time but are getting more expensive so that they vacuum up as much money as possible. (And it looks like vehicles/transportation is going to go this way as well, with companies licensing all the software in the vehicles to customers on a yearly subscription basis)