5 ms·

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.
    - wildrhythms 3y ago
      All that and no mention of rent control...
      - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
        If you have enough realestate, there's no need for rent control, because landlords will have to lower prices to get anyone to stay in their apartments, and empty apartments are still a huge cost to the owner. High costs of rent and (buying) houses is because there's not enough supply in the first place.
        wildrhythms 3y ago
        That policy has been tried for 50 years and all we've seen (and the topic of this thread) is prices gone higher and higher, and properties become more and more consolidated under megacorporations.
        ajsnigrutin 3y ago
        50 years ago, this place where I live was a socialist country and we built HUGE apartment building neighbourhoods (literally thousands of apartments) + all the infrastructure needed (schools, kindergardens, stores, parks,...). After 1991 all of this has stoped. I don't know where you are from, but when was the last time you guys built a new neighbourhood for 10, 20 thousand people to live in? Because i've been all over both always-capitalist and former-socialist countries (mostly europe), and most of them are old with just a few newer buildings, mostly replacing the demolished old ones. It really doesn't matter, slovenia (my home), or germany... you see a bunch of large apartment blocks built in the same style, for many many people to live in, and you just know it was built somewhere between 1960s and late 1980s, and not after.
        em-bee 3y ago
        vienna is doing that right now: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seestadt_Aspern https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seestadt_Aspern
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    You're assuming the market will bear the higher rents. If that is true, why aren't rents already at that higher level? Not all costs can simply be "passed on to customers" if they won't bear the increase.
pjc50 3y ago
"One residential property per person"? Or the more reasonable one owned + max one let out? (Some holiday lets are entirely legit and necessary for some local economies, but the politics of that is very complicated and site-specific.)
- giantg2 3y ago
  That won't fix anything. Many rentals are apartment buildings and are built/owned by large companies. You would effectively make the situation worse because individuals wouldn't be able to build high density housing if they're only allowed one unit. Edit: why disagree?
  - pjc50 3y ago
    Controversial opinion, but corporate landlords tend to be better than individual landlords because it's impersonal and it's harder to hide. They also have different tax treatment. > individuals wouldn't be able to build high density housing Who exactly has (a) enough money to build an apartment block and (b) not enough to put it in a corporate wrapper? (Admittedly the wrapper problem is a serious issue for any kind of rationing!)
    - giantg2 3y ago
      The problem with the large companies is they are more likely to price fix and leave units empty. But I do agree they tend to be easier to deal with.
      - rhaway84773 3y ago
        Some cities place an empty unit tax. I’m not sure why that’s more popular in the US. Not rented out a property for 3 months straight? Ok, pay 25% of the rent to the govt then. Property prices will quickly find their market value (and we will know if the problem is genuinely a shortage of space then).
    - herbstein 3y ago
EGreg 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
solatic 3y ago
Single-payer. One government agency is permitted to purchase construction of additional units, and also manage the long-term rental (pricing set at auction) of those units in a rent-to-own model, where "own" means the right to live in that unit rent-free until you die, at which point control reverts to the government agency, combined with laws that forbid owning/renting multiple residences. Add in some allowances like giving neighbors right-of-first-rent so that rich people can combine units, some carveouts like keeping short-term hotels private, but basically, yeah, single-payer.
- pjc50 3y ago
  This is sort of how social housing used to work in the UK ("council houses"), but with additional restrictions on private ownership that are politically very hard. > right to live in that unit rent-free until you die This is very bad for labour mobility. It's a hukou system for retirees.
  - solatic 3y ago
    > This is very bad for labour mobility. It's a hukou system for retirees. This is unfortunately a political requirement for passage. There are very, very few people 60+ who have lived in the same place for 20+ years who are willing to leave their houses, and most who do are dragged into nursing homes only because they are no longer physically capable of taking care of themselves. The rent-to-own period can and should be quite long, like 30-40 years, similar to a mortgage. But the quality of "nobody can take my property away from me" is quite strongly felt, and not one that you can really take away from people. Any radical housing reform must respect that.
- fallingknife 3y ago
  Wow! That's worse than the CCP. I thought that all these other ideas on this thread to basically make everybody buy instead of rent were bad. But to force everybody to rent from the government is literally the worst housing arrangement idea I have ever heard.

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.
  - wildrhythms 3y ago
    All that and no mention of rent control...
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      If you have enough realestate, there's no need for rent control, because landlords will have to lower prices to get anyone to stay in their apartments, and empty apartments are still a huge cost to the owner. High costs of rent and (buying) houses is because there's not enough supply in the first place.
      - wildrhythms 3y ago
        That policy has been tried for 50 years and all we've seen (and the topic of this thread) is prices gone higher and higher, and properties become more and more consolidated under megacorporations.
        ajsnigrutin 3y ago
        50 years ago, this place where I live was a socialist country and we built HUGE apartment building neighbourhoods (literally thousands of apartments) + all the infrastructure needed (schools, kindergardens, stores, parks,...). After 1991 all of this has stoped. I don't know where you are from, but when was the last time you guys built a new neighbourhood for 10, 20 thousand people to live in? Because i've been all over both always-capitalist and former-socialist countries (mostly europe), and most of them are old with just a few newer buildings, mostly replacing the demolished old ones. It really doesn't matter, slovenia (my home), or germany... you see a bunch of large apartment blocks built in the same style, for many many people to live in, and you just know it was built somewhere between 1960s and late 1980s, and not after.
        em-bee 3y ago
        vienna is doing that right now: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seestadt_Aspern https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seestadt_Aspern
- ryandrake 3y ago
  You're assuming the market will bear the higher rents. If that is true, why aren't rents already at that higher level? Not all costs can simply be "passed on to customers" if they won't bear the increase.

pjc50 3y ago

"One residential property per person"? Or the more reasonable one owned + max one let out? (Some holiday lets are entirely legit and necessary for some local economies, but the politics of that is very complicated and site-specific.)

giantg2 3y ago
That won't fix anything. Many rentals are apartment buildings and are built/owned by large companies. You would effectively make the situation worse because individuals wouldn't be able to build high density housing if they're only allowed one unit. Edit: why disagree?
- pjc50 3y ago
  Controversial opinion, but corporate landlords tend to be better than individual landlords because it's impersonal and it's harder to hide. They also have different tax treatment. > individuals wouldn't be able to build high density housing Who exactly has (a) enough money to build an apartment block and (b) not enough to put it in a corporate wrapper? (Admittedly the wrapper problem is a serious issue for any kind of rationing!)
  - giantg2 3y ago
    The problem with the large companies is they are more likely to price fix and leave units empty. But I do agree they tend to be easier to deal with.
    - rhaway84773 3y ago
      Some cities place an empty unit tax. I’m not sure why that’s more popular in the US. Not rented out a property for 3 months straight? Ok, pay 25% of the rent to the govt then. Property prices will quickly find their market value (and we will know if the problem is genuinely a shortage of space then).
  - herbstein 3y ago

EGreg 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

solatic 3y ago

Single-payer. One government agency is permitted to purchase construction of additional units, and also manage the long-term rental (pricing set at auction) of those units in a rent-to-own model, where "own" means the right to live in that unit rent-free until you die, at which point control reverts to the government agency, combined with laws that forbid owning/renting multiple residences. Add in some allowances like giving neighbors right-of-first-rent so that rich people can combine units, some carveouts like keeping short-term hotels private, but basically, yeah, single-payer.

pjc50 3y ago
This is sort of how social housing used to work in the UK ("council houses"), but with additional restrictions on private ownership that are politically very hard. > right to live in that unit rent-free until you die This is very bad for labour mobility. It's a hukou system for retirees.
- solatic 3y ago
  > This is very bad for labour mobility. It's a hukou system for retirees. This is unfortunately a political requirement for passage. There are very, very few people 60+ who have lived in the same place for 20+ years who are willing to leave their houses, and most who do are dragged into nursing homes only because they are no longer physically capable of taking care of themselves. The rent-to-own period can and should be quite long, like 30-40 years, similar to a mortgage. But the quality of "nobody can take my property away from me" is quite strongly felt, and not one that you can really take away from people. Any radical housing reform must respect that.
fallingknife 3y ago
Wow! That's worse than the CCP. I thought that all these other ideas on this thread to basically make everybody buy instead of rent were bad. But to force everybody to rent from the government is literally the worst housing arrangement idea I have ever heard.