4 ms·

Does step 1 mean I can't rent my apartment from a company anymore? Seems complicated in that case, I don't want ro own a house, I don't know anything about them

Does step 1 mean I can't rent my apartment from a company anymore? Seems complicated in that case, I don't want ro own a house, I don't know anything about them and I don't care. I'd prefer if step 1 was something like "remove government subsidies to people who buy or own real estate". And step 2: Build publicly owned apartments.

grecy 3y ago
> Does step 1 mean I can't rent my apartment from a company anymore? Why should a company own a residential property for the purposes of renting it out and spinning a profit? I'm saying we must remove that if we want housing to be affordable. > I'd prefer if step 1 was something like "remove government subsidies to people who buy or own real estate". This is such a classic misunderstanding of the problem. Government subsidies are not the core problem here, and they have extremely minimal impact on the cost of housing, or the availability of housing for sale. > And step 2: Build publicly owned apartments. As we know projects like this take forever and go through literally decades of red tape and bureaucracy. There is a much simpler and faster way that will address the crisis NOW. Let humans who need a house to live in buy the houses that already exist but are being horded by companies and other people whose sole purpose to own the house in the first place is to spin a profit. We absolutely should not let companies like Nestlé buy all the available drinking water on the planet so they can sell it for high profits, so why the hell are we letting companies (and people) buy all the available housing for the purpose of renting it at a profit?
- orangesite 3y ago
  It would be interesting to apply the existing anti-monopoly rules designed to prevent Nestlé from buying all the water to the companies who are buying all the houses. Knowing the deep aversion to risk the owners of these companies have I guess it would only take one successful ruling to discourage pretty much the whole market and significantly reset house prices. Private landlords would take a bit more finagling given that renters also dream of one day owning multiple homes they can rent out but maybe one could sweeten the pot by finding ways to help folk retire more easily? Implementing this may take winning a national election and a non-trivial amount of social engineering but it's not like it hasn't been done before in other places at other times. I do like your ideas.
  - grecy 3y ago
    > that renters also dream of one day owning multiple homes they can rent out This is precisely what needs to stop. As soon as you have some people buying multiple houses to make a profit from, you make housing un-affordable, and there are not enough to go around because some people have many.
- geysersam 3y ago
  I'm sympathetic to the goal of achieving affordable housing, but by this logic why would we let private companies run anything? We do because private companies are often good at running things and usually their profit is small compared to the benefits they bring by being competent and professional. This is far from always the case, of course, but in my experience the renting market works well and I'm happy I don't have to deal with the hassle of owning an maintaining part of a building.

grecy 3y ago

> Does step 1 mean I can't rent my apartment from a company anymore? Why should a company own a residential property for the purposes of renting it out and spinning a profit? I'm saying we must remove that if we want housing to be affordable. > I'd prefer if step 1 was something like "remove government subsidies to people who buy or own real estate". This is such a classic misunderstanding of the problem. Government subsidies are not the core problem here, and they have extremely minimal impact on the cost of housing, or the availability of housing for sale. > And step 2: Build publicly owned apartments. As we know projects like this take forever and go through literally decades of red tape and bureaucracy. There is a much simpler and faster way that will address the crisis NOW. Let humans who need a house to live in buy the houses that already exist but are being horded by companies and other people whose sole purpose to own the house in the first place is to spin a profit. We absolutely should not let companies like Nestlé buy all the available drinking water on the planet so they can sell it for high profits, so why the hell are we letting companies (and people) buy all the available housing for the purpose of renting it at a profit?

orangesite 3y ago
It would be interesting to apply the existing anti-monopoly rules designed to prevent Nestlé from buying all the water to the companies who are buying all the houses. Knowing the deep aversion to risk the owners of these companies have I guess it would only take one successful ruling to discourage pretty much the whole market and significantly reset house prices. Private landlords would take a bit more finagling given that renters also dream of one day owning multiple homes they can rent out but maybe one could sweeten the pot by finding ways to help folk retire more easily? Implementing this may take winning a national election and a non-trivial amount of social engineering but it's not like it hasn't been done before in other places at other times. I do like your ideas.
- grecy 3y ago
  > that renters also dream of one day owning multiple homes they can rent out This is precisely what needs to stop. As soon as you have some people buying multiple houses to make a profit from, you make housing un-affordable, and there are not enough to go around because some people have many.
geysersam 3y ago
I'm sympathetic to the goal of achieving affordable housing, but by this logic why would we let private companies run anything? We do because private companies are often good at running things and usually their profit is small compared to the benefits they bring by being competent and professional. This is far from always the case, of course, but in my experience the renting market works well and I'm happy I don't have to deal with the hassle of owning an maintaining part of a building.