11 ms·

IMO it is good that Barcelona bought the building. I don't think regulating rent prices and the housing market helps lower rents. In Poblenou, a district of Ba

IMO it is good that Barcelona bought the building. I don't think regulating rent prices and the housing market helps lower rents. In Poblenou, a district of Barcelona where I live, the city has decided that 50-70% of each property sold has to be purposed for social housing, i.e. limiting the rent to a fourth of the market price and choosing the tenants. Many of the district buildings are abandoned factory halls. I am rennovating one of them to become a house for my family, but am now forced to rent half of it to a poor family. From what I can see from the neighborhood is that there is almost no building activity and that private investments have stopped.

mytailorisrich 2y ago
Rent controls don't work because they do the opposite of what would be needed: they reduce supply and increase demand whereas you'd want to increase supply and reduce demand.
- righthand 2y ago
  How do you reduce demand on an over populated planet where building happens slower that selling?
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    In specific areas demand is reduced via higher prices. Market 101. Hence why rent controls do the opposite... Now, in Europe the growing demand overall is due to immigration, which is a matter of policy and thus can also easily be reduced/regulated.
    - hibikir 2y ago
      An overlooked part of Spain's problem is that investing in having a very big apartment is a much better savings vehicle than investing in stock markets. The equivalent of an American 401k has a very small contribution limit, and wealth taxes hit pretty hard and pretty early. So as family sizes shrink, there's a lot of housing overconsumption. A single person, or a family of 2, living in what in the 80s was a family of 6, plus a live-in nanny. So for the same population, you need far more built space. The property tax for owning a pretty expensive apartment are very low by global standards, and housing appreciation isn't a real thing until you sell. My family in Spain is either very house poor, making little and having to rent, or inherited more house than they ever need, and keep it underoccupied because trying to put it to more productive use is pretty risky. Regulations that foster better utilization would make a big dent, but they would be extremely unpopular. Even those that don't own an apartment just want one to be cheap so they can use it as a wealth building tool, as almost nobody wants housing as an investment to be a pretty dubious deal.
    - radu_floricica 2y ago
      There _are_ other ways. Less efficient and arguably more expensive, but for completeness sake they should be mentioned. For example, build infrastructure that favor sprawling. This way people will prefer to live in nicer, smaller towns as long as they're still 30 minutes train ride from the city. (I'm in Paris now, and their RER is an awesome example of this.) Encourage remote work, or at least don't hinder it. Test some anti-car measures, like congestion taxes or just make whole neighborhoods car free. This makes commute time less directly proportional to physical distance - if you have to walk 10 minutes or take a train either way, you're more ok with living in a suburb.
  - odiroot 2y ago
    Well, I have a modest proposal...
MysticFear 2y ago
Europe will do everything, except build more housing supply, to lower rents.
- betaby 2y ago
  Europe is not unique in this. Canada will go extra mile in order not to build.
  - BobAliceInATree 2y ago
    Yeah, the USA (in general) won’t do anything at all. A few medium-sized cities like Austin are the exception to this.
    - kortilla 2y ago
      ??? Lots of large cities are building a bunch. Every large city in Texas, Phoenix, Tucson, Salt Lake, etc.
      - IncreasePosts 2y ago
        Florida feels like every square mile is under construction with new builds too.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        Those could be called medium sized.
        kortilla 2y ago
        Those areas are far larger than San Francisco
        bluGill 2y ago
        The whole bay area not the city proper
righthand 2y ago
If private investment had allowed for people of all income types to live in your neighborhood, then the investment wouldn’t stop. However from your description it sounds like the “private investment” was people similar to you that wanted to create a neighborhood of ONLY private investor housing (wealthy). That’s why Barcelona decided that 50-70% must be available for lower income levels. Otherwise it ends up like America where only 0-20% of housing must be affordable and the market ends up being mostly 2nd homes for the wealthy. Mostly empty buildings, dead neighborhoods, and airbnbs.
- derdrdirk 2y ago
  There are many people that are willing to rent at the market rate? I would argue that if there is more supply on the market property owners will be forced to rent at lower prices? For those who do not I would create incentives like raising taxes for empty property.
simplerulezzz 2y ago
Simple rules can fix this and technology can help. Only residents can buy real estate. Only one property per household. They have to live in it at least 6 months a year. The rest of the 6 month they could rent, but only at a long term price. If a rental developer wishes to buy they should be steered in a area where rental development is allowed and encouraged. And then enforce the squatting laws. Because that is hurting the local population as well.
- radu_floricica 2y ago
  And, I'm saying this in the nicest way possible, gives you the right to make up rules on what I can do with my property? Measures as drastic as this need correspondingly dire reasons. You can call it "housing crisis", but the truth is there are many ways to fix this that don't come even close to this level of communism. Dezoning, for once - I've linked this before: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-japan-succeeds-despite-stagnation https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-japan-succ... Simply building more, and encouraging people to build (instead of encouraging them to do absolutely anything else) Or, of last resort, what this article is describing - use public funds to buy buildings and rent them cheaply. It's insane, if you do the math, but it's a lot less insane than rent control or what you're suggesting. (apologies if Poe's Law).
  - thfuran 2y ago
    >gives you the right to make up rules on what I can do with my property? What gives you the right to make up rules about what everyone else can do with a particular place on their world?
  - BrenBarn 2y ago
    Well, what if we flip it around: What gives you the right to own a bunch of extra AirBnB properties in the first place? It's just a set of assumptions that we've been living under for a while and that we can change if the society overall wants to. Some feudal lord 500 years ago might have said "What gives you peasants the right to own any land at all, or question my judgment on any matter?" There's nothing magical about the particular conception of property rights we're currently immersed in.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
Emancipate your child and sell it to them!
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
crooked-v 2y ago
> I don't think regulating rent prices and the housing market helps lower rents. We have proof from studies that rent control actively makes things worse for everyone, including the people currently on rent control, because owners convert buildings to condos or exit the market entirely, actually raising average rents for rent control tenants. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-does-economic-eviden...
- dumbledoren 2y ago
  > We have proof from studies that rent control actively makes things worse for everyone There is rent control everywhere in Spain and it didn't make anything worse. For some reason this 'rent control make everything worse' always originates from the Angloamerican financial discourse. And not surprisingly, the reference you gave is from a neoliberal institute...
  - jwarden 2y ago
    I am Spanish, and I can tell you there is a lot of Spanish media claiming rent control is making things worse in the cities that implemented it. Just do a Google search from within Spain: almost all the results discuss negative impact. Try this search search: control de alquiler barcelona efectos
    - Scrutiny6707 2y ago
      They are saying it... is it true? Or is it just propaganda?
- consumer451 2y ago
  This anecdotal, but rent control sure was nice in Santa Monica when I lived there. I could have never stayed there as long as I did if not for rent control. Neither could any of the old ladies in my building. Everyone aside from the land lords seemed to love it.
dumbledoren 2y ago
> private investments have stopped Amazing how you say it as if it was a bad thing. Those 'private investments' are precisely what are bloating the price of housing.
- derdrdirk 2y ago
  From the sample of my direct neighborhood I can tell that there are many empty former warehouses that could be turned into housing stock. I don't see the city developing any of those neither.

mytailorisrich 2y ago

Rent controls don't work because they do the opposite of what would be needed: they reduce supply and increase demand whereas you'd want to increase supply and reduce demand.

righthand 2y ago
How do you reduce demand on an over populated planet where building happens slower that selling?
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  In specific areas demand is reduced via higher prices. Market 101. Hence why rent controls do the opposite... Now, in Europe the growing demand overall is due to immigration, which is a matter of policy and thus can also easily be reduced/regulated.
  - hibikir 2y ago
    An overlooked part of Spain's problem is that investing in having a very big apartment is a much better savings vehicle than investing in stock markets. The equivalent of an American 401k has a very small contribution limit, and wealth taxes hit pretty hard and pretty early. So as family sizes shrink, there's a lot of housing overconsumption. A single person, or a family of 2, living in what in the 80s was a family of 6, plus a live-in nanny. So for the same population, you need far more built space. The property tax for owning a pretty expensive apartment are very low by global standards, and housing appreciation isn't a real thing until you sell. My family in Spain is either very house poor, making little and having to rent, or inherited more house than they ever need, and keep it underoccupied because trying to put it to more productive use is pretty risky. Regulations that foster better utilization would make a big dent, but they would be extremely unpopular. Even those that don't own an apartment just want one to be cheap so they can use it as a wealth building tool, as almost nobody wants housing as an investment to be a pretty dubious deal.
  - radu_floricica 2y ago
    There _are_ other ways. Less efficient and arguably more expensive, but for completeness sake they should be mentioned. For example, build infrastructure that favor sprawling. This way people will prefer to live in nicer, smaller towns as long as they're still 30 minutes train ride from the city. (I'm in Paris now, and their RER is an awesome example of this.) Encourage remote work, or at least don't hinder it. Test some anti-car measures, like congestion taxes or just make whole neighborhoods car free. This makes commute time less directly proportional to physical distance - if you have to walk 10 minutes or take a train either way, you're more ok with living in a suburb.
- odiroot 2y ago
  Well, I have a modest proposal...

MysticFear 2y ago

Europe will do everything, except build more housing supply, to lower rents.

betaby 2y ago
Europe is not unique in this. Canada will go extra mile in order not to build.
- BobAliceInATree 2y ago
  Yeah, the USA (in general) won’t do anything at all. A few medium-sized cities like Austin are the exception to this.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    ??? Lots of large cities are building a bunch. Every large city in Texas, Phoenix, Tucson, Salt Lake, etc.
    - IncreasePosts 2y ago
      Florida feels like every square mile is under construction with new builds too.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Those could be called medium sized.
      - kortilla 2y ago
        Those areas are far larger than San Francisco
        bluGill 2y ago
        The whole bay area not the city proper

righthand 2y ago

If private investment had allowed for people of all income types to live in your neighborhood, then the investment wouldn’t stop. However from your description it sounds like the “private investment” was people similar to you that wanted to create a neighborhood of ONLY private investor housing (wealthy). That’s why Barcelona decided that 50-70% must be available for lower income levels. Otherwise it ends up like America where only 0-20% of housing must be affordable and the market ends up being mostly 2nd homes for the wealthy. Mostly empty buildings, dead neighborhoods, and airbnbs.

derdrdirk 2y ago
There are many people that are willing to rent at the market rate? I would argue that if there is more supply on the market property owners will be forced to rent at lower prices? For those who do not I would create incentives like raising taxes for empty property.

simplerulezzz 2y ago

Simple rules can fix this and technology can help. Only residents can buy real estate. Only one property per household. They have to live in it at least 6 months a year. The rest of the 6 month they could rent, but only at a long term price. If a rental developer wishes to buy they should be steered in a area where rental development is allowed and encouraged. And then enforce the squatting laws. Because that is hurting the local population as well.

radu_floricica 2y ago
And, I'm saying this in the nicest way possible, gives you the right to make up rules on what I can do with my property? Measures as drastic as this need correspondingly dire reasons. You can call it "housing crisis", but the truth is there are many ways to fix this that don't come even close to this level of communism. Dezoning, for once - I've linked this before: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-japan-succeeds-despite-stagnation https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/why-japan-succ... Simply building more, and encouraging people to build (instead of encouraging them to do absolutely anything else) Or, of last resort, what this article is describing - use public funds to buy buildings and rent them cheaply. It's insane, if you do the math, but it's a lot less insane than rent control or what you're suggesting. (apologies if Poe's Law).
- thfuran 2y ago
  >gives you the right to make up rules on what I can do with my property? What gives you the right to make up rules about what everyone else can do with a particular place on their world?
- BrenBarn 2y ago
  Well, what if we flip it around: What gives you the right to own a bunch of extra AirBnB properties in the first place? It's just a set of assumptions that we've been living under for a while and that we can change if the society overall wants to. Some feudal lord 500 years ago might have said "What gives you peasants the right to own any land at all, or question my judgment on any matter?" There's nothing magical about the particular conception of property rights we're currently immersed in.

IncreasePosts 2y ago

Emancipate your child and sell it to them!

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

crooked-v 2y ago

> I don't think regulating rent prices and the housing market helps lower rents. We have proof from studies that rent control actively makes things worse for everyone, including the people currently on rent control, because owners convert buildings to condos or exit the market entirely, actually raising average rents for rent control tenants. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-does-economic-eviden...

dumbledoren 2y ago
> We have proof from studies that rent control actively makes things worse for everyone There is rent control everywhere in Spain and it didn't make anything worse. For some reason this 'rent control make everything worse' always originates from the Angloamerican financial discourse. And not surprisingly, the reference you gave is from a neoliberal institute...
- jwarden 2y ago
  I am Spanish, and I can tell you there is a lot of Spanish media claiming rent control is making things worse in the cities that implemented it. Just do a Google search from within Spain: almost all the results discuss negative impact. Try this search search: control de alquiler barcelona efectos
  - Scrutiny6707 2y ago
    They are saying it... is it true? Or is it just propaganda?
consumer451 2y ago
This anecdotal, but rent control sure was nice in Santa Monica when I lived there. I could have never stayed there as long as I did if not for rent control. Neither could any of the old ladies in my building. Everyone aside from the land lords seemed to love it.

dumbledoren 2y ago

> private investments have stopped Amazing how you say it as if it was a bad thing. Those 'private investments' are precisely what are bloating the price of housing.

derdrdirk 2y ago
From the sample of my direct neighborhood I can tell that there are many empty former warehouses that could be turned into housing stock. I don't see the city developing any of those neither.