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> If you remove landlords (but keep property managers, developers, etc In this scenario, who owns the property? And if you are advocating that everyone should

> If you remove landlords (but keep property managers, developers, etc In this scenario, who owns the property? And if you are advocating that everyone should own their home, what is the point of a property manager? What about the people who do not actually want to own their home?

Aurornis 4mo ago
The steelman interpretation would be that government is the only party allowed to own rental properties. Nobody would be allowed to rent out a space they owned because it would turn them into a landlord. All of the rooms people rent out to others would go away. You wouldn’t be able to rent a private house from someone, you’d have no choice but to live in government owned housing developments. This would be incredibly unpopular if implemented because it wouldn’t resemble the utopian fantasy it’s supposed to represent. It’s a vacuous idealism in the same category as “billionaires shouldn’t exist” that serves as a placeholder for an unspecified utopian government-run economy. The details are never specified, you’re just supposed to imagine it works and nothing is lost as a tradeoff.
- chadgpt3 4mo ago
  That isn't a steel man
- keiferski 4mo ago
  I think Vienna somewhat functions like this, and it seems to be fine. Not that individuals can’t literally own property and rent it out, but that most housing options are government owned.
  - em-bee 4mo ago
    actually a lot is privately owned, but by law 2/3rd of every rental property must be offered as subsidized by the city. so in practice you own the building, but the city decides who gets to rent 2/3rds of it since the subsidized units are only given to people who have a low enough income.
    - keiferski 4mo ago
      Interesting, thanks for the clarification.
cpburns2009 4mo ago
This is exactly my problem with these arguments that demonize landlords. I've lived in multiple cities where I knew I'd only live there for a couple years, and I'm only interested in renting. How do you live somewhere short term without someone owning the rented property?
- matips 4mo ago
  You could buy property and sell it later. Of course it is not a solution to current situation when real estate are very expensive, but in theoretical discussion where real estates are affordable you can buy it and sell when you move.
  - cpburns2009 4mo ago
    But I don't want to buy a home, maintain it, and have to sell it 2 years later. Renting provides a great solution that makes both sides of the transaction happy.
  - Aurornis 4mo ago
    > You could buy property and sell it later. Real estate transactions are extremely expensive. Even if you sell the property for the same price you paid for it, you lose a huge amount of money in the process. This is not a replacement for renting.
- smallmancontrov 4mo ago
  Swapping the base layer of the capital stack has zero visible change to the person renting. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's common in asia. Instead of: Investor owns the land Investor pays for construction, finance, maintenance Investor receivers rent They do: Government owns the land Investor pays to lease the land for 30 years or whatever Investor pays for construction, finance, maintenance Investor receives rent The active roles don't change, the market that keeps them dynamic and competitive doesn't change, but the firehose of passive money goes into tax revenue instead of some rich guy's pocket.
  - deleted 4mo ago
raybb 4mo ago
Community land trusts, cooperatives, nonprofits, universities, local government, etc. The problem is always financing. If you're going to own a place you need a lot of upfront capital. If you own a place and plan to maximize rent increases it's easy to leverage your new asset to buy more properties. But if you just want to keep it near cost then you need a new infusion of capital for each new property. So, by their nature such endeavors don't grow as fast as rent maximizing landlord can grow.
- fooker 4mo ago
  The problem is not capital here. Universities and governments have quite a bit of capital. They could do this in a larger scale. It's more about risk management. Do you want your university to be disbanded or your local government bankrupt if there is a war or natural disaster, or even a standard city block fire. I assure you wars and natural disasters are not that uncommon in the grand scheme of things. That's why we have people or corporations with a higher appetite for risk assume the risk. These entities, unfortunately, don't always have your best interests in mind.
  - raybb 4mo ago
    What cities in the US have the capital to do this at a large scale? Risk management is certainly a part of it but every discussion here in SF and broadly in the CLT movement is about how to get capital access. A university endowment or a city's tax revenue is legally and structurally earmarked. They can't just liquidate those assets to buy for local real estate. For the non-profits and community land trusts actually doing this work, securing patient, low-cost capital is absolutely the primary bottleneck. The high leverage of private landlords actually makes them more vulnerable to systemic shocks. Meanwhile, non-market housing models (like land trusts) don't over-leverage their properties, which is exactly why they historically have much lower default rates during crises. Given the option of landlords making bank for their risk and then getting a government bailout when there's an economic shock or having more housing decommoddified I'd take the latter. There's very little housing in the US that is under these alternative structures so at the very least I'd encourage more experimentation with them.
estearum 4mo ago
They can be privately owned and have the land value (unearned value, by definition) simply taxed away. Or you can have the government own the land but do long-term (99 year) leases, like they do in Singapore.
- smallmancontrov 4mo ago
  Singapore has the correct approach. Land Value Tax is the incorrect approach. LVT has the same vulnerability as property tax: owners can worm their way into the policy details and redirect the surplus back into their own pockets. Leases bypass this problem through the competitive bidding process.

Aurornis 4mo ago

The steelman interpretation would be that government is the only party allowed to own rental properties. Nobody would be allowed to rent out a space they owned because it would turn them into a landlord. All of the rooms people rent out to others would go away. You wouldn’t be able to rent a private house from someone, you’d have no choice but to live in government owned housing developments. This would be incredibly unpopular if implemented because it wouldn’t resemble the utopian fantasy it’s supposed to represent. It’s a vacuous idealism in the same category as “billionaires shouldn’t exist” that serves as a placeholder for an unspecified utopian government-run economy. The details are never specified, you’re just supposed to imagine it works and nothing is lost as a tradeoff.

chadgpt3 4mo ago
That isn't a steel man
keiferski 4mo ago
I think Vienna somewhat functions like this, and it seems to be fine. Not that individuals can’t literally own property and rent it out, but that most housing options are government owned.
- em-bee 4mo ago
  actually a lot is privately owned, but by law 2/3rd of every rental property must be offered as subsidized by the city. so in practice you own the building, but the city decides who gets to rent 2/3rds of it since the subsidized units are only given to people who have a low enough income.
  - keiferski 4mo ago
    Interesting, thanks for the clarification.

cpburns2009 4mo ago

This is exactly my problem with these arguments that demonize landlords. I've lived in multiple cities where I knew I'd only live there for a couple years, and I'm only interested in renting. How do you live somewhere short term without someone owning the rented property?

matips 4mo ago
You could buy property and sell it later. Of course it is not a solution to current situation when real estate are very expensive, but in theoretical discussion where real estates are affordable you can buy it and sell when you move.
- cpburns2009 4mo ago
  But I don't want to buy a home, maintain it, and have to sell it 2 years later. Renting provides a great solution that makes both sides of the transaction happy.
- Aurornis 4mo ago
  > You could buy property and sell it later. Real estate transactions are extremely expensive. Even if you sell the property for the same price you paid for it, you lose a huge amount of money in the process. This is not a replacement for renting.
smallmancontrov 4mo ago
Swapping the base layer of the capital stack has zero visible change to the person renting. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's common in asia. Instead of: Investor owns the land Investor pays for construction, finance, maintenance Investor receivers rent They do: Government owns the land Investor pays to lease the land for 30 years or whatever Investor pays for construction, finance, maintenance Investor receives rent The active roles don't change, the market that keeps them dynamic and competitive doesn't change, but the firehose of passive money goes into tax revenue instead of some rich guy's pocket.
- deleted 4mo ago

raybb 4mo ago

Community land trusts, cooperatives, nonprofits, universities, local government, etc. The problem is always financing. If you're going to own a place you need a lot of upfront capital. If you own a place and plan to maximize rent increases it's easy to leverage your new asset to buy more properties. But if you just want to keep it near cost then you need a new infusion of capital for each new property. So, by their nature such endeavors don't grow as fast as rent maximizing landlord can grow.

fooker 4mo ago
The problem is not capital here. Universities and governments have quite a bit of capital. They could do this in a larger scale. It's more about risk management. Do you want your university to be disbanded or your local government bankrupt if there is a war or natural disaster, or even a standard city block fire. I assure you wars and natural disasters are not that uncommon in the grand scheme of things. That's why we have people or corporations with a higher appetite for risk assume the risk. These entities, unfortunately, don't always have your best interests in mind.
- raybb 4mo ago
  What cities in the US have the capital to do this at a large scale? Risk management is certainly a part of it but every discussion here in SF and broadly in the CLT movement is about how to get capital access. A university endowment or a city's tax revenue is legally and structurally earmarked. They can't just liquidate those assets to buy for local real estate. For the non-profits and community land trusts actually doing this work, securing patient, low-cost capital is absolutely the primary bottleneck. The high leverage of private landlords actually makes them more vulnerable to systemic shocks. Meanwhile, non-market housing models (like land trusts) don't over-leverage their properties, which is exactly why they historically have much lower default rates during crises. Given the option of landlords making bank for their risk and then getting a government bailout when there's an economic shock or having more housing decommoddified I'd take the latter. There's very little housing in the US that is under these alternative structures so at the very least I'd encourage more experimentation with them.

estearum 4mo ago

They can be privately owned and have the land value (unearned value, by definition) simply taxed away. Or you can have the government own the land but do long-term (99 year) leases, like they do in Singapore.

smallmancontrov 4mo ago
Singapore has the correct approach. Land Value Tax is the incorrect approach. LVT has the same vulnerability as property tax: owners can worm their way into the policy details and redirect the surplus back into their own pockets. Leases bypass this problem through the competitive bidding process.