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Sucks for anyone trying to move from one apartment to another. Sucks for anyone trying to move out from their parents' apartment. Sucks for anyone whose landlor

by _yosefk 12y ago

Sucks for anyone trying to move from one apartment to another. Sucks for anyone trying to move out from their parents' apartment. Sucks for anyone whose landlord invests as little as possible into maintaining the building. (Obviously sucks for anyone who's invested in real estate but we don't care for these folks, do we?.. Well, it sucks for everyone else as well.)

UweSchmidt 12y ago
No doubt there are downsides, however moving around, or leaving parents' apartment is aparently quite difficult anyway with the astronomical rents in London. Regarding the investors, I am not sure how a reasonable rent increase along the inflation rate would suck; the fundamental building, maintenance and operating costs should also move with inflation. I have a little real estate myself and when I bought, my financial plan did not rely on a crazy rent spike 10 years down the road. The current low interest rates push so much investment into real estate, while space for construction is limited in many places. How would you fix this situation?
- _yosefk 12y ago
  Removing restrictions on building would go a long way towards solving the problem IMO. You'd get uglier cities maybe, with taller buildings in more expensive areas, less parks, etc., but you'd get cities where more people could live, in terms of the amount of apartments per square mile as well as price (as the two ought to go hand in hand at least somewhat.) I think that today's restrictions on building in many places are absolutely draconian, to the point of a chronic shortfall in the number of apartments built not just in city centers but in entire cities. I think that to some extent this is explained by a collusion of builders, property owners and bribed government officials (so corruption), and to some extent it's explained by the government liking to restrict building to preserve open space or what-not and not liking to do the work needed to plan and execute urban expansion at a decent rate (so laziness).
  - UweSchmidt 12y ago
    What makes people try and move to the big cities in the first place? Is it high-paying jobs? The jobs must go where these people live currently. Inconvenient for companies who like their offices in central (and expensive) locations, but doable.

by _yosefk 12y ago

UweSchmidt 12y ago

No doubt there are downsides, however moving around, or leaving parents' apartment is aparently quite difficult anyway with the astronomical rents in London. Regarding the investors, I am not sure how a reasonable rent increase along the inflation rate would suck; the fundamental building, maintenance and operating costs should also move with inflation. I have a little real estate myself and when I bought, my financial plan did not rely on a crazy rent spike 10 years down the road. The current low interest rates push so much investment into real estate, while space for construction is limited in many places. How would you fix this situation?

_yosefk 12y ago
Removing restrictions on building would go a long way towards solving the problem IMO. You'd get uglier cities maybe, with taller buildings in more expensive areas, less parks, etc., but you'd get cities where more people could live, in terms of the amount of apartments per square mile as well as price (as the two ought to go hand in hand at least somewhat.) I think that today's restrictions on building in many places are absolutely draconian, to the point of a chronic shortfall in the number of apartments built not just in city centers but in entire cities. I think that to some extent this is explained by a collusion of builders, property owners and bribed government officials (so corruption), and to some extent it's explained by the government liking to restrict building to preserve open space or what-not and not liking to do the work needed to plan and execute urban expansion at a decent rate (so laziness).
- UweSchmidt 12y ago
  What makes people try and move to the big cities in the first place? Is it high-paying jobs? The jobs must go where these people live currently. Inconvenient for companies who like their offices in central (and expensive) locations, but doable.