6 ms·

If housing becomes prohibitively expensive to people in need just because we hold landlords accountable for abusive actions, maybe we should consider a differen

If housing becomes prohibitively expensive to people in need just because we hold landlords accountable for abusive actions, maybe we should consider a different way to allocate housing resources.

thriftwy 5y ago
I own an apartment. I bought it. How are you going to "allocate" this "resource"? Just try me.
- gruez 5y ago
  >How are you going to "allocate" this "resource"? Just try me. Easy, by having the government send Men With Guns to confiscate it from you.
  - thriftwy 5y ago
    Well, this has been already tried in my country, and been survived, but yours may possibly indeed have it in the future.
  - lliamander 5y ago
    Is that solution you prefer, or are you just answering with what you think gregallan's intentions were?
    - gruez 5y ago
      I'm not endorsing that solution, only pointing out how such "alloc[ation]" could take place.
      - strawhatguy 5y ago
        Would take place, government always eventually sends guys with guns
      - lliamander 5y ago
        Fair enough.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    So how big a body pile are you gonna tolerate? You don't just get to send men with guns to take large chunks of peoples wealth without dire social and economic consequences. To believe otherwise is pure fantasy.
    - mdavis6890 5y ago
      Dire economic and social consequences clearly do not discourage authorities from sending men with guns (and threats thereof) to confiscate people's wealth. It happens all over the globe, frequently, and with large magnitude, both 3rd and 1st world and and with the full support of nearly all of the public. In many places in the US we have government officials who decide who gets to live in which house and how much they will pay for rent. Tenants are part owners in properties, sometimes majority owners.
      - imtringued 5y ago
        Zimbabwe sent men with guns to take the land of evil white farmers exploiting hundreds of thousands of black farm workers. (this is sarcasm). They lost their agriculture sector, became dependent on food imports without having any export sector (like oil) which ultimately lead to starvation and then finally hyperinflation as the government was no longer able to pay for the imported food.
- int_19h 5y ago
  One simple way that's already practiced in some places is to tax unoccupied residencies - and, ideally, use that tax to subsidize housing. And then you either live in your apartment yourself, or put it up as a rental under the terms required by the law, or you pay up.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    > tax unoccupied residencies OK, sounds promising > ..use that tax to subsidize housing record needle scratch sound. Subziding housing drives up the price, because it increases demand for housing. Have we not learned this lesson? After so many years, this basic economic fact is still tripping people up? Please, stop with the housing subsidies. Why do you want to make housing more expensive?
    - imtringued 5y ago
      Direct housing subsidies don't prevent additional supply. Rent control prevents additional supply. Also, politicians have to be accountable for the subsidies which means that restrictive zoning will burn a pocket into the local budget. They don't give a damn about losses due to rent control. I.e. they privatize political gains and socialize the economic losses.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        > "Direct housing subsidies don't prevent additional supply". The idea that the price of housing will not increase if a good is subsidized because the supply isn't "prevented from increasing" is so confused and wrong it literally makes me sad. We have the data of house prices rising as a result of subsidies. Housing is half land and half structure, and in constrained areas, 80% land and 20% structure. Land does not increase. Moreover even if housing was all structure and land was free, the subsidies cause houses to become bigger, as people can afford more structure, leading per house prices to rise. Then you continue with a string of cliches, "privatize gains" etc. And a complaint that other people don't care enough. Well, OK, but what of it? We don't shoot ourselves in the foot because other people don't care. Adopting policies that make the world a worse place just because you are morally outraged is a terrible way of doing public policy.
AYBABTME 5y ago
Sure, but I think this sort of grandstanding doesn't serve the conversation well. We're talking about realistic, incremental policy changes here. The kind of stuff that hopefully solves the problem at hand while limiting the blast radius of what could go wrong. Throwing away how property ownership works in most of the world would likely cause large scale shocks and I think it's disingenuous to suggest these kind of things in a conversation about municipal policies.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  Sure, but I think this sort of grandstanding doesn't serve the conversation well. We're talking about realistic, incremental policy changes here. So we're saying that making it so tenants can't defend themselves against illegal evictions is going to increase the housing supply incrementally?
  - AYBABTME 5y ago
    I didn't say this "make it so tenants can't defend themselves". My argument is that punitive policies against landlord are about the only tool being wielded, and the only tool proposed, along with the only alternative being nuclear options. I think there's definitely a problem that needs to be addressed, and that many landlords are bad actors in many markets, and that may tenants are bad actors in many other markets. I'm not even sure that landlording makes sense, it's rather feudal. I'm pro realistic rent control. I just think that, short of throwing away the entire system and making a revolution (that would kill millions), we should approach the problem from a carrot and stick perspective, not a stick-only perspective. If you want to make eviction hard for the average tenant, fine. But if you leave it at that, where's the incentive for renting to riskier tenants? There's nothing re-balancing the risk exposure, nothing that makes up for the risk-adjusted expected loss of renting to a risky tenant. If we want these risky tenants to be housed _while_ preventing undue evictions, we need to fix up the incentive structure so that landlords still have something to gain from renting to risky tenants. Otherwise, why would they do it?
    - joe_the_user 5y ago
hash872 5y ago
You are not accounting for bad faith actors who lie about the landlord's actions for their direct own financial gain. Living rent free in a property is saving a tremendous amount of money! Like, as a % of income it's probably more than the average person pays in taxes. The financial incentives to abuse the system are enormous

If housing becomes prohibitively expensive to people in need just because we hold landlords accountable for abusive actions, maybe we should consider a different way to allocate housing resources.

thriftwy 5y ago

I own an apartment. I bought it. How are you going to "allocate" this "resource"? Just try me.

gruez 5y ago
>How are you going to "allocate" this "resource"? Just try me. Easy, by having the government send Men With Guns to confiscate it from you.
- thriftwy 5y ago
  Well, this has been already tried in my country, and been survived, but yours may possibly indeed have it in the future.
- lliamander 5y ago
  Is that solution you prefer, or are you just answering with what you think gregallan's intentions were?
  - gruez 5y ago
    I'm not endorsing that solution, only pointing out how such "alloc[ation]" could take place.
    - strawhatguy 5y ago
      Would take place, government always eventually sends guys with guns
    - lliamander 5y ago
      Fair enough.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  So how big a body pile are you gonna tolerate? You don't just get to send men with guns to take large chunks of peoples wealth without dire social and economic consequences. To believe otherwise is pure fantasy.
  - mdavis6890 5y ago
    Dire economic and social consequences clearly do not discourage authorities from sending men with guns (and threats thereof) to confiscate people's wealth. It happens all over the globe, frequently, and with large magnitude, both 3rd and 1st world and and with the full support of nearly all of the public. In many places in the US we have government officials who decide who gets to live in which house and how much they will pay for rent. Tenants are part owners in properties, sometimes majority owners.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      Zimbabwe sent men with guns to take the land of evil white farmers exploiting hundreds of thousands of black farm workers. (this is sarcasm). They lost their agriculture sector, became dependent on food imports without having any export sector (like oil) which ultimately lead to starvation and then finally hyperinflation as the government was no longer able to pay for the imported food.
int_19h 5y ago
One simple way that's already practiced in some places is to tax unoccupied residencies - and, ideally, use that tax to subsidize housing. And then you either live in your apartment yourself, or put it up as a rental under the terms required by the law, or you pay up.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > tax unoccupied residencies OK, sounds promising > ..use that tax to subsidize housing record needle scratch sound. Subziding housing drives up the price, because it increases demand for housing. Have we not learned this lesson? After so many years, this basic economic fact is still tripping people up? Please, stop with the housing subsidies. Why do you want to make housing more expensive?
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Direct housing subsidies don't prevent additional supply. Rent control prevents additional supply. Also, politicians have to be accountable for the subsidies which means that restrictive zoning will burn a pocket into the local budget. They don't give a damn about losses due to rent control. I.e. they privatize political gains and socialize the economic losses.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      > "Direct housing subsidies don't prevent additional supply". The idea that the price of housing will not increase if a good is subsidized because the supply isn't "prevented from increasing" is so confused and wrong it literally makes me sad. We have the data of house prices rising as a result of subsidies. Housing is half land and half structure, and in constrained areas, 80% land and 20% structure. Land does not increase. Moreover even if housing was all structure and land was free, the subsidies cause houses to become bigger, as people can afford more structure, leading per house prices to rise. Then you continue with a string of cliches, "privatize gains" etc. And a complaint that other people don't care enough. Well, OK, but what of it? We don't shoot ourselves in the foot because other people don't care. Adopting policies that make the world a worse place just because you are morally outraged is a terrible way of doing public policy.

AYBABTME 5y ago

Sure, but I think this sort of grandstanding doesn't serve the conversation well. We're talking about realistic, incremental policy changes here. The kind of stuff that hopefully solves the problem at hand while limiting the blast radius of what could go wrong. Throwing away how property ownership works in most of the world would likely cause large scale shocks and I think it's disingenuous to suggest these kind of things in a conversation about municipal policies.

joe_the_user 5y ago
Sure, but I think this sort of grandstanding doesn't serve the conversation well. We're talking about realistic, incremental policy changes here. So we're saying that making it so tenants can't defend themselves against illegal evictions is going to increase the housing supply incrementally?
- AYBABTME 5y ago
  I didn't say this "make it so tenants can't defend themselves". My argument is that punitive policies against landlord are about the only tool being wielded, and the only tool proposed, along with the only alternative being nuclear options. I think there's definitely a problem that needs to be addressed, and that many landlords are bad actors in many markets, and that may tenants are bad actors in many other markets. I'm not even sure that landlording makes sense, it's rather feudal. I'm pro realistic rent control. I just think that, short of throwing away the entire system and making a revolution (that would kill millions), we should approach the problem from a carrot and stick perspective, not a stick-only perspective. If you want to make eviction hard for the average tenant, fine. But if you leave it at that, where's the incentive for renting to riskier tenants? There's nothing re-balancing the risk exposure, nothing that makes up for the risk-adjusted expected loss of renting to a risky tenant. If we want these risky tenants to be housed _while_ preventing undue evictions, we need to fix up the incentive structure so that landlords still have something to gain from renting to risky tenants. Otherwise, why would they do it?
  - joe_the_user 5y ago

hash872 5y ago

You are not accounting for bad faith actors who lie about the landlord's actions for their direct own financial gain. Living rent free in a property is saving a tremendous amount of money! Like, as a % of income it's probably more than the average person pays in taxes. The financial incentives to abuse the system are enormous