8 ms·

Idealista and all the real estate companies are the morons feeding the problem by putting the country for rent. They’re the reason people can’t afford a house

by _jplc 2y ago

Idealista and all the real estate companies are the morons feeding the problem by putting the country for rent. They’re the reason people can’t afford a house and we have to talk about okupas in the first place.

otherme123 2y ago
First, I think okupas are a very small problem, mainly used for propaganda. But how are real state companies feeding the problem? The problem is that there's no houses available, because politicians create artificial scarcity. In any local government, the stronger department is "Urbanism", decides if you get rich by allowing you to develop on your property, or you stay poor because you don't get the permits. Come on, this is very public knowledge in Spain, they barely try to hide. Everybody knows how it works, and how close the biggest (and even not so big) developers are to the politicians. Then they politicians blame Idealista or AirBnb like they don't have any power to allow the country to duplicate the available housing starting today. There is also the problem with the insecurity for the landlord in Spain: right now, is you rent to a family with kids, and the family doesn't pay, you can't do nothing! How is it a mistery that landlords are retiring their properties from the rent market to sell them? That's causing a massive shortage, that causes prices do go up.
- matt-p 2y ago
  Yes, seriously, blaming a real-estate listing website for listing real-estate is absolutely insane. We all need to build more housing, that's it. That's the solution.
  - _jplc 2y ago
    They do not only list real estate, they own a lot of it and speculate with it thanks to their advantageous position.
    - joking 2y ago
      do you have prove of Idealista owning a lot of real state? are zillow or trullia part of the problem in the US? Idealista is the lead real state listing site in spain, and has other kind of problems, but I don't think they have a say on this.
    - mpeg 2y ago
      I think you're confusing things slightly – I don't think idealista owns any property. They are however owned by a private equity group that invests among other things directly in real estate, which is tbf extremely common in PE.
      - _jplc 2y ago
        There's no practical difference.
  - stefantalpalaru 2y ago
    [dead]
- hnbad 2y ago
  > There is also the problem with the insecurity for the landlord in Spain: right now, is you rent to a family with kids, and the family doesn't pay, you can't do nothing! How is it a mistery that landlords are retiring their properties from the rent market to sell them? That's causing a massive shortage, that causes prices do go up. There's an easy way to fix that: create a tax for unoccupied housing. If real estate sits unused for extensive durations instead of having tenants in them (i.e. having a rent low enough someone can afford it) it will burn a hole in your pocket. If you want to sell instead of letting someone rent, you will be incentivized to sell it ASAP even if you have to lower your price or make a loss. Preferring to sell rather than renting out doesn't create a shortage. Preferring to keep housing unoccupied (in order to sell it) rather than renting it out or selling it at a price someone can afford does. If the market can't connect buyers/renters and sellers/landlords because the former can't afford the prices set by the latter and there's no economic pressure on the latter to lower their prices, you can just create that pressure. Of course this would disincentivize private housing construction for people who don't also plan to live in that housing themselves but there's no reason there can't be a publicly funded organization for housing development able to take losses on sales/rent because it is backed by public money. This isn't uncharted territory either. There's no reason housing has to function as an unregulated commodity. There's especially no reason to believe we can approximate that without further feeding into the housing crisis. There's a reason we have the term "rent-seeking" and why it has negative connotations: landlords only exist because most people can't afford or aren't eligible for the kind of loan that would allow them to build or buy a house. Unlike loan payments which end once you've paid off the loan (plus interest), rent goes on forever and only ever goes up. The entire point of being a landlord is that the rent accumulates to a sum greater than what you paid for the property (plus interest if you had to get a loan). Landlords literally don't add value. They're more like scalpers.
  - otherme123 2y ago
    >landlords only exist because most people can't afford or aren't eligible for the kind of loan that would allow them to build or buy a house I rent. Not because I can't afford to buy, but because I'm not convinced that I will stay where I am forever. Maybe in a few years I move to Tarifa to work remotely, maybe I move to China. Today I live in a flat, I don't know it I want to live in this flat forever or buy a house. Today I have good health, maybe tomorrow I don't so I need to change my housing requirements. I need landlords to invest their money in houses I can rent. The same I need people buying planes so I don't have to buy one to fly. What is adding value for you? To me a landlord that made the investment so I can rent has value enough that I pay for it. If you don't like it, it's fine, but leave the rest of us live and rent in peace. If being a landlord was so profitable and risk free, we would be drowning in properties for rent. The fact that it doesn't happen, but we have a massive house shortage speaks by itself.
- ricardobayes 2y ago
  It partially boils down to Spain having very little new construction. In a little eastern european country with 10 million people like Hungary there are roughly just as many new developments on the market as in a big country like Spain, with 40M population. Hungary: more than 2k new houses, and there are more than 5k new apartments to buy. https://ingatlan.com/lista/elado+haz+uj-epitesu https://ingatlan.com/lista/elado+haz+uj-epitesu In Madrid province, there are around 700 new houses+apartments to buy https://www.idealista.com/en/venta-obranueva/madrid-provincia/ https://www.idealista.com/en/venta-obranueva/madrid-provinci... This problem is now so big local governments are now building new houses. The rental issues are interesting because for example in Germany, the rental protections are very similar, maybe even more protecting than Spain. (Interestingly the prices are also lower in Germany, in Madrid prices start from 650+utilities, in Munich, 500+utilities)
  - kgwgk 2y ago
    > In Madrid province, there are around 700 new houses+apartments to buy There are many more. That link shows 700 developments, most of them with multiple units on offer.
  - javilovesmambo 2y ago
    I live in Munich, for 6+ years now. I have never seen renting prices below 900€/month. Would you mind sharing your source of data?
    - ricardobayes 2y ago
      Well this one goes for around half the price you mention so there are clearly some. https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/150937149?referrer=RESULT_LIST_LISTING&searchId=3ab739a6-2044-3cff-9c1a-cf0f6faac1fe&searchUrl=%2Fradius%2Fwohnung-mieten%3Fcenterofsearchaddress%3DM%25C3%25BCnchen%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B%26pricetype%3Drentpermonth%26geocoordinates%3D48.13912%3B11.58022%3B20.0&searchType=radius&fairPrice=GOOD_OFFER#/ https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/150937149?referrer=R...
- _jplc 2y ago
  You can blame both the greedy fucks and the people allowing greedy fucks to proliferate. It's not like politicians and real estate developers are a separate group anyway.
- torlok 2y ago
  Companies and individuals who buy property to rent have direct negative effect on home prices. It's basic supply and demand, but a as soon a as you start talking to a landlord logic is out and mental gymnastics are in.
hnbad 2y ago
I was wondering what kind of website this is given how obviously it is siding with landlords. Squatting is only a problem that can happen if housing remains unoccupied. And it's more likely to happen if there is no strong communal network in the area (because most people don't want squatters moving in next to them because of the implications). The easiest way to have housing remain unoccupied for long periods of time and to have neighbors be apathetic about squatters moving into it is to destroy the local community through rent hikes and gentrification and to not live in the area yourself (e.g. because you're a real estate company and not a private landlord or because you're an external speculative investor). As I understand it, Spain has also had massive problems with investors buying properties to put on AirBnB for tourists, often in defiance of zoning laws. I understand the concern about property damage from squatting but unoccupied housing is wasting public resources (i.e. habitable land) and can often easily be solved by lowering rent - which from the tenant's POV is literally just giving you free money to use something you already built/bought (i.e. a sunk cost), unlike maintenace & utilities which actively contribute to its upkeep. If you want to think of real estate as an investment you need to understand that investment comes with risks and you shouldn't have a right to make a positive ROI (certainly not a moral one). In a sense, I would argue (and I think some of the resident Georgists would agree) that keeping housing deliberately unoccupied because of inflated rents and real estate speculation is ethically indistinguishable from squatting - if not worse - because you're deliberately preventing society from making use of that land purely in the hopes of a speculative postive ROI. Housing is only valuable to society when it is occupied.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > I was wondering what kind of website You do know that it's run by a VC company? Not particularly surprising that most most people generally support the protection of property rights
  - hnbad 2y ago
    I was talking about the website the article is on, not HN. I'm well aware that HN is run by Y Combinator. It's in the URL. That said, squatting unused housing is literally "disrupting the housing market" by eliminating the waste of critical resources. It's upsetting the market and breaking established rules, sure, but so are AirBnB, Uber, generative AI and cryptocurrencies. If you think about the founding mythology of "Hacker culture", squatting fits right in there alongside the stories of defrauding telephone companies with "phreaking" and other "adventures". Except of course for the obvious class difference between hacking your Ivy League university's computer lab and having to squat an empty building because the alternative is being homeless.

by _jplc 2y ago

otherme123 2y ago

First, I think okupas are a very small problem, mainly used for propaganda. But how are real state companies feeding the problem? The problem is that there's no houses available, because politicians create artificial scarcity. In any local government, the stronger department is "Urbanism", decides if you get rich by allowing you to develop on your property, or you stay poor because you don't get the permits. Come on, this is very public knowledge in Spain, they barely try to hide. Everybody knows how it works, and how close the biggest (and even not so big) developers are to the politicians. Then they politicians blame Idealista or AirBnb like they don't have any power to allow the country to duplicate the available housing starting today. There is also the problem with the insecurity for the landlord in Spain: right now, is you rent to a family with kids, and the family doesn't pay, you can't do nothing! How is it a mistery that landlords are retiring their properties from the rent market to sell them? That's causing a massive shortage, that causes prices do go up.

matt-p 2y ago
Yes, seriously, blaming a real-estate listing website for listing real-estate is absolutely insane. We all need to build more housing, that's it. That's the solution.
- _jplc 2y ago
  They do not only list real estate, they own a lot of it and speculate with it thanks to their advantageous position.
  - joking 2y ago
    do you have prove of Idealista owning a lot of real state? are zillow or trullia part of the problem in the US? Idealista is the lead real state listing site in spain, and has other kind of problems, but I don't think they have a say on this.
  - mpeg 2y ago
    I think you're confusing things slightly – I don't think idealista owns any property. They are however owned by a private equity group that invests among other things directly in real estate, which is tbf extremely common in PE.
    - _jplc 2y ago
      There's no practical difference.
- stefantalpalaru 2y ago
  [dead]
hnbad 2y ago
> There is also the problem with the insecurity for the landlord in Spain: right now, is you rent to a family with kids, and the family doesn't pay, you can't do nothing! How is it a mistery that landlords are retiring their properties from the rent market to sell them? That's causing a massive shortage, that causes prices do go up. There's an easy way to fix that: create a tax for unoccupied housing. If real estate sits unused for extensive durations instead of having tenants in them (i.e. having a rent low enough someone can afford it) it will burn a hole in your pocket. If you want to sell instead of letting someone rent, you will be incentivized to sell it ASAP even if you have to lower your price or make a loss. Preferring to sell rather than renting out doesn't create a shortage. Preferring to keep housing unoccupied (in order to sell it) rather than renting it out or selling it at a price someone can afford does. If the market can't connect buyers/renters and sellers/landlords because the former can't afford the prices set by the latter and there's no economic pressure on the latter to lower their prices, you can just create that pressure. Of course this would disincentivize private housing construction for people who don't also plan to live in that housing themselves but there's no reason there can't be a publicly funded organization for housing development able to take losses on sales/rent because it is backed by public money. This isn't uncharted territory either. There's no reason housing has to function as an unregulated commodity. There's especially no reason to believe we can approximate that without further feeding into the housing crisis. There's a reason we have the term "rent-seeking" and why it has negative connotations: landlords only exist because most people can't afford or aren't eligible for the kind of loan that would allow them to build or buy a house. Unlike loan payments which end once you've paid off the loan (plus interest), rent goes on forever and only ever goes up. The entire point of being a landlord is that the rent accumulates to a sum greater than what you paid for the property (plus interest if you had to get a loan). Landlords literally don't add value. They're more like scalpers.
- otherme123 2y ago
  >landlords only exist because most people can't afford or aren't eligible for the kind of loan that would allow them to build or buy a house I rent. Not because I can't afford to buy, but because I'm not convinced that I will stay where I am forever. Maybe in a few years I move to Tarifa to work remotely, maybe I move to China. Today I live in a flat, I don't know it I want to live in this flat forever or buy a house. Today I have good health, maybe tomorrow I don't so I need to change my housing requirements. I need landlords to invest their money in houses I can rent. The same I need people buying planes so I don't have to buy one to fly. What is adding value for you? To me a landlord that made the investment so I can rent has value enough that I pay for it. If you don't like it, it's fine, but leave the rest of us live and rent in peace. If being a landlord was so profitable and risk free, we would be drowning in properties for rent. The fact that it doesn't happen, but we have a massive house shortage speaks by itself.
ricardobayes 2y ago
It partially boils down to Spain having very little new construction. In a little eastern european country with 10 million people like Hungary there are roughly just as many new developments on the market as in a big country like Spain, with 40M population. Hungary: more than 2k new houses, and there are more than 5k new apartments to buy. https://ingatlan.com/lista/elado+haz+uj-epitesu https://ingatlan.com/lista/elado+haz+uj-epitesu In Madrid province, there are around 700 new houses+apartments to buy https://www.idealista.com/en/venta-obranueva/madrid-provincia/ https://www.idealista.com/en/venta-obranueva/madrid-provinci... This problem is now so big local governments are now building new houses. The rental issues are interesting because for example in Germany, the rental protections are very similar, maybe even more protecting than Spain. (Interestingly the prices are also lower in Germany, in Madrid prices start from 650+utilities, in Munich, 500+utilities)
- kgwgk 2y ago
  > In Madrid province, there are around 700 new houses+apartments to buy There are many more. That link shows 700 developments, most of them with multiple units on offer.
- javilovesmambo 2y ago
  I live in Munich, for 6+ years now. I have never seen renting prices below 900€/month. Would you mind sharing your source of data?
  - ricardobayes 2y ago
    Well this one goes for around half the price you mention so there are clearly some. https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/150937149?referrer=RESULT_LIST_LISTING&searchId=3ab739a6-2044-3cff-9c1a-cf0f6faac1fe&searchUrl=%2Fradius%2Fwohnung-mieten%3Fcenterofsearchaddress%3DM%25C3%25BCnchen%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B%26pricetype%3Drentpermonth%26geocoordinates%3D48.13912%3B11.58022%3B20.0&searchType=radius&fairPrice=GOOD_OFFER#/ https://www.immobilienscout24.de/expose/150937149?referrer=R...
_jplc 2y ago
You can blame both the greedy fucks and the people allowing greedy fucks to proliferate. It's not like politicians and real estate developers are a separate group anyway.
torlok 2y ago
Companies and individuals who buy property to rent have direct negative effect on home prices. It's basic supply and demand, but a as soon a as you start talking to a landlord logic is out and mental gymnastics are in.

hnbad 2y ago

I was wondering what kind of website this is given how obviously it is siding with landlords. Squatting is only a problem that can happen if housing remains unoccupied. And it's more likely to happen if there is no strong communal network in the area (because most people don't want squatters moving in next to them because of the implications). The easiest way to have housing remain unoccupied for long periods of time and to have neighbors be apathetic about squatters moving into it is to destroy the local community through rent hikes and gentrification and to not live in the area yourself (e.g. because you're a real estate company and not a private landlord or because you're an external speculative investor). As I understand it, Spain has also had massive problems with investors buying properties to put on AirBnB for tourists, often in defiance of zoning laws. I understand the concern about property damage from squatting but unoccupied housing is wasting public resources (i.e. habitable land) and can often easily be solved by lowering rent - which from the tenant's POV is literally just giving you free money to use something you already built/bought (i.e. a sunk cost), unlike maintenace & utilities which actively contribute to its upkeep. If you want to think of real estate as an investment you need to understand that investment comes with risks and you shouldn't have a right to make a positive ROI (certainly not a moral one). In a sense, I would argue (and I think some of the resident Georgists would agree) that keeping housing deliberately unoccupied because of inflated rents and real estate speculation is ethically indistinguishable from squatting - if not worse - because you're deliberately preventing society from making use of that land purely in the hopes of a speculative postive ROI. Housing is only valuable to society when it is occupied.

Wytwwww 2y ago
> I was wondering what kind of website You do know that it's run by a VC company? Not particularly surprising that most most people generally support the protection of property rights
- hnbad 2y ago
  I was talking about the website the article is on, not HN. I'm well aware that HN is run by Y Combinator. It's in the URL. That said, squatting unused housing is literally "disrupting the housing market" by eliminating the waste of critical resources. It's upsetting the market and breaking established rules, sure, but so are AirBnB, Uber, generative AI and cryptocurrencies. If you think about the founding mythology of "Hacker culture", squatting fits right in there alongside the stories of defrauding telephone companies with "phreaking" and other "adventures". Except of course for the obvious class difference between hacking your Ivy League university's computer lab and having to squat an empty building because the alternative is being homeless.