6 ms·

Squatting is a problem, period. Doesn’t matter if the house is empty or not.

by solids 2y ago

foldr 2y ago
I don't agree with squatting on the whole, but this distinction clearly does matter. If someone squats a property that you were planning to rent out then you lose the income that you could have gained thereby. That's not nearly as bad as losing access to the home you currently live in.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  It can be worse, as you are losing rental income, which can have larger impacts on your budget and life. I have family in California that had to deal with squatters on a rental property. It cost them ~400k, which included their kids college funds and retirement. Costs were 3 years of lost rent while they paid the mortgage 250k damages done by the squatters, plus legal fees.
  - foldr 2y ago
    It could be worse for some people in some cases, but it’s pretty clear which is going to be worse in general most of the time.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Perhaps, financial damage is real and can have long term consequences that outlive short term inconvenience. You are probably right in the majority of cases,but I do think it is a mistake to automatically discount financial harm as less. If I invest 20 years of my income in a property that someone has stolen, that is a significant loss to me in human terms as well as financially. I would be open to treating the destruction of such property equivalent to the taking of an equivalent amount of one's life.
      - foldr 2y ago
        >If I invest 20 years of my income in a property that someone has stolen, that is a significant loss to me in human terms as well as financially. You've also paid for your primary residence. But on top of that, you need it to live in. So it's a worse situation, generally speaking.
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        That was a general comment, true for both cases.
      - hgomersall 2y ago
        Maybe the moral point is that housing shouldn't be an investment class?
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Housing is inherently an investment. It take a huge amount of materials and labor to build, and returns value slowly over time. Depending on the inputs and returns, this can either create positive or negative value.
        hgomersall 2y ago
        Of course we should invest in actual property building, I meant investment class as in asset class - a thing you buy with the hope of capital increase. This is clearly quite different from investing in building houses that results in a new house.
madeofpalk 2y ago
Buying a house and purposefully leaving it empty is immoral, sqatting or not.
- next_xibalba 2y ago
  No, it’s not. Living where you want, for free, is not a right.
  - mannycalavera42 2y ago
    Why it's not immoral? can you elaborate?
    - ITB 2y ago
      Because our society believes in property rights. Individuals can have any reason they want to own property and do with it what it pleases them.
    - zajio1am 2y ago
      Property rights are human rights.
    - Enginerrrd 2y ago
      So if you buy a fixer upper, one that would be unfit for renting to people. You can't spend your weekends and holidays working on it for a few months to get it into better condition without being called immoral? Sorry that my lack of funds and desire to better myself offends you, but that's a crazy take.
  - madeofpalk 2y ago
    Squatters doesn't make purposefully leaving houses vavent any less immoral.
    - bpodgursky 2y ago
      Get rid of the pathetic scarcity mindset. Just build more houses and then nobody will care.
chous 2y ago
It depends on the actual numbers, which usually don't support the fear coming from the media.
- dfxm12 2y ago
  Absolutely. From the article: Media reports have been instrumental in shaping the narrative around squatting, with stories of 'okupas' sometimes being sensationalised to highlight conflicts and drama. This is the approach of the class privileged enough to own the media (literally or figuratively): shape, to their favor, the public's opinion & perspective of an issue that affects most people relatively little, if at all, via sensational media.
- zxspectrum1982 2y ago
  So let's now worry about killings, bombings, rapings, etc because there's not so many of them, right? Don't be that naïve.
  - lazyasciiart 2y ago
    In the US, people call CPS or the police on ten year olds playing unsupervised in a park or walking home from school in perfectly safe suburbs and towns because they believe the children will be kidnapped, raped and murdered. So yes, it is possible to worry too much about rape and murder as well. See also: security theater, the TSA.
mistermann 2y ago
Unoccupied (for x or more months) second homes should be rented out, otherwise squatted in or burned to the ground, period. It doesn't matter if you disagree, Might Makes Right. Be careful: Meme Magic works in both directions, and it is often difficult to detect its presence.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  > burned to the ground Which helps who exactly? Even squatting means that those houses will no longer be maintained and fall apart sooner or later which is how you end up having even more expensive housing long-term because of lower supply. Higher taxation for uninhabited housing seems like an infinitely more sensible option...
  - mistermann 2y ago
    > Which helps who exactly? A seemingly simple question, but not really. > Even squatting means that those houses will no longer be maintained and fall apart sooner or later which is how you end up having even more expensive housing long-term because of lower supply. I would like for humanity to get together and figure out how to genuinely pursue an optimal experience for all people, but it seems like the most wealthy and powerful among us are "not very (genuinely) interested" in that. Okay then, Plan B it is, I say. > Higher taxation for uninhabited housing seems like an infinitely more sensible option... Agreed. That's a bit slow for my liking though, we've been kicking that can down the road for generations. I believe fear to be one of the most substantial motivators in existence, and there are a lot more of us then there are of them.
TotalCrackpot 2y ago
Homelessness is a problem, even having to pay rent to another person to have a place to live is a problem. Squatting is just a strategy to fight an inherently oppressive private property norm.
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  I would like to know what the limits of your application of this idea is because if I were to extend your argument that "even having to pay rent to another person to have a place to live is a problem.", this is what I get to: I am currently buying a house, every month I pay money to the bank, this is very similar to having to pay rent. From my understanding of your logic, this would be a problem. Further from that, I am building a house. I have to make payments to the builder(s) in order to have a place to live. Is this a problem?
  - TotalCrackpot 2y ago
    I don't think I have a problem per se with the notion of borrowing money, if that's what you are asking about. I personally don't have an issue with you finding people who help you with building the house that agree to do that for some payment.
  - gen220 2y ago
    Not endorsing the view, just sharing lines of reasoning I've seen. Paying money to the bank implies you financed your purchase of a home. This is not necessarily a morally-neutral activity, it's in fact nuanced but we've done a good job of handwaving away the nuance in the last 4-5 generations of Americans. A small vignette to explain: financing allows people to leverage their credit history and income to make larger purchases than they could otherwise afford. This increases the sticker price of purchasing a home, which prices out people with low credit or income. Anything that increases the price of housing effectively increases the price of rent, which limits peoples' abilities to save to actually purchase a home – it's a nasty cycle. One could argue that by participating in that system of financing, you're perpetuating it, but most people immediately dismiss this idea, ymmv. Building a house, and paying people to build the house, is not a problem. You're exchanging value for labor and assets. You're de facto increasing the supply of housing.

Squatting is a problem, period. Doesn’t matter if the house is empty or not.

by solids 2y ago

Squatting is a problem, period. Doesn’t matter if the house is empty or not.

I don't agree with squatting on the whole, but this distinction clearly does matter. If someone squats a property that you were planning to rent out then you lose the income that you could have gained thereby. That's not nearly as bad as losing access to the home you currently live in.

s1artibartfast 2y ago
It can be worse, as you are losing rental income, which can have larger impacts on your budget and life. I have family in California that had to deal with squatters on a rental property. It cost them ~400k, which included their kids college funds and retirement. Costs were 3 years of lost rent while they paid the mortgage 250k damages done by the squatters, plus legal fees.
- foldr 2y ago
  It could be worse for some people in some cases, but it’s pretty clear which is going to be worse in general most of the time.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Perhaps, financial damage is real and can have long term consequences that outlive short term inconvenience. You are probably right in the majority of cases,but I do think it is a mistake to automatically discount financial harm as less. If I invest 20 years of my income in a property that someone has stolen, that is a significant loss to me in human terms as well as financially. I would be open to treating the destruction of such property equivalent to the taking of an equivalent amount of one's life.
    - foldr 2y ago
      >If I invest 20 years of my income in a property that someone has stolen, that is a significant loss to me in human terms as well as financially. You've also paid for your primary residence. But on top of that, you need it to live in. So it's a worse situation, generally speaking.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        That was a general comment, true for both cases.
    - hgomersall 2y ago
      Maybe the moral point is that housing shouldn't be an investment class?
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Housing is inherently an investment. It take a huge amount of materials and labor to build, and returns value slowly over time. Depending on the inputs and returns, this can either create positive or negative value.
        hgomersall 2y ago
        Of course we should invest in actual property building, I meant investment class as in asset class - a thing you buy with the hope of capital increase. This is clearly quite different from investing in building houses that results in a new house.

madeofpalk 2y ago

Buying a house and purposefully leaving it empty is immoral, sqatting or not.

next_xibalba 2y ago
No, it’s not. Living where you want, for free, is not a right.
- mannycalavera42 2y ago
  Why it's not immoral? can you elaborate?
  - ITB 2y ago
    Because our society believes in property rights. Individuals can have any reason they want to own property and do with it what it pleases them.
  - zajio1am 2y ago
    Property rights are human rights.
  - Enginerrrd 2y ago
    So if you buy a fixer upper, one that would be unfit for renting to people. You can't spend your weekends and holidays working on it for a few months to get it into better condition without being called immoral? Sorry that my lack of funds and desire to better myself offends you, but that's a crazy take.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  Squatters doesn't make purposefully leaving houses vavent any less immoral.
  - bpodgursky 2y ago
    Get rid of the pathetic scarcity mindset. Just build more houses and then nobody will care.

chous 2y ago

It depends on the actual numbers, which usually don't support the fear coming from the media.

dfxm12 2y ago
Absolutely. From the article: Media reports have been instrumental in shaping the narrative around squatting, with stories of 'okupas' sometimes being sensationalised to highlight conflicts and drama. This is the approach of the class privileged enough to own the media (literally or figuratively): shape, to their favor, the public's opinion & perspective of an issue that affects most people relatively little, if at all, via sensational media.
zxspectrum1982 2y ago
So let's now worry about killings, bombings, rapings, etc because there's not so many of them, right? Don't be that naïve.
- lazyasciiart 2y ago
  In the US, people call CPS or the police on ten year olds playing unsupervised in a park or walking home from school in perfectly safe suburbs and towns because they believe the children will be kidnapped, raped and murdered. So yes, it is possible to worry too much about rape and murder as well. See also: security theater, the TSA.

mistermann 2y ago

Unoccupied (for x or more months) second homes should be rented out, otherwise squatted in or burned to the ground, period. It doesn't matter if you disagree, Might Makes Right. Be careful: Meme Magic works in both directions, and it is often difficult to detect its presence.

Wytwwww 2y ago
> burned to the ground Which helps who exactly? Even squatting means that those houses will no longer be maintained and fall apart sooner or later which is how you end up having even more expensive housing long-term because of lower supply. Higher taxation for uninhabited housing seems like an infinitely more sensible option...
- mistermann 2y ago
  > Which helps who exactly? A seemingly simple question, but not really. > Even squatting means that those houses will no longer be maintained and fall apart sooner or later which is how you end up having even more expensive housing long-term because of lower supply. I would like for humanity to get together and figure out how to genuinely pursue an optimal experience for all people, but it seems like the most wealthy and powerful among us are "not very (genuinely) interested" in that. Okay then, Plan B it is, I say. > Higher taxation for uninhabited housing seems like an infinitely more sensible option... Agreed. That's a bit slow for my liking though, we've been kicking that can down the road for generations. I believe fear to be one of the most substantial motivators in existence, and there are a lot more of us then there are of them.

TotalCrackpot 2y ago

Homelessness is a problem, even having to pay rent to another person to have a place to live is a problem. Squatting is just a strategy to fight an inherently oppressive private property norm.

themaninthedark 2y ago
I would like to know what the limits of your application of this idea is because if I were to extend your argument that "even having to pay rent to another person to have a place to live is a problem.", this is what I get to: I am currently buying a house, every month I pay money to the bank, this is very similar to having to pay rent. From my understanding of your logic, this would be a problem. Further from that, I am building a house. I have to make payments to the builder(s) in order to have a place to live. Is this a problem?
- TotalCrackpot 2y ago
  I don't think I have a problem per se with the notion of borrowing money, if that's what you are asking about. I personally don't have an issue with you finding people who help you with building the house that agree to do that for some payment.
- gen220 2y ago
  Not endorsing the view, just sharing lines of reasoning I've seen. Paying money to the bank implies you financed your purchase of a home. This is not necessarily a morally-neutral activity, it's in fact nuanced but we've done a good job of handwaving away the nuance in the last 4-5 generations of Americans. A small vignette to explain: financing allows people to leverage their credit history and income to make larger purchases than they could otherwise afford. This increases the sticker price of purchasing a home, which prices out people with low credit or income. Anything that increases the price of housing effectively increases the price of rent, which limits peoples' abilities to save to actually purchase a home – it's a nasty cycle. One could argue that by participating in that system of financing, you're perpetuating it, but most people immediately dismiss this idea, ymmv. Building a house, and paying people to build the house, is not a problem. You're exchanging value for labor and assets. You're de facto increasing the supply of housing.