7 ms·

> So allowing housing prices to surge is literally taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich. How do we limit home prices increasing? I see your point but so

• exabrial 6mo ago
  Build more housing
  • testing22321 6mo ago
    If investment companies that already own tens of thousands of homes buy them and keep increasing the rent, the problem has not been solved.
    • brazzy 6mo ago
      Except they cannot increase rents when there is enough supply for a market to actually work.
      • testing22321 6mo ago
        The market will remain irrational longer than… Of course they can when they own them all. See De Beers diamonds. Buy them all, keep the price artificially high.
        • larsiusprime 6mo ago
          Diamond prices are famously crashing now due to artificial lab made diamonds (increased supply)
        • nroets 6mo ago
          The De Beers cartel was able to avoid anti trust scrutiny because the best reserves are outside (Africa/Canada/Russia) of the most lucrative markets (US/Europe/Asia). Corporations control only a small faction of housing supply.
        • matkoniecz 6mo ago
          Insanely stupid restrictions on residential construction make it easier.
        • exabrial 6mo ago
          They can only do that (own them all) with government assistance. See De Beers diamonds, who leveraged the legal system to create a monopoly. The solution is to build more housing and get the government out of the picture.
    • idbnstra 6mo ago
      land value tax would fix this
      • exabrial 6mo ago
        No, build more housing.
        • CWuestefeld 6mo ago
          That's not a different choice. LVT makes it more expensive to hold land that's less productive than it could be, the result of which is that development is encouraged.
          • exabrial 6mo ago
            No, building more housing. Read the article.
    • Windchaser 6mo ago
      Investment companies own only about 2% of the housing market, and most of these are rented out. Investment companies aren't really the cause of housing prices remaining high - in moderate- and high-demand areas, we simply aren't building enough to keep up with demand.
    • exabrial 6mo ago
      You literally didn't read the article. Build more housing.
      • SOLAR_FIELDS 6mo ago
        I do really enjoy all the arguments coming up in this post that are pretty easily defeated by “build more housing”. No one has been able to come up with a compelling argument about why this doesn’t work.
    • HDThoreaun 6mo ago
      Investing in housing only makes sense when supply is limited. The way to stop investors from hoarding housing is to make housing a bad investment by building a lot of it so cornering the market is impossible.
• testing22321 6mo ago
  Housing can not be both affordable and a good investment. If we want housing to be affordable ie “limit them increasing” we have to stop people using them as investments. There are many ways. My favourites are: - one human can own one residential property. No companies or businesses can. -or, property tax doubles (or 10x) with every residential property owned. - no foreign ownership (Canada does this now) - government can own and rent residential property at no profit. They supply plenty of other basic necessities of life, why not houses?
  • brazzy 6mo ago
    > one human can own one residential property. No companies or businesses can. So, in other words, you want everyone who cannot afford to outright buy a house to be homeless?
    • FuriouslyAdrift 6mo ago
      This is what apartments are for...
    • testing22321 6mo ago
      Not at all. The government should step on and rent them as rent to own systems. Make no profit
  • bombcar 6mo ago
    It can be both affordable and an investment - it cannot (and will not) perpetually be a market-beating top-tier investment. All of the items above can have drastic unintended consequences; the way to keep prices affordable is to make sure that supply is always outstripping demand by a bit. Some examples of unintended consequences: * I can't add an ADU to my existing property which would add one more dwelling unit * Subdivision of property is discouraged; combining parcels reduces tax even if no new dwelling units are created * This might be the closest to doing something though it could substantially discourage non-citizen immigrants (legal or not) * This has been tried before and had well-documented issues, but might be doable if they can provide a "floor"
• torginus 6mo ago
  There are a bunch of successful models, people usually mention Vienna as having a particularly effective housing policy - what they did is the city bought up a bunch of land, and built housing on top of it in various government subsidy programs, from non-profit public benefit corporations, to social housing for the poor. They have strong renters rights, protections against rent increases, and high standards to which dwellings must conform to. So while you can be a landlord in Vienna, you have to compete with affordable housing options, and you're forced to maintain a high quality yourself. So that means that unless you can offer something the market's willing to pay extra for, being a landlord is not particularly lucrative thing. Notice nowhere in my post did I mention the typical 'landlords are evil and must be taxed to death' approach. Which is in stark contrast to most places where you're paying through the nose, the standard of rented dwellings is low and your rent can be increased or you can be kicked out on moments notice.
• deleted 6mo ago
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