Based I think the same thing should be done to retail stores. If you can’t get people to rent it. Force a sale of the building
This is something I find baffling.
In my city, it’s generally a hotspot with dramatically increasing real estate costs and high occupancy, generally.
Except this one road, which has all sorts of vacant retail, with different owners, with thriving retail and/or residential pretty much everywhere around it. Even the gas stations are 50c a gallon cheaper there then going a mile north or south of it. I have no idea why that one road is different and looking like a dying city while being surrounded by exactly the opposite.
Retail stores are dying because of cars. Every time the data shows: parking spaces decrease business, bike lanes and train stations increase it.
Stores are failing because the land they’re on isn’t useful. Cars have poisoned it.
Landlords are scum, but tenants are fucking disgusting.
You don’t hear much about good tenants or landlords for two reasons.
One is of course the simple matter that people who are content tend to be quieter. Same reason that it’s easier to find complaints about most products.
The other is reduced exposure. Good tenants will generally stay in one place longer and good landlords will retain tenants for longer periods as well. So you end up with just fewer people to even potentially say anything about them, good or ill.
Why pay 40% market value?
How about this instead. If we continue to have rent and landlords, let’s make a market incentive to lower prices.
Tax empty housing at a rate proportional to the advertised rental rate. Example, if a landlord has an unused unit listed for 1500 a month, they pay an empty housing penalty of, let’s arbitrarily say 20%. Now they have an incentive to fill the unit at a lower price. They can no longer just price-gouge with their competitors to drive up rates. What do we do with the money we receive from those penalties? We provide housing assistance. So now the top and the bottom of the market start to balance each other out. Here’s the real cool thing about this system, you can tie that penalty rate to the number of housing-insecure or unhoused people in the population. Now we can have a self-regulating system that provides an incentive to push rental rates down, but also gives low-income renters more money to rent with.
People have vacant home??? Where?
There are 15 million vacant in the US: https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-vacant-homes-are-there-in-the-us/
Wtf. That is crazy. what are they waiting for?
…since gross vacancy rate is a measure of all vacant properties — including vacation properties — states with several popular tourist destinations, like Florida and Hawaii, will always register slightly higher rates. The Census Bureau notes that the largest category of vacant housing in the United States is classified as “seasonal, recreational, or occasional use.” In over one-fifth of US counties, these seasonal units made up at least 50% of the vacant housing stock.
Is the movement now to ban vacation homes?
Also note that California, with the worst housing crisis, has one of the lowest vacancy rates, while Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii have among the highest rates. There’s not a housing shortage on average, there’s a housing shortage in the places people want to live - which largely means the places where they can get jobs.
It should also be noted one of the reasons California has such a bad housing problem is other states shipping their own homeless there.
I don’t think vacation homes should be banned, just heavily taxed. I realize that not everybody who owns a vacation home is a multi-millionaire. Some people have a crappy place that’s been in the family for generations. But, they’re still doing much, much better than the people who own 0 homes.
I don’t like the idea of US government taking the property at below market value, since that would violate the takings clause of the Constitution.
What I would be in favor of is a real estate tax that increases if a property isn’t permanently occupied. Something that would encourage people to either reduce rent or unload the property.
It should be a reasonably gradual increase so that landlords aren’t penalized if they can’t find a tenant in the first or second month the unit is vacant. However if it’s been a year they should be approaching the point of owing more in taxes than the property is worth.
Then you can take it for back taxes.
It would also discourage air b2b type arrangements, unless you own and live in the property. No more buying a house so you can rent it out for exorbitant rates.
Honestly I would be okay with giving them 6-12 months of leeway. There’s a ton of reasons why it could take 6 months or more to be able to find a tenant, especially if the previous tenant did significant damages or if there’s wider economic issues in the area.
I’d be ok with them being able to appeal the increased rate, but they’d need to show that they are actively working to make it ready to rent.
Okay yeah. That could be a fair compromise. I like that.
Eminent domain in California… You get $0.00 for your contribution.
Annual land tax. The more you hoard - the more you pay.
There are specifically tax deductions for taxes paid on your primary residence, so theoretically there is a higher cost to owning multiple properties, however this cost is simply too low to be much of a deterrence
As in acrage? So if I was an independently wealthy birdwatcher that built a privately owned wilderness preserve I’d be taxed more than the local slumlord?
Yes. The land is a finite resource.
That depends on how you measure it.
You can try and live in an infinite coastline house I have in my pocket.
Whether a property is occupied seems too easy to game.
Currently many places already tax a “primary residence” differently. My town’s approach is all residences pay the same property tax rate but your primary residence has a significant value exemption so is effectively taxed less. This advantages people who own their own homes while giving some discouragement to people hoarding homes or having a vacation home or being a landlord. However the difference needs to be greater to have an a real effect. I’d argue the exemption for primary residence should be enough that lower income people be free of property tax on their own homes and the difference made up by higher rates on their own rest of us. It would be too expensive to hoard vacant properties, less profitable to airBnB
And there is already process and precedent for towns repossessing for unpaid property tax.
I don’t like the idea of US government taking the property at below market value, since that would violate the takings clause of the Constitution.
I don’t like this phrasing because it seems like you only care that there’s a rule against it, and have no opinion whether that rule is good or not.
Well, yeah you have a point. However, at this point I’d rather see people just knee-jerk obey the Constitution even if they don’t understand why, as opposed to the way everyone in this administration wipes their ass with it.
Good point.
Couple the increasing property taxes on vacant homes with an agreement that there are no property taxes on properties leased for free to qualified individuals (people who would qualify for government housing anyway essentially) and the government will pay for repairs. The government gets a cheaper place to house the homeless, having only to pay for repairs, the landlord gets an appreciating asset with no repairs to worry about, and the homeless get a place to live. Seems like a win all around unless I’m missing something.
I like this idea.
The only thing I can see that you’re missing is the requirement that poor people still suffer.
It’s bad enough to punish incident property hoarders for their hard work (inheriting wealth is hard work - you have to pretend to not be a piece of shit until Grandpa dies). You can’t also let poor people benefit from that at the same time!
This idea of yours exists here in Belgium. On top of that in personal income tax we pay as much on an empty 2nd house as one with renters in it.
There’s punishment on houses that are below standard for isolation. Forced to renovate.
Yes papa government, tax us hard.
And Airbnb. Fuck that company and the people that buy houses and use them for this. My parents live in the mountains in a popular spot for vacations and camping. Nowadays they are the only house on their entire street that isn’t an Airbnb.
There are literally amendments to the Constitution preventing this from happening have you all lost your mind!
Why do we have to pretend the constitution matters when our enemies don’t?
Ummm… Because our enemies don’t… 🤷
They’re just kids living out a simplistic power fantasy. “If I were king of the world, I’d solve this huge, intractable problem with a simple order”. Like Mao ordering all the sparrows to be killed. Hopefully, once they experience the world a little, they realize that big problems are big because they’re difficult and complicated to solve.
Housing is more complex and the proposed solution may not work, but there are some problems that could be solved by someone with absolute power pretty easily. For example, if we shipped health insurance CEOs off to El Salvadorian labor camps instead of innocent immigrants, people would stop having their claims denied and the concept of a deductible would go the way of the dodo.
facepalm
I think because of ex post facto, it would take 2 years at least for the housing problem to be solved in this scenario, and I don’t know if handing private assets over to any particular federal government (ahem, US government) would result in the benefit to unhoused people that this comment suggests.
First sellers get rewarded tho. Imagine massive housing speculation tank, but if you sell quick, maybe you beat it. So it doesn’t take two years.
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The federal government, as the post suggests? The federal government in the US is doing plenty of law breaking right now, but not in the interest of the unhoused. If this was in their interest though (which given the private holdings of executive, i would doubt), then yes, they could probably accomplish this in one month.
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Even if we build cheap apartments for the homeless and fully fund it with tax payer money it actually saves tax payer money and gets the homeless out of the already over stressed healthcare system.
Most homeless are in and out of the hospital for easily preventable diagnosis that is a direct result of living on the street. This would free up a bed in the ED, free up a bed in acute care if admitted, and free up urgent care and other EMT resources.
This has been studied for YEARS. We know the answer to directly solving this without even trying to fix the other systemic issues at play here.
However, having a homeless population is good for capitalism. It’s an area where an employer can point to and say, “If you don’t work for pennies on the dollar, you’ll end up there.”
One little problem you aren’t accounting for.
Give houses to newcomers for not being self sufficient, then you’ll be attracting even more newcomers. The cycle continues.
Now, with 2nd generation immigrants, this is a good investment. Especially in aging countries such as mine.
But yeah you’re not taking in future expenses into account with your idea there.
The current amount of homeless, are there to scarecrow the potential amount of homeless away.
It’s more sane, as a society, to reduce this to refugees only.
Giving economic immigrants a free house… that’s just insane
Is it? Immigrants get jobs and pay taxes. Economic immigration can be a great economic boon if managed properly. It might be possible to generate consistent returns on investment by providing shelter, food, education and training.
A lot of economic immigrants don’t have jobs.
It’s quite difficult to get a job when everything is in a language you are at most new to.
I went to 30 headhunter firms with my wife, they all showed us the door when they realised she doesn’t speak Dutch.
Her job is cleaning. Subsidised 66% by the government (taxes). Client pays 10 euros, my wife gets 15 euros. The company gets 30 euros per hour.
She has a fucking law degree from a top 5% university in her country.
Immigration depends a lot on language, or the lingual infrastructure of the country.
2 ways. Either Belgium decides to turn English into an official language and creates an environment where English is the only language needed, or the immigrant learns Dutch.
Learning Dutch takes years.
My coworker her mom lives here for 30 years and doesn’t speak Dutch. Her aunt speaks our language fluently.
It depends on the person, but in general it’s not to be underestimated.
My wife is just going to be half time worker. Better that I work full time and that she takes care of our kid a bit more while I work full time.
My wife doesn’t pay any taxes.
As I said priorly. The real deal here is the 2nd generation. Those can be educated in belgium for the Belgian economy. Big gains for the economy.
If I go to Indonesia, what am I gonna do lol. Idk anything about indonesian stuff. There my wife would have to be the breadwinner while I just look for a job in Singapore or an English company in Batam.
I’m bit lucky that accountancy is more globalised. Law is very specific. You’re supposed to specialise and then make that your career.
That’s crazy: there are cleaners who speak the language? I thought this was a stereotypical job for immigrants because you don’t need special skills or credentials nor have to know the language. The skills are basic; you just need to work hard, be reliable and figure out how to get fast at it
The cleaners that know the language… idk mate, higher education costs 1 month’s minimum wage to fund a whole bachelor’s.
Achieving the bachelor takes effort though. The job that you get with the bachelor also is more difficult to do. More stressful.
Doesn’t really pay much more. Maybe 200 euros?
Minimum wage pays barely any taxes. While the “discount on tax” is lost as you climb the ladder.
At 3250 euros gross wage I get 2250 euros net.
At minimum wage, 2050 euros. They get 2000 euros net.
It’s not a big deal. Of course my wage will keep growing, while theirs will stagnate.
But complacency is quite the drug.
A lot of natives also don’t have jobs. Shall we kick those out too?
And if not, why do they get preferential treatment? They cost the country a lot more money than immigrants.
First of all, there wasn’t anything said about kicking people out. Just not giving them houses, in order to make the place less attractive for future immigrants that aren’t self sufficient.
Second of all. I wouldn’t give a shit if the people taking advantage of our country’s massive welfare would be kicked out.
I know plenty of people who prefer to have no money just so that they can keep enjoying social discounts and sick money/unemployment money/living wages.
These people are abled. They just don’t give A FUCK that their kids have 0 inheritance.
In a country with median net wealth of 250k euros per adult. Fucking embarrassing. Gigantic social mobility here.
Oh no, learning the language of the country you immigrate to, the horror
Make it a requirement of continuing occupancy. Must be taking classes or working. Classes are free.
Still takes years to learn the language with those classes and these classes are social transfers to the immigrants, but a good investment with return.
The requirement is neither of those things. The requirement is self sufficiency.
If you’re rich enough, then I don’t care if you don’t learn the language and that you don’t work.
You’re spending into our economy with likely passive income coming from your global investments.
Or you have family members that take care of your cost of living. All fine.
If you want to have a job, then as I priorly stated. Either in Dutch or English.
Both would work. If the infrastructure is in English, then the ability to make immigrants self sufficient becomes a lot easier. Good for our economy.
If we don’t want to do these investments, then the immigrant needs to learn Dutch.
Those are the only options.
My wife speaks English at her job. Did 2 Dutch classes. Most of the people in flanders speak English so communication goes well.
Ego of natives to be spoken to by their preferred language is economically irrelevant so I ignore that.
The premise of this discussion was economic refugees, so I assumed we were only talking about those who are not self-sufficient.
These people can’t legally enter the country as far as I’m aware. So yeah, they become homeless.
Giving money to economic refugees that aren’t self sufficient is just… at best, turning them into baby factories for next generation worker bees.
My country has an aging population, perhaps it’s beneficial? Not sure.
Actually it’s easy to see if it’s beneficial. Look at social refugees. Their kids get higher education.
There’s enough war in the world though. We don’t need economic refugees on top of the social refugees.
But then again, need to question how easy those economic refugees are to integrate.
They aren’t traumatised by war, so it should be easier.
A lot of angles to look from
Nobody was talking about immigrants before you did. Not sure what your point is.
Idk how it’s in your country but in my country the homeless are illegal immigrants
Sad that people want to go to your country, even if they will be homeless. Sad they find no compassion there.
In my country, the immigrants are very slightly less likely to be homeless. Little compassion here either.The rules are simple. If you want to be in Belgium, be self sufficient until you have nationality. Unless refugee, then you get social housing.
Most of our immigrants come through family reunification. Their family member can only get them here if he or she has enough income and housing.
They sign a paper to say that the government can deduct money from the family member’s account if the immigrant requires help from our social services for income.
Then when the immigrant requests income from the state, the residence card is lost.
If that person does not leave the country, will become an illegal immigrant. Then will likely become homeless.
The rules are there to diminish the burden on the state.
Switzerland has 30% immigrants, Singapore is all about immigrants, Dubai as well. I don’t think these places have any compassion. High cost of living. If not self sufficient, then they prefer the spot to be taken by an immigrant that will be self sufficient.
It’s selfish, but important in order to keep our country from going into a crisis.
Legal immigration is easy. My wife went to Jakarta. Got EU tourist visa. We went to city hall. I presented proof of housing, payslips of past few months, national health insurance.
We got married. She got orange card, could start working. Can’t find a job.
Then because I still have my job, my wife gets F card after 6 months.
She did 2 classes to learn Dutch. Some social integration class. Found a job that is 2/3rd subsidised by government.
All legal. It’s easy. To become an illegal immigrant, you need to do some heavy lifting.
I am accounting for newcomers and not being self sufficient.
In the studies and actual use cases where places have done this the homeless person is getting a 300-500sqft apartment. It’s enough to get off the street have a clean bed and running water. They can then get a job and work their way out.
The reason this works is because once you have a decent income and want to start enjoying life you can’t do that in a 300-500sqft apartment.
This isn’t just shit I’m making up, there have been cities that have done this and it fucking works.
Can you link the source then, thanks
I can provide a few, but honestly so many cities have done this, tried to do part of it and failed/succeeded, or are working on plans to do this. Portland Oregon for example had success with a homeless program that puts people in little 15x15ft sheds. It’s not much, but it’s a start and some have moved on to their own apartment. Years ago a city in Utah (I think), built a small apartment and did a study to determine it was more cost effective to provide housing than let them clog up the Healthcare and EMS resources.
One study found an average cost savings on emergency services of $31,545 per person housed in a Housing First program over the course of two years. Another study showed that a Housing First program could cost up to $23,000 less per consumer per year than a shelter program.
- Housing First
- Coalition for the Homeless
- PBS article comparing two cities
- National Alliance to End Homelessness
Here is a list of studies from the last link. Each pebble is a study with links and sources
Again, this is not something I’m just saying or making up. This has hard data backed evidence to support it.
Those 31,5k USD saved is because you don’t let them die.
My source is comparing first generation non EU immigrants their taxes to the social transfers they receive. It’s a net loss.
As I stated, it’s the 2nd generation where it’s at.
Those are the worker bees.
If these people were self sufficient then they wouldn’t have been homeless. It takes massive investments. And guess what? It pays off in the 2nd generation.
Okay, so don’t read any of the sources and stay ignorant. Homelessness can be a result of a multitude of factors and not all of them are only illegal immigrants who can’t be self-sufficient.
No where in any of the sources does it say the cost saved was because “they didn’t die”. It’s clear this goes far beyond your ability to understand and comprehend complex systems of cost analysis. You ask for sources then ignore them. Get bent.
The 31,5k USD was because of emergency services lol. What do you think emergency services are? Goes to hospital. By law cannot be refused treatment. It’s expensive.
Being housed prevents needing those medical services that cannot be refused. Hence it’s cheaper to house someone.
The cheapest option is to let them die.
Social housing isn’t about getting people to be self sufficient. It’s just about giving them a comfortable life.
The return on investment comes from their children. Not the parents.
if you want to show a source that it’s good for the economy. Then show one where the person’s taxes outweigh their social transfers.
Which is difficult to do for older people. They need investments, then they do low paying jobs. The difference between their low paying jobs and doing nothing is basically the same amount of income.
So they don’t have much motivation. Their income during their work life is low, then they get a pension. Net loss for government.
Their kids however. They went to school at a young age, get higher education. They get a well paying job. Very profitable.
We have social housing here in Belgium, you get it after waiting 2 years. Which means… only the chronic low income people get it. They usually die in it. Cheap rent.
Here you don’t become homeless easily. You have unemployment benefits. You don’t get medical bankruptcy. You get living wage. Blablabla
Temporary income shocks are completely taken by social security. These people don’t get social housing because they can just continue paying their mortgage or rent.
So you already need to take these people out of your studies. Because yeah, giving housing to short term homeless people will be very beneficial. They just are in-between jobs.
Now, the ones that have social housing, there’s something wrong there. They aren’t self sufficient because of chronic reasons. These people will worsen the results of your studies.
It’s like looking at immigration studies and including the EU immigrants with the non EU immigrants. While one part obviously scores better than the other.
Seriously. I think the solution to the homeless crisis is to build what amounts to government-funded dorms for adults. 2-3 people to a room; literally just like a college dorm. Basic shelter for anyone who needs it, but a degree of privacy you don’t get with homeless shelters. You have roommates, but only one or two, and you get a place to safely store things. And the price would be affordable enough that the state can provide this shelter for anyone who needs it.
And a final benefit of this kind of spartan housing arrangements is that you can ensure only those who need it will take advantage of it. You don’t need to go to elaborate lengths to verify eligibility. You don’t need to have harsh income-based cutoffs. Most people do not want to live in a dorm room their whole life. That alone will ensure that only those who really need it will seek it out.
You have roommates, but only one or two, and you get a place to safely store things.
These clauses are mutually exclusive. Has to be accessible only by one tenant for actual privacy and security, that’s one of the complaints against existing shelters. Also, “make the housing just shitty enough that it might be better than sleeping outside” as a replacement for means-testing and incentive not to rely on it is diarespectful. Just provide standard studio apartments, tiny homes, or literally whatever vacant property is available and stop trying to find the minimum acceptable dehumanizing conditions.
I don’t think asking homeless people to live in the same conditions college students all across the country live in is unacceptable or dehumanizing. And yes, you can have some degree of privacy. Having one or two long term roommates is a world apart from sleeping in a big room with dozens of strangers. It is disrespectful to every person who has ever lived in a college dorm to say that such housing is unacceptable or subpar.
You’re letting perfect be the enemy of the good, and you’re ignoring the actual politics of getting this kind of broad program passed. This is the kind of program that could actually gain political traction in an American political context. Giving anyone who wants one a tiny home or condo is not going to be viable. You can’t offer people free accommodations that are superior to those that a substantial portion of the electorate enjoys, not if you want to win office.
And resources fundamentally are limited. Yes, it would be great to buy everyone a three bedroom single family house. But that’s just not viable financially. Offering people a shelter of last resort, so no on ever has to sleep on the street again? That’s something that can be done, but only if you actually control the costs. And dorm-type housing can be built for a fraction of the cost of apartment-type housing, simply because the space is shared.
Most college students are, functionally if not legally, still children. And dormitories are an efficient way to provide housing for a large group in a concentrated area. Neither case can or should apply broadly to the unhoused.
Sharing space with a stranger is a great way to get robbed or just made uncomfortable with no recourse. Students have RAs and can apply to live alone, off-campus, or swap dorms. Your theoretical slumblock going to have that flexibility? Nevermind that a single-purpose housing complex is just an instant ghetto. Best outcomes come from integration, not segregation.
The current American political climate is fucking hostile and watering down any movement to try and fit in is the wrong call. It’s like haggling by starting with concessions. And why couldn’t it be viable? It isn’t luxury housing I support. Most people have some amount of personal pride and don’t want to subsist on welfare if they have another option, and I’m perfectly happy to let some people permanently use those properties if it lessens the strain on public resources for everyone else.
Letting people suffer just to get (re)elected is intolerable.
Reources are artificially limited. There are more vacant houses in this country than homeless people. We don’t need to build new complexes to sweep the problem into one neat pile, just start seizing vacant lots held by absent investors. It wouod be cheaper than the police and medical costs we’re currently paying. Ideally pair this radical housing initiative with job training programs, optional rehab/drug counseling, mental healthcare, and other slightly-left-of-global-center communist ideas.
While I’m all for making it harder to just sit on housing, the “more empty homes than homeless” this, while technically true, is very misleading, and I wouldn’t want to try to force unhoused folks into the empty homes without a lot more pruning.
In-demand places don’t typically have much in the way of empty homes, as it doesn’t typically make financial sense not to rent them out. Empty homes in places like this are generally in between tenants or on the market to be sold. Meanwhile, there are places with huge numbers of empty homes, typically because of population drain. The homes sit empty not because someone’s hoarding them, but because people don’t want to move to places like Cairo, Illinois.
The statistic, whilst technically true, doesn’t take into account demographic and population changes. People want to live in places with vibrant economies and lots of job opportunities, and that’s not typically where the huge supply of empty homes is. So we can’t just redistribute our way out of this problem. Building, and especially infill in cities, is absolutely necessary in huge quantities.
Also homelessness is not simply lack of a home. It’s invariably more complex, and you won’t generally be successful with simply giving a property and washing your hands of it.
There may be disabilities, insufficient life skills, or vices and self-destructive behaviors that will fail this approach for all too many. A secure place to live is only the starting point
People want to live in places with vibrant economies and lots of job opportunities
Homelessness does not exist on this tier of Maslow’s hierarchy.
Having a home is not useful if living it in means you can’t feed yourself. You can find owned, unoccupied housing that’s been on the market over a year. The owners don’t want it, but no buyers want it either. If you freely gave a homeless man one of those houses without any further aid, he’d probably abandon it because he’d have to be within reasonable distance of a city to actually be able to survive.
Canada instantly bursting in flames
why do you hate me so?
Do you think you provide housing? Here’s a list of common signs:
If someone stole all your tools, you’d kill them, and you don’t think that’s weird.
Unhealthy relationship with caffeine (bonus points for other substances too)
At least one fucked-up bone or joint
There’s some Liquid Nails or silicone caulk stuck in your favorite work shirt
Your hearing isn’t as good as it used to be
Regular porta-shitter use
If two or more of these fit your lifestyle, you may be a provider of housing.
The current federal government? This is about the United States Federal Government?
LOL, nope don’t trust them.
They’ll seize the houses of “smaller” landlords and give them to the 1% rich landlords, and their houses would be exempt from the regulations. Then they will raise the rent even more, and this time, they will actually have good lawyers, and the tenants will lose every time.
The government needs to be fixed before we can even attempt to fix other issues.
This government would seize housing, then deny access to people of color, LGBT people, people with disabilities (yes the ADA exist, but fascists ignore laws), probably anyone who ever voted registered as a democrat, and anyone else critical of the regime.
This would have to be done at the state level anyway since they enforce most of the real estate laws.
So those who want to buy a house but can’t afford it are still fucked. Cool.
When more homeless people are in public housing, there’s less demand for rentals.
When there’s less demand for rentals, competition falls and rents fall too.
When rents are low, landlording becomes less profitable.
When landlording isn’t profitable, investors move their stock to higher growth assets.
When investors sell their houses, the price to buy a house falls.
To put this in simple terms: a rising tide lifts all ships. Housing the homeless improves the lives of everyone except landlords and billionaires.
This. Thank you.
Qui-Gon explained it best:
You and the Naboo form a symbiont circle. What happens to one of you will affect the other. You must understand this.
That’s great in the short term, but now no one is ever gonna build housing again, so in a generation we’re back to a housing shortage.
If you exclusively try to bring down housing costs by attempting to limit demand, you end up making the problem worse. You need to offer more supply.
The demand for housing isn’t being limited though. The demand for investment property has decreased to be replaced with demand for owned housing. You can still sell a new house. People are still buying houses. I agree with others that worse case, we can bolster development at the federal level, but that doesn’t seem like it will be necessary. Additionally, with declining birth rates and an increase in WFH jobs, less housing will be needed, and people are moving to areas where new construction is not as needed as they are moving into previously abandoned/vacant rural areas. So you won’t be seeing new housing developments there so much as rebuilding.
Your paradigm is in no way connected to the reality of how people are moving. New home construction is going up like crazy in the small cities and towns people move into. To expect a small area to absorb a 50% population increase with little new construction is just not realistic.
And to expect renting to just…end? That sounds like a crazy level of privileged bubble. A huge fraction of the population is not and never will be able to afford homeownership, and expecting the government to fund their home purchases would bankrupt any nation.
In my comment I explicitly stated that there is no need to stop new construction. I do not expect any area to absorb anything. I suggested construction will continue and “additionally” that some areas are being revitalized and will have different needs (rebuilding vs new homes). That’s just true.
I’m not expecting renting to just end. I know people who do not want to own any kind of property and prefer short term rentals. It’s not a sensible goal to force people into owning if they don’t want to.
What does it mean to not be able to afford home ownership? Do you mean they not have enough money for housing in the first place, or do you mean they can just rent? If option one, they are considered homeless and the state should provide housing, if option two, then yes, rent to own should be a real thing. First time home buyers loans exist and the project should be expanded. These are not novel proposals that I just made up. People have been suggesting them for quite a while.
Yeah but expanding those programs on the order you’re talking about is absurd levels of money. Not to mention the credit risks…unless you’re suggesting the government act as guarantee, in which case we’ll have a student loan scenario. Home prices will just rise to whatever they were before, plus the government grant.
- the government has absurd levels of money
- it will literally earn the government money long term
- it’s not like it’ll happen overnight
- it’s not a grant it’s a loan. The loan would be for the entire amount. This is already basically in place in a different country.
- prices would not skyrocket because there would be virtually no rental market so if you wanted to sell you’re selling to someone who is going to occupy. Homes will not be investments the way they are currently seen. This will be a way for people currently in a position to only rent to start getting equity so they can have better opportunities in the future. Selling to upgrade will be done because a) you started earning more b) because you had a period with no payments and therefore were able to save c) originally purchased below your means. There will be inflation, but generally no one will be moving into a home for 500k and selling 2-3 years later for a million. There won’t be enough buyers once investors are mostly disincentivized/removed from the market
You mean like it bankrupted the Soviet Union when they built all that public housing?
Yes, actually.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. The apples being the capitalist housing market, and the oranges being the entire housing economy. Across the entire housing economy, demand is the same. It’s just that more of the demand is being met by socialised supply. So no, in terms of the entire housing supply, this proposal doesn’t limit demand.
Across the entire housing economy, demand is the same.
Not over time. Population goes up, and also becomes more concentrated.
i think you mean investor will ever build housing again. Regular people still want nice houses, so we will be back to craft houses built by individuals wishing to express themselves into the abode they live in. To fill the gaps grants can be issues to aid construction for those less well off
So nothing but a sea of suburban sprawl to every horizon? That sounds like hell.
Nationalized housing and construction.
That could work, but government run housing tends to become a ghetto, historically.
Thats a symptom not a cause. Gov. Housing usual is used by ppl in poverty. Not the other way around.
That doesn’t change the fact that it seems to happen almost every time.
Ok, but it doesn’t change the fact that it tends to happen almost every time.
Is the government going to give them a car too? What good is a house to a person that has no transportation. How are they going to get to/from anywhere with how most neighborhoods are set up? There’s nothing in walking distance for them. A better solution would be for the government to tax the shit out of residential property that the owner isn’t living in so they’re incentivized to sell. Then the people that are currently renting can buy, move out of their apartments in more walkable areas and free them up for whatever the government needs to do for the homeless.
Lots of homeless people have cars. Often, they live in them. That said, it would be better for them to get to work by walking, cycling, or using public transportation.
I think it’s valid to address issues with proposed solutions, especially prior to their implementation. For what it’s worth, their argument is not entirely sound, since most these proposals have built in subsidies for home buyers, but it’s good that they are providing their perspective.
Their “issue” is that they think it doesn’t benefit them personally, and they think everything ought to be about them.
I mean, it’s not just them in that situation, and it seems uncharitable to claim their only concern is self interest. I stand by my original point that it’s important people speak up about how situations affect them, and I’m not sure I’d call that self interested. Since I don’t know them personally, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt. Housing as a right is a cornerstone of leftist ideology, so I want to make sure people feel comfortable talking about it openly and debating implementation and bringing up when people might be left behind.
