It would only be an economic crisis for land owners who seek rent. Really housing shouldn’t be something that people profit from.
Some people want to rent (e.g., young people, people with mobile jobs, or people who just aren’t ready to be tied down to one place).
And I don’t have a problem with a small-time property owner renting out a house at a fair rate. In theory it’s a win-win: the renter gets a place to stay, the landlord builds equity in their property.
The issue we have is two-fold:
Companies buying up massive amounts of property (not just a house or two, but thousands) and turning entire neighborhoods into rent zones, driving out any competition and availability of housing to buy, thereby driving up prices.
Price collusion amongst these companies, driving up rent far above fair rates, using these software services that share going rates across markets. That reduces consumer choice.
Barring a really interesting solution, like a Land Value Tax or something, my proposal to remediate this housing problem is rather straight-forward and simple:
Prohibit these software companies from sharing rental rates info to customers. Landlords just need to figure it out in their own markets the old fashioned way.
Prohibit corporations from buying housing with the intention to rent it. Force these corporations to sell their housing and get out of the landlord business.
Allow individuals to hold property for renting out, but cap number of properties a person or household can own for the express intention of renting out to five at any given time. That allows a person to build up a nice little savings nest, and provide a rental property to someone who wants to rent, but doesn’t allow anyone to dominate a housing market. Look for those massive profits elsewhere - start a business that creates and provides value.
Anyway, one can dream, I guess.
You can have non profit driven rentals though…? Why does rent need to be profit driving?
Some people WANT to have short-term commitments to their housing location. That is currently accomplished through rent. That's an important distinction you are missing while trying to preserve elements of familiarity with the way the world currently works.
People don't "want to rent". They want shelter. It's just that renting is the easiest way to get that.
Wow finally someone else with a level-headed take. Careful though, that kind of thinking doesn't do well here
Landlords are parasites. Period.
I mean, 0 new apartments would be built
Why? Its not like apartments are built by private industry. Not any lasting ones at least.
Home values themselves would tank.
I imagine there would be far fewer people willing to pay thousands of dollars for a mortgage when rent is only $100 and maintenance is someone else's problem. Hell, home maintenance and repairs alone are well more than that.
It would be a crisis for renters. Land owners by definition already have a place to stay, but the second you implement price controls you're going to see the rental market go into convulsions. The correct solution is to Just Tax Land.
The correct solution is ~~to Just Tax Land~~ socialized housing.
There you go
Yep, this is already a solved problem.
About 60% of the people in Vienna live in public housing and its one of the best places in the world to live.
Tons of people in this thread are running around coming up with Rube Goldberg schemes of incentive structures and legal frameworks when the problem is really not that complicated.
Well sure, people would stop renting in protest, and you’d have to tax unoccupied spaces at high rates to compensate.
It would crash the real estate market, which arguably needs to die since availability is artificially scarce due to wealthy hoarders.
tax unoccupied spaces at high rates to compensate.
Doing just this would help quite a lot today. A bunch of properties sit vacant because it's cheaper to just pay the taxes and let the property appreciate than it is to bother with renting.
pretty sure this would lead to some sort of economic crisis
And? We’ve already tried it the other way around, and we’ve really got nothing to lose at this point by trying OOP’s idea out.
Economic crisis? That would be terrible! It's a good thing we never have any economic crises under the current system!
Surely not one that would cause the US to drop 10% of its stock market value in 4 months.
Honestly I was just thinking of the past 200 years of US history that has mostly just been a sequence of economic crises with occasional breaks.
THATS UNIRONICALLY BETTER THAN OUR CURRENT PRESIDENT
While I like the thought, still terribly bad in my opinion. Presidents should never have a say in any of that. That's where we have fooled most of America. Legislation can make such a law and then the president can execute it by arresting those who do not follow the law that was made.
The president is a local cop and international diplomat. Locally they should do nothing that is not previously written by Congress and Passed the Senate and then signed (or not signed) by them or previous office holders.
International diplomat means they also cannot declare war and cannot make trade rules. They are a spokesperson.
If I were President I would follow the constitution and the amendments made thereafter. I would never want to be president, but if I ran I would focus my campaign on educating the populous on what the job is supposed to be, and who the members in their communities/cities/county/state are that they should be pushing for to do great things for them.
I would cheer for them to elect legislatives who will write thorough adaptable bills that can help their constituents and keep a platform along the lines of "Presidents don't make laws, Vote for good people who will write good legislation for your community, and please don't make me have to perform a job that hurts our people. America's governing is decided by your representatives"
My take?
corporations aren't allowed to own land or houses other than the office space and production facilities.
people can only own the buildings they live in (with proof of living there at least X% of the year)
The state takes over all houses and land that become unused by these laws
The state rents out their property as 'rent to own', or as housing for the homeless
Why couldn't the US have guaranteed government housing available to any citizen that needs it? A $100 a month apartment to cure homelessness shouldn't be a funny joke ... it should be questioned with "why should it even cost money"?
Government housing tied to the cost of 1 weeks minimum wage. So simple, so elegant.
The government actually helping people without lining the pockets of the capital class? That's commie talk
you could honestly make every apartment cost 100 dollars and no one would actually get affected
Those who own the land and go ape shit over their value don't even take advantage of it and sell it off, more often they just die and have their kids inherit it, and the landlords who benefit from every type of inflation in real estate
of course this assumes every housing unit is owned and managed by the government, and these themselves are incredibly successful even if they only have 10% of the real estate market
The money that exits the economy through large landlords (not small landlords) is essentially wasted, I bet the economy would actually grow if we had proper gov. Housing that allowed people to actually spend their monthly wages on literally anything else
For me personally I’d like a 50-60 square meter apartment for no more than 2x my annual income. And I’d like to be able to get a loan with a monthly down payment equal to whatever I’ve been paying in rent for the last couple of years.
I can pay 12500 NOK a month in rent, but for some reason the bank can’t trust me to pay the same amount if I were to buy an apartment? Fuck that.
That was a scam they put in place after 2008 when they were being punished for scamming us. (while scamming us for bailouts for the previous scam) It takes a lot of government regulation to keep the banks from stealing, good thing thats gone now!
Then this is my take:
Obviously offices and factories are not habitable space and therefore not counted in this system.
Housing shouldn't be an investment asset, especially in a for profit system, or you'll just make BlackRock again.
What could go right? If apartments cost $100, everyone would own one and there would be no speculative market in them — no rental market at all probably.
If housing was truly abundant, we would still have landlords. The key difference is they would actually have to compete as a service provider instead of as mere land hoarders. "Landlord" would be an honest job for once.
Landlords like to say that many people prefer to rent because then they don't have to worry about maintenance, doing home repairs, etc. But most people rent simply because they can't afford to purchase a home themselves. Instead of helping people avoid maintenance, landlords in practice do everything possible to avoid spending a penny on any kind of maintenance. They're able to be so stingy because people need somewhere to live. With most rentals, you're simply paying for access to housing, the quality of the service is an afterthought. Very few people have the luxury of rejecting a potential apartment or rental home simply because the landlord has a reputation of poor responsiveness to maintenance requests.
With abundant housing, landlords would be more like hotels operators in vacation destinations. No one would stay at a resort hotel if the rooms were falling apart and full of mold. It's a luxury purchase that people can go without, so they can afford to demand quality. With abundant housing, rental housing becomes a luxury good.
For example, let's say anyone who wanted could buy a home with an affordable mortgage. Maybe the government subsidizes the mass production of housing units. Just flood the market with new homes and condos. Make it so there are 1.5 housing units for every 1 household. Or imagine some federal program to double the number of housing units in the US. And then offer low down payment and subsidized mortgages so basically anyone can get one.
In order to compete with that, landlords would have to offer a high quality of customer service. They would have to appeal to those who actually would prefer to rent. They would have to attract those who honestly just hate doing maintenance and don't want to futz around with it. Those who wanted to not have to do home maintenance could rent, and they would seek out landlords who actually properly maintained their units. With dirt cheap housing available, any landlord that didn't provide excellent customer service would quickly be driven out of business. Instead of being in the land speculation business, they would be in the customer service business. "Landlord" would actually be a real job for a change.
We need non-profit public housing that is suitable for middle-class families.
Non-profit doesn't mean "free" or that money is being lost, just that the goal is to provide housing at cost rather than profit-seeking. Subsidies and such would still be available for low-income households as needed.
No one who owns a home would vote for them. It's not in their self interest, if they spent 300k on a house and this happened, they would lose ~300k. Not worth it at all. A much better idea would be to just have tax breaks for contractors making new homes, that would lower the value of everyone else's homes, but by a lot less.
Eh, I'd go for it. This whole country thing isn't about my personal gain, but making life better for everyone.
I get why they would lose money, but in my head it's still like you still have a home still so why should they care.
Housing should not be an investment. They didn't lose anything except speculated value which comes at the cost of locking others out from the ability to own their own home. In fact, those morons who care so much about "muh investment" are also costing themselves through higher property taxes and ridiculous house prices they'd have to face if they ever have to move.
There are quite a few people who say they wouldn't be able to afford the house they have now if they had to finance it at today's prices and interest rates. How can they realize the capital gains on such an "investment" if they don't own more than one home? They still have to live somewhere.
you leave individuals who own up to, say, 3 houses alone and start massively taxing anything further. 4+ house voting bloc can suck a dick. corporations will be forced to rent at obscenely low rates to the point that they will be stupid not to sell. they have a minimum tenant percentage to make sure they're not hoarding, and have mandatory government evaluation for any sale. fail to do any of this for 60 days and your properties now belong to the people.
Just ban being a landlord guys. Tax owning land that you're not using out of existence. Rent/leases are simple vectors of wealth transferal - they move money from the poor to the rich. Everyone should own their own flat/house. Every business should own the space they work out of.
There is no good reason housing should be an investment vehicle akin to a stock or a bond.
It should be locked at 50 cents per square foot. So a studio apt would be like $500 a month. Its close enough to what prices were in recent memory before the insane jumps in rent cost the last decade.
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