don't hate the player, hate the game?
don't hate the player, hate the game?
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Corps and foreign investors shouldn't be able to own housing (multi unit should be co-op/market rate nonprofits)
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Individuals should not be able to own more than 5 homes. (The number is semi arbitrary, but at a certain point it is very clearly hoarding, and therefore shouldn't be allowed)
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AirBNB and similar should be heavily regulated. (They turn permanent residences into short term, which reduces capacity, and drives up prices all around)
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Shift to a land value tax system as the primary means of tax collection. What few landlords/scalpers exist after the above changes will have even less room to breathe. And it would punish vacancy, which would put pressure to keep as much housing available as possible.
There may need to be some exceptions. But if changes like this were to occur, we wouldn't have this problem.
69No reason whatsoever anyone should own 5 "homes" (at that point they are not homes, they are a commodity).
Housing is a human right, and it needs to be entirely decommodified.
19Preach.
Housing is a human right.
Private land ownership violates that human right.
All land should be held in trust for the people as a whole and managed by the government for the benefit of the people. Including the houses and apartments on that land.
We should not have private homeowners. We should not have private landlords. We should have socialized housing, just like we should have socialized medicine. Apartment buildings and neighborhoods should be managed by tenant associations, with strict legal limits on their authority over individual tenants, and government facilitators to provide expert advice on building management and keep meetings running smoothly.
But we are a long way from implementing that.
11But consider all the investment banks that would irreparably harm!
3
Each successive property beyond one should add an additional 10% to the property taxes. The owner may list them in any order, but you pay 110% for the second property and 200% for the 11th
12A land value tax would be a good idea as well, especially if its the main form of tax collection. Each successive property would automatically, drastically increase the cost.
It would become a defacto tax on the rich, while helping to prevent hoarding. Two birds one stone.
10
An easier approach would be to turn every apartment building into a housing co-op.
Capitalist for-profit housing simply should not exist.
7I can imagine ways of doing that without too much friction. Building residents would have to buy out the building though which many won't want to do
1An easier approach would be to turn every apartment building into a housing co-op.
That would also be a good idea. Not sure about the easier part though.
Capitalist for-profit housing simply should not exist.
Agreed
1
I'd even say no more than two properties. Make people apply for a permit to own more than that and put extreme limits on the reasons they could be successful depending on the current market.
3I don't have a problem with that either. But yeah, the number itself is semi arbitrary. It should be voted on really.
2
The vast majority of 'good' landlords are people who were sketchy about investing in stock markets. As they rightfully should be because it requires infinite growth to keep people retiring without serious wage redistribution. But let's kick that football down the road more.
Most of them are old and elderly. There's no way the government forces private land owners to sell off anytime soon though. Let alone the difference in taxing/sales of land ownership vs home ownership. A hard cap on total homes owned would be nice though. People really out to diversify their savings and equity is a huge one.
There's so much good that could be done that starts failing when defacto mini government coops start up though. You'll have a hard time finding the difference between Coop and government owned housing but you'll see people lambast government ownership like we've already seen in this thread lol.
2My city levies land tax on any land that isn't the owner's private residence
That though really just increases rent, even if rent is unfair already
They have just also added a thing where you don't cop land tax if you rent out a place at sufficiently below market rate
1Let's go with one home, then we can consider allowing more. Extreme? Yes. But I have no sympathy for the wealthy folks. Sorry, not sorry.
1
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Not pictured, all the landlords paying an app to create a higher market rate.
36It boggles my mind how people still insist there's a "free market" in rent when we have proof of giant property management corporations colluding nationwide to raise rents.
This shit is why we need rent control.
22
Investors and Airbnb have really undermined historical market forces here. also data pricing apps that fix prices between "competitors" should be noted here
31One landlord told me he had to charge so much because of his Asian wife was greedy.
Glad that old white landlord can hide is greed behind his racism for his wife's ethnic background.
Rich people are shit people.
30"I'mma need to be greedy with you because my wife is asian" AKA why capitalists will always side with racism even if its a transparent attempt to bilk people of money.
5What people don't seem to credit enough is the fact that nearly all wealthy people are shitty people. I'm not being facetious. I know a lot of them, and they almost universally believe that they earned every penny of their fortunes.
The rest of us are just lazy. That's how they see everything. Some break the mold, sure... But the grand majority are trash people.
3
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It's appropriate because he owns a lot of houses. Recently sold a couple to make half a million bucks tax free 'cos NZ doesn't have a capital gains tax which Luxon Luther thinks would be just terrible for the country... For completely selfless reasons, of course. He's a scumbag and a racist and liar
1I'm sorry, NZ doesn't have captial gains tax??? Thanks backwards as fuck.
I mean, over here in Australia we give a 50% discount, which is already bullshit in my opinion, for assets held for at least a year, and waived for primary residences under a certain value (which is also bullshit, in my opinion. You'd be getting taxed on the gain only, not sure why living there somehow makes that capital gain special), but no capital gains at all? That's nuts.
2
Funny how they never mind raising the rent when the market is up, but you never, ever, ever get it lowered when it's down.
7the players are the game. never forget that
7Just build more housing lol
7Imagine a hoard of people saying that in a drone similar to "this is extremely dangerous to our democracy".
7
5
I hate the player and the game. After all why not both?
3That's one well dressed landlord. Every landlord I ever dealt wore dirty clothes, was missing teeth, and was in desperate need of a shower. 🤔
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2I mean, they're sort of right.
If there's 150,000 identical homes for rent in an area, and 200,000 people/couples/families want to live there, then 50,000 are going to be shit out of luck.
The going rate is going to be the maximum that the 150,000th person out of those 200k is prepared to pay.
How do you fight maths?
Build more houses. Less competition means lower prices.
Social housing schemes.
Work from home being a right so you don't end up with everyone needing to work in a massive city to make ends meet.
Tax landlords. They're already charging the most the market will bear, and taxes would mean they can't just snap all those homes up and offer them for rent. If buying and renting homes is a valid business plan, then the tax isn't high enough.
0The problem is there aren't 150,000 homes for 200,000 people. It's probably the double but 100,000 of those homes are owned by people/companies who'd rather have them empty while the price rises. Basically using them as stocks instead of shelter for actual persons.
6So you think the vacancy rate in expensive areas is 50%? That is extremely wrong.
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So you aren't aware of the Homebuilder Cartel, I'm assuming?
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Market capitalism is destroying us, our homes, and literally our only habitat.
Their guard gates are mostly decorative. We could save our species and the habitability of the planet.
Instead some think we can petition the government they've fully owned for half a century to mitigate the harm they bought our government to commit with abandon, lol.
0As someone who owns 3 houses, I believe no one should be allowed to own any houses. Housing should be lifetime leased only from a central scheme that has pricing adjusted by income. This facilitates mobility without the need of a rental or buying market.
In the current market based housing system if I sell my houses, they will be bought by worse individual landlords or corporations who will immediately hike the rents to market rates, and drag their heels on maintenance.
My only option out is to gift them to my tenants (who couldn't afford to buy), but then they just become their assets instead. I'm sure there's a high possibility they couldn't afford the tax implications of such a gift. They will invariably need to move at some stage, sell the properties, or rent them out to someone else at market rates, and the dwellings become live 'housing stock' again. It doesn't matter if you live in your house or rent it out; in the current system you are still commodifying what should be a human right.
The problem ISN'T individual landlords being a bunch of asshats, that's a separate and real problem, but not THE problem. It's the fundamental idea that landlords and renters should exist, and a system that perpetuates that. We need to eat the rich on a systematic level, otherwise the only people who will be eating the rich are even richer people, who can afford to eat those less rich than them, like the massive transfer of wealth up that happened during the COVID crash.
Becoming a capitalist only strengthened my belief that it is a broken system that needs to die. It is rediculous that I can sit on my arse and collect enough money to live. I 'earned' my assets (as an orphan on a government pension), but many (most?) capitalists don't even need to do that step, with generational wealth and the opportunities that financial stability bring allowing them to invest and build a portfolio with little effort. If I can get where I am with no financial or family assets behind me, imagine what others can achieve... Wealth makes wealth is a rediculous system that can only breed inequality.
If I stop being a capitalist, someone else just ends up with those assets. I lose that power, and someone who wants to use that power to its full 'potential' takes them. I lose the time it gives me to devote to spreading anti-capitalist propaganda (what little I do, but it's something), and my ability to try and get political power to help make systematic change. Where I own property, it's already heading towards a Berlin like situation, where corporations own most of the housing. If a release those assets, it just increases the chance of those assets going in to corporate hands.
Anyway, if I'm totally wrong on all this please point out my mistakes, that's just where my current thinking is at.
-1As someone who owns 3 houses, I believe no one should be allowed to own any houses
You don't believe anyone should own homes? You are part of this group 💀
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This fundamentally misunderstands the way that the market works.
If you have 1000 people trying to rent a 1br apartment, and there are 500 1br apartments on the market, then yeah, the price is going to go up, because there's more demand than supply. But supply is constrained by outside factors, like zoning, and neighborhoods that don't want to ruin their "character" be someone building high-density housing next to their cute, retro bungalow. Sure, you can build your apartment complex out in BFE, but no one wants to rent a place out in BFE because now they can't get to their job in a reasonable amount of time, and have to drive rather than take public transit (or walk, ride a bike, etc.). Plus, that creates sprawl.
If you really want more housing, blaming landlords--including corporate landlords--isn't going to fix it. Blame the cities that won't allow proper high density housing, blame the NIMBYs.
I don't know where people think that more housing comes from; someone has to put up the money. I'm fine with it being the state, but someone has to front the money in the first place.
-4You have it all wrong. Housing is expensive because investment firms are allowed to buy up entire neighborhoods thus slashing supply.
Building new homes doesn’t change the equation as these same investment firms are buying up new homes as well.
They control the market because they own the majority of it. They prop up home prices and rental prices. They’ll sit on empty homes just to maintain said control.
If you want anything to change the first step is stopping companies from investing in homes.
Any other fight is pointless.
6It can't possibly be the price fixing cartels the DOJ is currently going after. It's nebulous market forces that we just can't do anything about. (/s)
And in places there's actually a shortage, government built buildings that rent at cost and offer rent to buy would solve it. But we're too busy congratulating wall street for making the line go up while ignoring rising homelessness, even while stuff is getting built.
4The price-fixing cartels refers to rent specifically, rather than sales. And yes, there is a shortage of units for sale, and that is due largely to market forces. For instance, if I have a house right now that I still have 25 years of mortgage on, my mortgage is probably at a very low rate. Selling that home and buying a new one would mean a new mortgage, at a higher rate, which means bigger monthly payments. This is a problem that older people are running into right now; their homes are too big now that their kids are gone, but they can't afford the new mortgage rates.
Even without rental software suggesting market values for landlords, it's very easy to look at comparables in your general area to set your own rates close to what other people have their at. Similarly, if you list a property at $X, and get 200 queries in a single day, you are likely to set your prices higher because you know that you're listing lower than average. (I sold a car like that; I got 50+ inquiries in just a few hours, because I'd set the price lower than market rate.)
And in places there’s actually a shortage
...Which actually is most places.
IIRC, the gov't is restricted right now, and can't build more without a change in the law. And sure, let's change that. But you're also going to need to change local zoning restrictions that prevent high density housing from going into certain residential areas.
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It's really not that simple.
You can, for instance, buy land and build your own home. But if you do that, you're likely going to end up paying prices that are very comparable--or much, much higher!--to the prices you would pay to get the mass-produced homes from one of a few companies that are building massive sprawl. Those companies have economies of scale working on their side; they have limited floor plans, and have more control over the cost inputs, because they can negotiate bulk pricing. If you break up the 'cartels', then you're suddenly dealing with much, much more custom homebuilding.
(FWIW, I'm currently looking into custom homebuilding, so I've got a pretty decent idea on what some of the costs will be for even a fairly modest home where all I really want is a shell that's stub plumbed and has a breaker box.)
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Hey, stop shilling for landlords and join us down here in People Land. It's not too late. Don't be an apologist for the fucked-up systems ravaging our planet. Money sucks; we're better off without it. People can care for each other like we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. Stretch your imagination a bit, friend. The system you're defending is very recent, and it's very fucked. It does not deserve your allegiance.
1