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Is capping house prices a good idea? Yay or nay (or other)? Like from a seller's perspective it's in their best interest to sell it for more than they bought the house for, but almost every place I know of housing prices go up and up often much faster than the average income of that community

meaning it could cheat people of lower income out of being able to afford even a small house and just make the housing market mostly a privilege for the wealthy, which would make capping seem like a good idea (maybe?). I know jack gak about economics, despite taking an introductory

course in economics ages ago in university (which probably confused me more than it helped) so my opinion on this issue is pretty much useless. But hopefully there's some brighter dakkasses who can give this topic a little bit of depth and maybe make this thread somewhat educational.

I said yes, but not for a cap as described.

Instead, we need to be heavily taxing ‘Buy To Let’ cretins. They’re the ones inflating it, because there’s no downside. Whatever the mortgage, Jack the rent up.

Buy to let and holiday homes and second homes (often holiday homes but not always) are what helps push the prices up. It varies area to area; touristy areas push prices up with holiday rentals; whilst denser urban areas you get a lot more rental properties and big rental groups that buy up whatever they can to put another house into renting.

The other factor is that any sort of cap or tax needs to be variable. It cannot be a single figure nation wide because there is huge variety in local economics and that's before one considers outside pressures. For example people moving out of London to a more rural area can push prices up significantly because the sale of even a modest property in London comes with a huge price tag. The rural areas have earnings far lower and thus often as not locals soon get priced out of their own area by migration.

At the same time work and living mobility is something we have made important so being able to move to new areas for work is also something we can't cripple.



Basically this issue gets complicated very quickly if you are trying to be fair to all parties. From those wanting to let a room to help cover the mortgage; to those wanting to sell for a good price ot let them move to retire or follow new work; through to those who want to live in a specific area that they grew up in etc... I would even say that whilst buy to let puts prices up it at least retains the housing for rental; second homes and holiday homes are far more damaging because they take properties out of the housing market (but they are also providing income for the tourist market which is very important in some regions).

 Overread wrote:

The other factor is that any sort of cap or tax needs to be variable. It cannot be a single figure nation wide because there is huge variety in local economics and that's before one considers outside pressures. For example people moving out of London to a more rural area can push prices up significantly because the sale of even a modest property in London comes with a huge price tag. The rural areas have earnings far lower and thus often as not locals soon get priced out of their own area by migration.

It's also prone for abuse and loopholes.

For a good while, people used to jump over selling price-restricted apartments ("protected" was the legal term) by bundling the apartment with a storage unit or parking spot (which weren't restricted) at inflated prices. You would also see cash-heavy operations reporting a lower price (and thus pricing out legit mortgage buyers).

Not to mention that on desirable areas run-down units would sell at the same price as nicely kept and maintained ones.

It's a good idea, but too difficult to implement.

Free housing for everyone. That's how it used to be in the Soviet Union. And for all their flaws, that was definitely one of the good ideas the Soviets had.
I think that would be a good idea still.

But given current political climates, such a thing is unlikely to pass.
Next best thing I suppose is to shut down real estate speculators, landlords and their ilk. Forbid the buying of a house for the purpose of reselling or renting it out. It should only be allowed to buy a house if you actually plan on living there.

That'll explain why a lot of London is getting bought up by Russian businessmen.
Generally though, caps would be based on the area, and buying outside that area messes this system up.

It's far too easy to work around.

Sell the house for the capped price, on the condition they pay $100k for the carpets.

The better solution is to provide sufficient affordable housing, either to buy or government owned, so that people aren't forced to rent for a fortune and fuel the buy-to-lets and speculators.

Herzlos thing is that right now renting is often more attractive than buying in some areas. We don't have the job security that was around years ago. In fact the job market is oversaturated with workers in many sectors. As a result rental is sometimes far more attractive because it leaves the person the option of moving to a new location to secure work in the area they are trained and experienced in.

So affordable housing won't get around that; in fact the cure to the rental market pressure is stronger job security since that encourages people to put down roots in an area.

As for better affordable housing; that is hard in a small country with a rapidly expanding population; not to mention that there's increase marital break up which increases housing pressure and immigration.


Honestly the "cure" is to stabilize or reduce the national population

Council housing is rented accomodation as well as being social housing.

Available council housing is practically none-existent though.

I'm not convinced - I don't think many people travel about so much for work that they can't buy a house somewhere vaguely suitable and just put up with a long commute for a while.

I mean, lots of people travel up to about an hour each way. With careful selection that should let you cover 3+ largish cities in the area which should be plenty.

For people likely to move further afield you're right; buying is an extra burden.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 simonr1978 wrote:
Available council housing is practically none-existent though.

Which is the crux of the problem. 14+ year waiting lists up here, and builders getting barely a rap on the knuckles for forgetting to build affordable housing in new build estates.

jouso wrote:
Not to mention that on desirable areas run-down units would sell at the same price as nicely kept and maintained ones.

This is a good example of the kind of thing that makes a fixed cap a bad idea. You end up with unanticipated side effects and perverse incentives, like making cutting maintenance expenses being the only acceptable way to make a profit (and who cares anyway, if the market says the price is $500k and you cap it at $300k every house will sell at $300k even in poor condition). The better way to fix the issue is to do three things:

1) Increase new construction, preferably high-density housing if land is an issue. Much of the housing problem is areas where there simply aren't enough houses to meet demand, so price keeps going up. Flood the market with new construction and prices go down.

2) Heavily tax rental properties. If you make buying a house just to put it back on the market as a rental property a poor investment then those properties are available to buy for legitimate residents. The trick is crafting the tax such that it hits the speculators buying at inflated prices and not apartment complexes or rental companies willing to rent at reasonable rates.

3) Find a way to shift demand geographically. If all the jobs are in one place with too little housing then try to get companies to move elsewhere, or let people work remotely, etc. Decentralize the jobs and you avoid creating centers of demand where available space to put houses is not adequate.

 simonr1978 wrote:
Available council housing is practically none-existent though.

That's an important part of the problem.

The solution is to allow and encourage councils to build more social housing and not sell it off. (Thatcher made the councils sell their houses to tenants at below market prices.)

 Cheesecat wrote:
Is capping house prices a good idea? Yay or nay (or other)? Like from a seller's perspective it's in their best interest to sell it for more than they bought the house for, but almost every place I know of housing prices go up and up often much faster than the average income of that community

meaning it could cheat people of lower income out of being able to afford even a small house and just make the housing market mostly a privilege for the wealthy, which would make capping seem like a good idea (maybe?). I know jack gak about economics, despite taking an introductory

course in economics ages ago in university (which probably confused me more than it helped) so my opinion on this issue is pretty much useless. But hopefully there's some brighter dakkasses who can give this topic a little bit of depth and maybe make this thread somewhat educational.

You'll remember that 'X' supply and demand graph from economics.
Prices rise and fall with demand's proportion to supply.

The price of a home in relation to a households income has risen dramatically, despite our ability to produce them cheaper and to a higher standard (3d printing with concrete and other alternate build methods),
Therefore, the supply is artificially reduced- a ton of factors that limit the availability of land and the type of home on offer.
In addition, demand is artificially increased by the government paying for and subsidizing social housing. Allowing non-citizens to avail of this housing compounds this folly by introducing new demand

If you want to go the statist, authoritarian solution, you will need to:
Ban foreign companies and persons from purchasing land in your country. They may rent .
Restrict purchases of second homes, though taxation or law.
Enforce the sale of 'idle property' - if you buy land and do not develop it, the state may force you to sell it someone who will.
Deport non citizens who receive welfare or who commit crimes.

You will ideally be incentivising development at the same time- good luck.

If you want the solution based on personal freedom, you:
Remove legislative barriers to domestic property ownership.
Remove/reduce legislation that mandates specific standards or materials for construction
Remove all taxation involved with domestic property, from the builders (incentivising construction) to the home owners, (incentivising purchase)
End welfare programs that subsidize or pay for domestic property
Sell state owned lands to citizens for domestic development.

The above is politically untenable- unions and lobbies would cry murder if any Joe Soap could build a house to his own spec. Pictures of crying children would emerge when you try and effectively bend the welfare state. Crying politicians would complain about the tax shortfall- without tax money, how do they bribe voters?

The best way to go about this would be to identify the biggest artificial modifier to demand or supply (which will vary from country to country), and remove it . The positive effect will be noticed and you gain political support for the rest of the reforms.

I think you have to let the market sort it out. What are you going to do if several people want the same house? You let them bid for it. Its not the sellers fault. Eventually prices get ahead of things and then you have a rollback, but I would always prefer the market take care of things as opposed to some suits in the government.

Besides, in the US, there is tax revenue from property taxes. Limiting the value of properties would also mean less money for the politicians to collect and spend. So I can't see them signing up en mass to do that.

Capping housing prices is never going to work.

However, there is a lot of market activity within real estate wherein the sole purpose is to drive up price. Speculation and manipulation are not conducive to allowing traditional market forces to find a natural equilibrium wherein demand for housing is matched to actual supply, in fact, they are expressely intended to distort it.

Some level of this will always occur, and some level of it is fine (such as in restoring blighted property). However, when it leads to undersupply for housing *as housing* (as opposed to investment vehicle, buying up a block of apartments, evicting all the tennants and putting a new coat of paint in and rerenting them at 50% more is not healthy for the market in the long term), then there is a very strong case for intervention in the form of purchasing restrictions and increased taxation on real estate (particularly on multiple properties) and incentives around consteucting new and explicitly affordable housing.

I very much like the idea of putting much heavier taxes on multiple properties rather than a cap on house prices although I am almost certain that anyone who buys to rent out will simply increase the rent accordingly thus simply exacerbatong the problem. That's not counting actual housing corporations who a) will never let that happen to themselves, and/or b) will find some loophole that lets them get those taxes back making them basically the only ones who can afford to buy to let.

So maybe a better solution is a cap on rent prices? Possibly in combination with a scaling increased tax for multiple properties. If you can only get X amount from renting out a property, there's an upper limit to how much you can practically afford to pay for that property before it becomes untenable. With a scaling extra property tax, it becomes even more untenable to become a slumlord. I think.

What needs to happen is clamping down on vacation rentals that are purchased for the sole purpose of renting them out. New legislation isn't necessarily needed either, since many of these businesses are less than legal in how they operate. You just need to put some effort into tracking them down and catching them.

If you're going to have any new legislation, something like this could possibly work.

Anybody who owns more than X number of living spaces who doesn't have long term tenants could get taxed some exorbitant fee for as long as they continue to have short term rental contracts. Possibly also cap the number of "Air BnB" type businesses allowed within a given area. Really something like this can only be fixed on the local level since what can and can't be sustained varies from region to region, so national legislation won't be effective.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I said yes, but not for a cap as described.

Instead, we need to be heavily taxing ‘Buy To Let’ cretins. They’re the ones inflating it, because there’s no downside. Whatever the mortgage, Jack the rent up.

 Grey Templar wrote:
What needs to happen is clamping down on vacation rentals that are purchased for the sole purpose of renting them out. New legislation isn't necessarily needed either, since many of these businesses are less than legal in how they operate. You just need to put some effort into tracking them down and catching them.

If you're going to have any new legislation, something like this could possibly work.

Anybody who owns more than X number of living spaces who doesn't have long term tenants could get taxed some exorbitant fee for as long as they continue to have short term rental contracts. Possibly also cap the number of "Air BnB" type businesses allowed within a given area. Really something like this can only be fixed on the local level since what can and can't be sustained varies from region to region, so national legislation won't be effective.

You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate. If you just buy rental properties and jack up rents above market value you won't get renters, you need a market that values housing high enough that you are likely to have a ready supply of renters willing to pay a rent that allows you to make a profit from your investment. If housing is expensive in your city then the rental properties people are renting were also expensive to buy which means even with high rents there isn't much profit being made. It's unlikely that the owners are making a double digit ROI on that property even if it's leased up because margins are small in real estate but even a 7-8% return makes it a very worthwhile investment.
If housing is expensive that means there isn't enough of it which is more of a result of government policy than speculation in the rent market. If the market drops then rents will drop if the market stay high rents stay high not because property owners are all evil slumlords but because property owners want high occupancy rates because that's what they need to earn a profit. Undercharge rents and you lose money because increased property values increases operating costs, overcharge rents and you get more vacancies and you lose money because you have less renters. Owners want full buildings so the rental rates go up and down with the market, owners can't force rents to be high.
If there's a shortage of housing then there is a lack of new housing construction and if new housing isn't being constructed you need to look at your zoning laws and your development/construction costs. Zoning laws can drive up property values which is good for the interests that already own property in the zone but bad for people who want to buy into the zone (guess who politicians favor more because they're a bigger source of donors?). The urban areas people want to be close to, commercial districts where the jobs, shops and restaurants are located are going to have limited residential zones so those residences are always going to be limited and expensive. If a city has a healthy growing economy then land there gains value and commercial properties have higher margins and lower operating costs than residential properties which is why even new mixed use developments typically have less residential space than commercial space.

We are experiencing this locally. The 2008 housing crash wiped out a lot of construction companies and slowed down housing construction due to the glut of foreclosures. Now that we're finally bouncing back there's a severe lack of starter homes available in our area so housing costs are spiking up drastically. The few new developments that are being build are all expensive McMansion homes because the cost of building a $300k house isn't much higher than the cost of building a $150k house but the profit margin on a $300k house is obviously much better. The lack of affordable housing has already caused a few of the families we're friends with to move out to more rural areas where they can afford a decent house and property. While it's nice to see our home value increase since homes are typically the biggest most valuable investment people have, it's frustrating to see our tax bill increase annually and see our town change into a much more expensive place to live. The primary reason my wife and I moved south to live and start a family was the lower cost of living since the suburbs we grew up in up north had steadily grown more expensive to the point where the rent for a basic 2 bedroom apartment 10 years ago was more than the current mortgage on our house and property. Seeing their equity increase by tens of thousands of dollars tends to make people pretty happy and higher home prices makes neighborhoods more exclusive which makes it difficult to convince people they need to pressure local government to enact zoning changes and increase affordable housing that will drive down housing costs.

A problem with putting caps on vacation rental homes are the communities that thrive and live off being a tourist destination. Those rentals bring money and wealth to the rest of the community via taxes and generating business(eating at local restaurants, buying groceries, etc.).

Prestor Jon wrote:


You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate.

Investing in real estate alone doesn't really jack prices up in and of itself. Its the fact that, instead of renting out apartments normally, the owners are renting out to tourists via short term rental agreements, which is far more lucrative than just having normal tenants.

This causes a shortage of normal rent housing because more and more landlords switch to the more profitable scheme. With a lower supply of housing, the rent prices go up as more individuals are competing for fewer available spaces.

These lucrative business opportunity causes more people to want to invest in apartments, which drives the price of those units up. Its sort of a self-feeding cycle.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate.

Investing in real estate alone doesn't really jack prices up in and of itself. Its the fact that, instead of renting out apartments normally, the owners are renting out to tourists via short term rental agreements, which is far more lucrative than just having normal tenants.

This causes a shortage of normal rent housing because more and more landlords switch to the more profitable scheme. With a lower supply of housing, the rent prices go up as more individuals are competing for fewer available spaces.

These lucrative business opportunity causes more people to want to invest in apartments, which drives the price of those units up. Its sort of a self-feeding cycle.

Again that’s not the owner’s fault. The first rule of real estate investment is to do your best to get the highest and best use out of the property. If the hospitality market in a city is screwed up enough so that it makes more sense to turn apartments into hotels then you need to correct the hospitality market. The local hotels are losing business and money if people are using rental apartments for short term stays so the hotels need to make a correction and recapture that business. Once that happens the rental market will dictate that returning the apartments to standard rental properties is the best use for them. The owners aren’t creating any problems they are just putting the properties they paid for to the best use dictated by local market conditions.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:


You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate.

Investing in real estate alone doesn't really jack prices up in and of itself. Its the fact that, instead of renting out apartments normally, the owners are renting out to tourists via short term rental agreements, which is far more lucrative than just having normal tenants.

This causes a shortage of normal rent housing because more and more landlords switch to the more profitable scheme. With a lower supply of housing, the rent prices go up as more individuals are competing for fewer available spaces.

These lucrative business opportunity causes more people to want to invest in apartments, which drives the price of those units up. Its sort of a self-feeding cycle.

Again that’s not the owner’s fault. The first rule of real estate investment is to do your best to get the highest and best use out of the property. If the hospitality market in a city is screwed up enough so that it makes more sense to turn apartments into hotels then you need to correct the hospitality market. The local hotels are losing business and money if people are using rental apartments for short term stays so the hotels need to make a correction and recapture that business. Once that happens the rental market will dictate that returning the apartments to standard rental properties is the best use for them. The owners aren’t creating any problems they are just putting the properties they paid for to the best use dictated by local market conditions.

I don't exactly blame someone for doing the most advantageous thing they can do. I'd probably do it in their situation. The issue is its the cause of skyrocketing rent in certain areas. Which negatively effects everybody who happens to live there.

So yeah, its their fault. In the sense that they are the cause behind it. In the same sense that its the raccoons fault that my trashcan keeps getting knocked over.

As rent control has amply demonstrated, placing a price cap creates incentives to DESTROY larger numbers of restricted housing in favor of smaller numbers of unrestricted housing.

Instead, the focus should be the complete and total elimination of minimum size and quality requirements, along with the creation of state-owned low-income housing. The state should be creating rooming houses and tenements to provide minimal housing, and this should be financed by taxes on non-state housing. In addition, the state should incent the creation of massive blocks of low income housing.


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 Iron_Captain wrote:
Forbid the buying of a house for the purpose of reselling or renting it out. It should only be allowed to buy a house if you actually plan on living there.

I'm fine with that as long as you criminalize homelessness.

Side effect is that apartments will convert to short term rental, without the protection of term leases (which would be illegal). Instead, they will convert to week-to-week hotels, where the owner can charge whateever the market will bear (vastly inflated compared to a term lease), and the hotel will be able to deny renewal as long as someone is willing to pay more. Net effect will be deeper squeeze that forces people out of housing entirely.

That's where the criminalization of homelessness comes into play.

Charge the homeless fines, etc. for vagrancy, put them in debtors prison, so that the state can effectively own them for life.


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Prestor Jon wrote:
You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate. If you just buy rental properties and jack up rents above market value you won't get renters, you need a market that values housing high enough that you are likely to have a ready supply of renters willing to pay a rent that allows you to make a profit from your investment. If housing is expensive in your city then the rental properties people are renting were also expensive to buy which means even with high rents there isn't much profit being made. It's unlikely that the owners are making a double digit ROI on that property even if it's leased up because margins are small in real estate but even a 7-8% return makes it a very worthwhile investment.
If housing is expensive that means there isn't enough of it which is more of a result of government policy than speculation in the rent market. If the market drops then rents will drop if the market stay high rents stay high not because property owners are all evil slumlords but because property owners want high occupancy rates because that's what they need to earn a profit. Undercharge rents and you lose money because increased property values increases operating costs, overcharge rents and you get more vacancies and you lose money because you have less renters. Owners want full buildings so the rental rates go up and down with the market, owners can't force rents to be high.
If there's a shortage of housing then there is a lack of new housing construction and if new housing isn't being constructed you need to look at your zoning laws and your development/construction costs. Zoning laws can drive up property values which is good for the interests that already own property in the zone but bad for people who want to buy into the zone (guess who politicians favor more because they're a bigger source of donors?). The urban areas people want to be close to, commercial districts where the jobs, shops and restaurants are located are going to have limited residential zones so those residences are always going to be limited and expensive. If a city has a healthy growing economy then land there gains value and commercial properties have higher margins and lower operating costs than residential properties which is why even new mixed use developments typically have less residential space than commercial space.

We are experiencing this locally. The 2008 housing crash wiped out a lot of construction companies and slowed down housing construction due to the glut of foreclosures. Now that we're finally bouncing back there's a severe lack of starter homes available in our area so housing costs are spiking up drastically. The few new developments that are being build are all expensive McMansion homes because the cost of building a $300k house isn't much higher than the cost of building a $150k house but the profit margin on a $300k house is obviously much better. The lack of affordable housing has already caused a few of the families we're friends with to move out to more rural areas where they can afford a decent house and property. While it's nice to see our home value increase since homes are typically the biggest most valuable investment people have, it's frustrating to see our tax bill increase annually and see our town change into a much more expensive place to live. The primary reason my wife and I moved south to live and start a family was the lower cost of living since the suburbs we grew up in up north had steadily grown more expensive to the point where the rent for a basic 2 bedroom apartment 10 years ago was more than the current mortgage on our house and property. Seeing their equity increase by tens of thousands of dollars tends to make people pretty happy and higher home prices makes neighborhoods more exclusive which makes it difficult to convince people they need to pressure local government to enact zoning changes and increase affordable housing that will drive down housing costs.

QFT. Someone actually understands housing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 =Angel= wrote:
You'll remember that 'X' supply and demand graph from economics.
Prices rise and fall with demand's proportion to supply.

The price of a home in relation to a households income has risen dramatically, despite our ability to produce them cheaper and to a higher standard (3d printing with concrete and other alternate build methods),

That is because land is a scarce good, and existing homeowners are the taxpayers and voters who have a strongly vested interest to prevent the construction of any housing that is not at least as good as what they purchased, ensuring that their personal home values increase.

If affordable housing really is the goal, then the state needs to build HUGE tenements

Prestor Jon wrote:

If there's a shortage of housing then there is a lack of new housing construction and if new housing isn't being constructed you need to look at your zoning laws and your development/construction costs. Zoning laws can drive up property values which is good for the interests that already own property in the zone but bad for people who want to buy into the zone (guess who politicians favor more because they're a bigger source of donors?). The urban areas people want to be close to, commercial districts where the jobs, shops and restaurants are located are going to have limited residential zones so those residences are always going to be limited and expensive. If a city has a healthy growing economy then land there gains value and commercial properties have higher margins and lower operating costs than residential properties which is why even new mixed use developments typically have less residential space than commercial space.

I think the best way to describe it is a self feeding loop.

Palo Alto is a particularly infamous example, with the city council continually being cited and blamed by local residents for not even trying to address the city housing crisis at the behest of real estate investors who want to keep housing prices as high as possible. Of course there are other factors. Palo Alto is filled with highly desirable jobs, and has some of the highest rated public schooling in the US, so it's not like this is a simple deal where housing prices are simply about housing but I think there's a vicious cycle in housing today that ends up prioritizing maximization of local housing prices at the expense of other factors wherever that happen to be lots of jobs (and thus a reason to live there at all).

We're officially beyond parody now I think. Goverment-approved slum housing. Bring back debtors prisons so you can "own" the homeless if they don't take social housing(because of course, people are only ever homeless by choice...).

To actually address the problem without sounding like this is a /tg/ worldbuilding thread about a dystopian future RPG setting:

The solution is good quality social housing, available to all. Build homes people actually want to live in, not pokey little slum-holes in high rises or ridiculous tiny-roomed houses with "bedrooms" that barely have room for a bed in them, proper good quality homes/flats in vast numbers.

Rather than place rent controls on privately-owned rental accommodation(which I have no problem with as a short-term solution until a large housebuilding programme can be completed), the government can simply use "the market" to their advantage for once and destroy the earnings of the buy-to-let scumbags; in concert with a National Investment Bank to provide very long-term low-interest loans to local authorities to pay for the construction of the housing(likely with an initial earmarked cash booster to some local authorities from central government to get the process running), rents can be set at, essentially, cost or just above it which would be a fraction of "market" rates almost everywhere but by orders of magnitude in places with wildly distorted prices.

Everybody wins except the landlords. So really, everybody wins.

Construction companies have long-term, stable, predictable contracts available all over their country(with sufficiently robust procurement rules to minimise the usual kickbacks and minor corruption). Working individuals and families have access to high quality accommodation at extremely low cost. Governments can provide free accommodation for people in receipt of social security benefits or in very low income brackets at a far more affordable cost to them than the current lunatic system that is basically a massive cash transfer from the public purse to landlords. With modest long-term, steady, assured RoIs from a mass of social housing projects, the NIB can fund other local infrastructure projects, and provide a secure and stable place to invest for public(and, potentially, private) pension plans.

Dude, this is a 40k forum, so the dystopian solution is the correct one.

"Quality" housing is actually the problem. State tenement housing is the best solution, because it puts a lot of housing on the market, increasing supply, reducing pricing.

Also, "git gud" at money, so you can appreciate the value of owning a home

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 =Angel= wrote:
You'll remember that 'X' supply and demand graph from economics.
Prices rise and fall with demand's proportion to supply.

The price of a home in relation to a households income has risen dramatically, despite our ability to produce them cheaper and to a higher standard (3d printing with concrete and other alternate build methods),

That is because land is a scarce good, and existing homeowners are the taxpayers and voters who have a strongly vested interest to prevent the construction of any housing that is not at least as good as what they purchased, ensuring that their personal home values increase.

If affordable housing really is the goal, then the state needs to build HUGE tenements

Not as scarce as you'd think.
Builders love apartment blocks because the return is higher than houses.Huge tenements come with huge social problems which is why no-one wants one in their backyard.

Why build massive blocks of apartments? Are western nations so overrun with poor people that we need to use state money to build sky scraping brutalist monstrosities (clad in rocket fuel apparently) to jam them into? And if so, why?

I lived in apartments in Brazil and it was a really nice experience. There, its the middle class who live in quality apartments with swimming pools and garden facilities for the block, an island in the mass sprawl of poverty and crime. The poor live in sprawling informal single story slums that the police avoid- but which can also be relatively nice. Decent housing can be affordable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Dude, this is a 40k forum, so the dystopian solution is the correct one.

"Quality" housing is actually the problem. State tenement housing is the best solution, because it puts a lot of housing on the market, increasing supply, reducing pricing.

Also, "git gud" at money, so you can appreciate the value of owning a home

This. We may as well just build the habzones and megablocks and then have the chasteners break down the door of the unemployed for not reporting to much-worse duty in the lower hive levels.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Also, "git gud" at money, so you can appreciate the value of owning a home

Buying a home is one of the greatest things I ever did. Completely changed my life. I dreamed of owning one for a long time and it took a tough road to get there (doing it myself on a single income), and I can safely say I pretty much have my forever home. At least until I am too old to maintain the property (pool, big back yard, etc). At that point I will downsize. But I have no motivation to upgrade because I live in a great area and it would be silly to own anything larger (4 bedrooms, 3 car garage). I do consider myself lucky to own it because the harsh reality of real estate is timing and the available funds at the time of purchase. I nailed both. I see a lot of people upgrading now and dropping a lot more money that I would want to on less than what I have and it makes me cringe. No doubt there will be another housing correction at some point. Probably the time you see a lot of apartments going condo would be a red flag to hold off on any purchases.

That being said, while I felt left out prior to owning a home, I never felt like the government should have stepped in and helped me out. Not everyone deserves to own a home. They are very expensive not to just purchase, but to maintain as well (and my home was only built in 2001). I think the maintaining part is the biggest sucker punch in the whole thing. People crunch numbers to determine what they can afford in a monthly payment on a mortgage without much thought on what it will take to replace an AC unit in the middle of summer, never mind the constant repairs on the home and the surrounding property. I hemorrhaged money my first two years I owned my home. And if you aren't handy before owning a home, you soon will be after the purchase, once you realize how much it costs to pay people to do things you could be doing yourself. I turned a part of my garage into a workshop, building a kickass workbench from my old kitchen cabinets, and room for various saws (band, table, miter) to allow me to do as much as I can myself before I call anyone to come do it.

Prior to owning a home, I blew cash like it was going out of style. Once I paid bills, saved x%, the rest went to party, and I partied hard. Now I have a completely different mindset. There is even a greater emphasis on saving, and money set aside specifically for home maintenance (the last thing I did was have an oak tree in the front yard trimmed for $250, and one in the back for $700 because they had to hire a climber), or even decorating the damn thing (good quality furniture cost $$$, and if you go cheap on that, its essentially buying disposable furniture that you'll just be throwing away in a couple of years), then there is the cost of remodeling kitchens and bathrooms, which easily can put you over $10k for just modest upgrades even when doing as much as you can yourself.

But all that being said, I couldn't be happier. I don't hear a sound from outside inside my house. Its set up the way I want it, and I have a lot of room to do whatever I want. It wasn't easy to get nor easy to keep. And I don't really think everyone has the right to have something similar, as someone is going to have to share the cost, which I do not to do. I know that is harsh but at the same time no one is helping me.

If property costs too much where you live or want to live, move to a cheaper area. Its no different than hunter gatherers determining an area was too tough to live in so they settled somewhere else. There are plenty of neighborhoods I can't afford to live in and I do not feel someone or some government should be helping me get a home in one. I live within my means.

Of course I say this from a 1st world perspective... the last two countries I visited were China and India. Whole different set of issues there.

It's not as simple as "move to a cheaper area". Firstly you need a job in that cheaper area, which may not be available. Secondly, moving house is a fairly large capital expense; if you're living on the poverty line, you might not be able to afford the time off work to go to interviews, to put down a new deposit, hire a vehicle to move your stuff, etc. It was easy for hunter-gatherers, as they didn't have to worry about money. They did have to worry about the other tribe over the hill who took offense at these incomers.

There's nothing wrong with apartments, per se (even Brutalist ones, done right). What is wrong is when they're thrown up to house the less well-off in their thousands, and then no amenities are provided. The infamous estates in Glasgow and other UK cities were originally designed to have good public transport (by bus) links, have lots of open space, communal recreation areas and shops, and be close to employment. As it turned out, all that stuff is expensive to provide, so ... it wasn't provided. Then you have thousands of people living in cheaply-built, poorly-maintained cramped flats who can't get out of the area because there's no bus, can't afford a car (and don't have anywhere to park one if they did) and have nothing to do. And then the rest of us are surprised when they end up in a life of unemployment and crime.