Property ownership is bad. Rent for life, dont leave inheritance to your children so they can rent for life too. All you need in life is clothing, entertainment, a bit of travel to distract you from your tiny living space, maybe a gadget or two and of course onsite work. Oh and praise from you manager to add meaning to your daily grind.
Or so “they” say while “they” amass thousands of properties and massive fortunes while we get tagged, farmed in office buildings, monitored and ignored in politics.
/Sarcasm
Sorry, I am bitter about this because I simply dont buy in to this concept. Owning your own home is, in my view, the first step towards financial freedom.
Downvote away but i strongly believe this concept is horrible.
I don't think this article makes a logical argument at all. It says house ownership is bad because it gives people a vested interest in constraining the supply of housing. That's true but that's not a problem. If people didn't own houses then someone would, and that someone is still incentivized to constrain the supply.
I'm also not sure that reducing home ownership is a good idea - "let's make everyone poorer" doesn't sound like great policy to me, especially at a time where asset prices are inflating like mad. What's the actual alternative to people owning their own homes. Would we be better off all holding shares in housing companies?
I also take issue with this idea that we should all be living in skyscrapers. If you go off and build skyscrapers. Maybe some people want to live in skyscrapers but if the result of this policy is that the middle class who used to be able to live in a nice semi/detatched house are now living in flats in a skyscraper that is a massive detriment to their quality of life. It's like the problem we have with Houses of Multiple Occupancy in the UK. It's a fine concept to break up a 4 bed house into 3 flats and sell each individually but you need to understand you're making it economically unviable for anyone to ever afford a 4 bed house anymore in that area.
There are serious issues with housing, and the massive disincentive for people to downsize is definitely one of them, but a lot of these policy solutions are just trash.
> If people didn't own houses then someone would, and that someone is still incentivized to constrain the supply.
Yes, but constraining the supply is done through political means: planning laws, green belts, individual objections to developments, voting etc. All of those in theory are based on "one man one vote", so if you concentrate ownership of supply you drastically reduce the number of votes it gets.
> the middle class who used to be able to live in a nice semi/detatched house are now living in flats in a skyscraper that is a massive detriment to their quality of life
People in Singapore really love their flats. I think what people don't realise is that the space between the skyscrapers is well used with lots of playgrounds, parks and sports facilities. It isn't giving up your garden: it's swapping it for a much larger shared garden with facilities you could never dream of affording on your own.
HMOs aren't a fair comparison because they have comical soundproofing compared to modern flats.
What's astonishing is how drastically different cities in different countries look like.
Take Paris or Berlin with their 5-8 floor buildings as far as the eye can see. That's a moderate density for a modern city, leaves space for green spaces, infrastructure and is so dense that everybody can sort-of affort it while not so dense that everybody is just anonomous. You can still know all neighbors in your building by name. (That there is a problem with exploding rents is a separate issue.)
As contrast, take the average north american city with a million residents. most either live in a detached house or in a 30+ floor skyscraper. Of course the detached houses rather close to a city center won't have much space around them, so you hav 1.5 bushes and then there is the fence and next house. The lots are worth millions and out of reach for most unless the go super deep into debt and have a lot of luck. Or you live in an anonymous skyscraper silo. There is an alternative to all this, but all that's happening is that excuses are ruminated back and forth.
> the middle class who used to be able to live in a nice semi/detatched house are now living in flats in a skyscraper that is a massive detriment to their quality of life
Higher density has pros and cons. Living in higher density areas can increase quality of life significantly, if you can walk to work, groceries, pharmacy, restaurants, friends, etc. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/paris-mayor-un... for example.
Obviously the extremes (1 bedroom skyscraper flats and living 1h away from civilization) won't work for most, but there is a spectrum where people will choose different things depending on their individual preferences.
Conversely, people who used to be able to live in a flat are now unable to live in the area at all because we've outlawed building flats.
Similarly, regarding: "unviable for anyone to ever afford a 4 bed house" - it's not like areas that ban conversions to flats have cheap 4 bed houses. They have expensive 4 bed houses, often filled with 4-8 roommates who likely would prefer their own flat.
The elephant in room is Airbnb et al. not home ownership.
It started as way to rent a spare room - fair enough - and if it had stayed like this, its impact would be bearable. But like it evolved - full residential quartiers acting as large hotels - made the housing market unsustainable for the inhabitants not participating in this game.
It would make so much more sense to just implement a progressive wealth tax combined with tax rules which make owning more than one home very expensive.
I would also be interested to see what would happen if the rental and sales markets were forced to only supply houses which matched the current building codes - it would make building much more competitive.
There is a solution to the housing problem besides home ownership and renting: Housing cooperatives. These are still relatively common in Germany, my parents live in a flat owned by a cooperative and are consistently paying less rent than I pay for my college dorms, despite living in the center of a major city.
The cooperative was founded by workers in the 19th century and has a single purpose: To provide affordable housing, satisfying the needs of their members. It isn't subsidized by the state, its business model is simply to distribute the expenses for building and maintaining the flats to their members.
Home ownership has the disadvantage of being too inelastic and imposing the risks of owning a house to individuals. Renting from a private company on the other hand means you constantly have to give up a significant portion of your income so someone else makes profit from basically doing nothing.
Cooperatives strike me as the best solution to this dilemma. It's of course not surprising that the Economist doesn't mention this at all, the flaws of their argument have been sufficiently demonstrated by other commenters. The basic recognition that home ownership is flawed is an important point though IMO.
I know people who live in cooperatives and I've explored it for myself as well.
You might pay less in a cooperative, but you're expected to be more involved in its internal politics and in keeping things running, so you're likely making up for the lower monetary price by paying with your time and energy.
There are also many opportunities for interpersonal conflicts.
> you constantly have to give up a significant portion of your income so someone else makes profit from basically doing nothing
When something goes wrong in the house I rent (which has happened multiple times), it's up to my landlord to fix it. The landlord also has to spend time and money on upkeep and maintaining the property.
Owner occupation of property vs rent seeking ownership are 2 very different paradigms.
The former results in community, and investment and a large number of beneficial economic effects.
The later is simply an economic parasite
Only have to look to the past to see what happened with farming. Substance farming and feudaliam was inefficient and disincentified investment.(why improve land you don't own and someone else reaps the benefits of what you sow?)
I rented out my small apartment for 6 years when I had no use for it (living elsewhere), and I never felt like an economic parasite.
It is a service that comes with plenty of duties and risks, at least if you want to have a reasonable reputation.
It probably depends on local market. I can imagine that in Silicon Valley, bad landlords can get away with almost anything, because the demand is so strong. Outside such economic hubs, the market situation is much more balanced and getting a good tenant who won't smoke in the house and destroy furniture is not trivial.
A friend of mine rented out a small apartment inherited from his grandma (nothing expensive, a rust-belt city in Eastern Europe that just keeps itself alive) and found out that the tenants turned it into a meth factory, when police came knocking on his door to ask unpleasant questions.
Owner occupation also has negative effects on economies. It limits mobility of labour. For example in many places you can't sell your property or it is exceedingly hard. Thus you are stuck with it. On other hand with renting mobility is simpler.
Reminds me of Three Acres and a Cow [1]. I do find it an interesting concept; but I think the general principle I would agree with is more of decentralizing production by making people more free so that they can buy their own land or means of production and use it; rather than coercive legislation against acquisition of property.
Even from the title, the implication is that "home ownership" is a "policy" from the government rather than just a natural state of people acquiring and improving the land. It implies the government can simply revoke home ownership by a new policy.
Property ownership and improvement isn't a privilege "given" to us by a benevolent government with their immaculate "policies" from time immemorial. People are the source of government power. People build houses.
The government doesn't own us. We own the government.
What's this obsession with increasing housing density? Population in the developing world is leveling off. Most of the developed world is already at "peak child".[1] Housing shortages come from migration to cities, not more people.
I would pin the failure on how we view home ownership as an investment vehicle. There's little inherently appreciable to a building. In fact they depreciate over time and require constant investment to maintain.
The location however can appreciate, which we all agree on. But we never say out loud the underlying mechanism. Locations appreciate in value specifically because more humans want to own it.
Viewing homes as investments therefore, requires you to steadily make more and more people want your home who are unable to have it. This explains why NIMBYism is so effective at raising house value.
Homes logically really shouldn't be an appreciating asset. After build(including warranty fixes) they should be in best condition they ever will be(unless further invested). And then just wear down from there and require maintenance to even keep functioning. So after 10, 20 or 50 years it should cost less, not more.
I wonder how will this look in let's say 100 or 200 years. That is after we have reached full urbanization. As outside changing demand in different regions the prices should stay same apart from inflation.
Moreover, housing prices historically have been linked with median wages. Houses should only be worth as much as buyers can reasonably afford. However if you look at this graph you’ll see that house prices have departed from the historical average significantly, as they did in 2008 before the housing crash.
https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco...
Responsible buyers are supposed to put less than 30% of monthly income towards housing, but prices require much more than that. This is leading to most owners and renters being cost burdened and unable to save.
I think this is something that is often forgotten from the raw sales value numbers. House prices appreciate but at the same time significant money is invested into their maintenance and improvements. A house where no maintenance is done will probably depreciate in value as the building deteriorates.
It would be great to see an index of property prices deducting the cost of maintenance and improvements. This is a bit like share indexes where the added value of dividends is included.
The materials and labor required to build them gets more expensive though. So while the materials wear down over time, those same materials get more expensive. And some of those materials, especially structural, will last a long time if taken care of.
Furnaces, water heaters, etc go to 0. But foundations, framing/walls, flooring, etc can last hundreds of years.
There are many factors that contribute to appreciation and depreciation. Decay is just one of them. There could be other appreciating factors that outweigh the depreciating ones. Also, if you measure the value of something in a generally depreciating currency, you automatically get rising prices (ceteris paribus).
> Homes logically really shouldn't be an appreciating asset.
People have been trying to explain that to the Federal Reserve for decades. They are not interested in hearing about the problems created by moneyprinting.
Another public policy that would help tremendously would be providing financial incentives for big industries to relocate or expand in low cost of living areas.
This would also have other benefits besides more affordable housing.
Other than that I find the author's casual dismissal of other people's lifestyles as a bit off putting. Calling home ownership a cult and providing Tokyo as a model to follow, ..., I personally don't like this style of writing that does not acknowledge that people might have different preferences from the author. As a young millennial I of course don't like the high rents in big cities. I would also like to live in a house that I own, and I would also not like living in a very big city with a skyscraper skyline.
> At the root of that failure is a lack of building, especially near the thriving cities in which jobs are plentiful.
I think the biggest economic policy failure of the West is the hyper-concentration of high-paying jobs and enormous wealth in a few cities. What percentage of wealth do New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London represent?
The truth is as long as the wealth is hyperconcentrated in these cities, you can densify all you want, but you are still going to have massive inequality as to who can afford housing and, because of politics, massive advantages of people already there versus newcomers.
In this age of jet aircraft, high speed rail, and high speed internet, it is a shame that we still cannot spread out the economic opportunities over larger areas.
Jet aircraft, HSR, and high speed internet are all relatively modern - newer than all the cities in your list - and require infrastructure which concentrates population growth. Have you tried pricing out the cost of Comcast trenching cables to a disconnected homestead? Now do an airport or HSR line.
>In this age of jet aircraft, high speed rail, and high speed internet, it is a shame that we still cannot spread out the economic opportunities over larger areas.
Actually, this only makes thing worse, because your boss gets to decide where you live. After all, you can easily reach all your customers from a single location thanks to these technologies.
What if renters could have a way to pay more to gain partial ownership of their property? E.g., could progressively own up to 10%. That woulf allow for more of the feeling of ownership and allow renters to participate in the appreciation. That would mitigate some of the negative impacts of gentrification.
Has anyone given this sort of renter-ownership blend a thought?
Imagine a system where renters could put up a small fee, say 3-5% of the homes value, then just continue paying their monthly "rent" payment as usual. However, each time they pay that monthly rent a portion of that payment goes directly to them as equity. That way years later they could move and benefit from that equity position or after a certain period of time, say 30 years, own the entire home outright.
In the UK that exists and is called “Shared Ownership”. Some local councils often stipulate some units shared (or key-worker affordable) are a percentage of units built in every development.
If I own 10% of a property does that mean I can put shelves up on 10% of the walls or change 10% of the locks? What's more likely is this kind of "ownership" is only paper thin. The only reason I want to own a house is because I want to control the place where I live. It doesn't make much financial sense, though. If you just want to add property to your portfolio there are plenty of other ways.
Finland has right-of-occupation scheme. Where one pays that circa 15% and gains permanent right to occupy usually a flat. The rent is slightly lower compared to free market and can not exceed that. And there is also calculated inflation correction on this. So if they move out they get the payment back with interest. Then next occupant has to pay that new price.
This a million times is true, every politician responsible for this garbage type of policy has robbed coming generations for their future.
It’s a deeply, deeply, deeply, vile and evil policy, perpetuated by completely incompetent politicians, high on their own power, 100% done for their own gain (how many politicians rent, just on average... )
Everyone who ever voted for this garbage is a literal thief... including every single property owner... (yes, my parents, your parents, everyone who owns a fucking house is responsible)
Expropriation really is the perfect solution to dealing with these assholes, trying to appropriate the future to pad their own pension..
by this economic model, if I get unemployed for unknown period, immediately I should become homeless? So this model pushes me always to have a job and work endlessly, because if I retire and don't have enough money to pay monthly rent, I should move to shittier place and live there (or become homeless)
Home owner here. I feel lucky to have been able to (barely) qualify for a loan when I did and buy a home. We now live overseas and rent it. It’s been a huge help to us knowing that it’s there growing in value. I’m also for governments using my property taxes and other taxes to pay for Or subsidize more housing, even affordable housing, even if it might lower the price for my home if it helps the community out.
Being able to have something that’s yours (yes, yes, I know it’s not truly yours until you pay off the bank note...) is a huge boost to my confidence. When we lived there we made improvements, were involved in the community, supported local business and such. I liked knowing the only thing that could raise my monthly mortgage payment was a rise in the assessed property value or a jump in my insurance premium. That peace-of-mind is a huge asset when budgeting. It’s also something one can borrow against to consolidate loans or start a business.
[+] [-] yrgulation|5 years ago|reply
Or so “they” say while “they” amass thousands of properties and massive fortunes while we get tagged, farmed in office buildings, monitored and ignored in politics.
/Sarcasm
Sorry, I am bitter about this because I simply dont buy in to this concept. Owning your own home is, in my view, the first step towards financial freedom.
Downvote away but i strongly believe this concept is horrible.
[+] [-] Traster|5 years ago|reply
I'm also not sure that reducing home ownership is a good idea - "let's make everyone poorer" doesn't sound like great policy to me, especially at a time where asset prices are inflating like mad. What's the actual alternative to people owning their own homes. Would we be better off all holding shares in housing companies?
I also take issue with this idea that we should all be living in skyscrapers. If you go off and build skyscrapers. Maybe some people want to live in skyscrapers but if the result of this policy is that the middle class who used to be able to live in a nice semi/detatched house are now living in flats in a skyscraper that is a massive detriment to their quality of life. It's like the problem we have with Houses of Multiple Occupancy in the UK. It's a fine concept to break up a 4 bed house into 3 flats and sell each individually but you need to understand you're making it economically unviable for anyone to ever afford a 4 bed house anymore in that area.
There are serious issues with housing, and the massive disincentive for people to downsize is definitely one of them, but a lot of these policy solutions are just trash.
[+] [-] bovine3dom|5 years ago|reply
Yes, but constraining the supply is done through political means: planning laws, green belts, individual objections to developments, voting etc. All of those in theory are based on "one man one vote", so if you concentrate ownership of supply you drastically reduce the number of votes it gets.
> the middle class who used to be able to live in a nice semi/detatched house are now living in flats in a skyscraper that is a massive detriment to their quality of life
People in Singapore really love their flats. I think what people don't realise is that the space between the skyscrapers is well used with lots of playgrounds, parks and sports facilities. It isn't giving up your garden: it's swapping it for a much larger shared garden with facilities you could never dream of affording on your own.
HMOs aren't a fair comparison because they have comical soundproofing compared to modern flats.
[+] [-] ganafagol|5 years ago|reply
Take Paris or Berlin with their 5-8 floor buildings as far as the eye can see. That's a moderate density for a modern city, leaves space for green spaces, infrastructure and is so dense that everybody can sort-of affort it while not so dense that everybody is just anonomous. You can still know all neighbors in your building by name. (That there is a problem with exploding rents is a separate issue.)
As contrast, take the average north american city with a million residents. most either live in a detached house or in a 30+ floor skyscraper. Of course the detached houses rather close to a city center won't have much space around them, so you hav 1.5 bushes and then there is the fence and next house. The lots are worth millions and out of reach for most unless the go super deep into debt and have a lot of luck. Or you live in an anonymous skyscraper silo. There is an alternative to all this, but all that's happening is that excuses are ruminated back and forth.
[+] [-] harperlee|5 years ago|reply
Higher density has pros and cons. Living in higher density areas can increase quality of life significantly, if you can walk to work, groceries, pharmacy, restaurants, friends, etc. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/paris-mayor-un... for example.
Obviously the extremes (1 bedroom skyscraper flats and living 1h away from civilization) won't work for most, but there is a spectrum where people will choose different things depending on their individual preferences.
[+] [-] CalRobert|5 years ago|reply
Similarly, regarding: "unviable for anyone to ever afford a 4 bed house" - it's not like areas that ban conversions to flats have cheap 4 bed houses. They have expensive 4 bed houses, often filled with 4-8 roommates who likely would prefer their own flat.
[+] [-] galfarragem|5 years ago|reply
It started as way to rent a spare room - fair enough - and if it had stayed like this, its impact would be bearable. But like it evolved - full residential quartiers acting as large hotels - made the housing market unsustainable for the inhabitants not participating in this game.
[+] [-] radicalbyte|5 years ago|reply
I would also be interested to see what would happen if the rental and sales markets were forced to only supply houses which matched the current building codes - it would make building much more competitive.
[+] [-] hexhex|5 years ago|reply
The cooperative was founded by workers in the 19th century and has a single purpose: To provide affordable housing, satisfying the needs of their members. It isn't subsidized by the state, its business model is simply to distribute the expenses for building and maintaining the flats to their members.
Home ownership has the disadvantage of being too inelastic and imposing the risks of owning a house to individuals. Renting from a private company on the other hand means you constantly have to give up a significant portion of your income so someone else makes profit from basically doing nothing.
Cooperatives strike me as the best solution to this dilemma. It's of course not surprising that the Economist doesn't mention this at all, the flaws of their argument have been sufficiently demonstrated by other commenters. The basic recognition that home ownership is flawed is an important point though IMO.
[+] [-] jcbrand|5 years ago|reply
You might pay less in a cooperative, but you're expected to be more involved in its internal politics and in keeping things running, so you're likely making up for the lower monetary price by paying with your time and energy.
There are also many opportunities for interpersonal conflicts.
> you constantly have to give up a significant portion of your income so someone else makes profit from basically doing nothing
When something goes wrong in the house I rent (which has happened multiple times), it's up to my landlord to fix it. The landlord also has to spend time and money on upkeep and maintaining the property.
[+] [-] JulianMorrison|5 years ago|reply
Honestly, private landlords should not be a thing. Holding a house hostage isn't a job.
[+] [-] docflabby|5 years ago|reply
The former results in community, and investment and a large number of beneficial economic effects.
The later is simply an economic parasite
Only have to look to the past to see what happened with farming. Substance farming and feudaliam was inefficient and disincentified investment.(why improve land you don't own and someone else reaps the benefits of what you sow?)
[+] [-] inglor_cz|5 years ago|reply
It is a service that comes with plenty of duties and risks, at least if you want to have a reasonable reputation.
It probably depends on local market. I can imagine that in Silicon Valley, bad landlords can get away with almost anything, because the demand is so strong. Outside such economic hubs, the market situation is much more balanced and getting a good tenant who won't smoke in the house and destroy furniture is not trivial.
A friend of mine rented out a small apartment inherited from his grandma (nothing expensive, a rust-belt city in Eastern Europe that just keeps itself alive) and found out that the tenants turned it into a meth factory, when police came knocking on his door to ask unpleasant questions.
[+] [-] klodolph|5 years ago|reply
It's not really that subsistence farming is inefficient, it's just that subsistence farmers (by definition) are not selling food on the market.
[+] [-] Ekaros|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brobdingnagians|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_acres_and_a_cow
[+] [-] tlarkworthy|5 years ago|reply
=> There is more to life than supply and demand, and home ownership has a hidden effect on societal responsibility, wellbeing and a life milestone
[+] [-] brobdingnagians|5 years ago|reply
Property ownership and improvement isn't a privilege "given" to us by a benevolent government with their immaculate "policies" from time immemorial. People are the source of government power. People build houses.
The government doesn't own us. We own the government.
[+] [-] joshuahughes|5 years ago|reply
Seems I’ve seen something similar referenced quite a lot recently... https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/how-life-could-change...
[+] [-] Animats|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/peak-child
[+] [-] NiceWayToDoIT|5 years ago|reply
For working people properties on mortgage are just expense.
https://www.singsaver.com.sg/blog/robert-kiyosaki-advice-on-...
[+] [-] hnnameblah365|5 years ago|reply
The location however can appreciate, which we all agree on. But we never say out loud the underlying mechanism. Locations appreciate in value specifically because more humans want to own it.
Viewing homes as investments therefore, requires you to steadily make more and more people want your home who are unable to have it. This explains why NIMBYism is so effective at raising house value.
[+] [-] Ekaros|5 years ago|reply
I wonder how will this look in let's say 100 or 200 years. That is after we have reached full urbanization. As outside changing demand in different regions the prices should stay same apart from inflation.
[+] [-] twobitshifter|5 years ago|reply
Responsible buyers are supposed to put less than 30% of monthly income towards housing, but prices require much more than that. This is leading to most owners and renters being cost burdened and unable to save.
[+] [-] satellite2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barbegal|5 years ago|reply
It would be great to see an index of property prices deducting the cost of maintenance and improvements. This is a bit like share indexes where the added value of dividends is included.
[+] [-] nemo44x|5 years ago|reply
Furnaces, water heaters, etc go to 0. But foundations, framing/walls, flooring, etc can last hundreds of years.
[+] [-] gohbgl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KirillPanov|5 years ago|reply
People have been trying to explain that to the Federal Reserve for decades. They are not interested in hearing about the problems created by moneyprinting.
[+] [-] mustafa_pasi|5 years ago|reply
Other than that I find the author's casual dismissal of other people's lifestyles as a bit off putting. Calling home ownership a cult and providing Tokyo as a model to follow, ..., I personally don't like this style of writing that does not acknowledge that people might have different preferences from the author. As a young millennial I of course don't like the high rents in big cities. I would also like to live in a house that I own, and I would also not like living in a very big city with a skyscraper skyline.
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|5 years ago|reply
I think the biggest economic policy failure of the West is the hyper-concentration of high-paying jobs and enormous wealth in a few cities. What percentage of wealth do New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London represent?
The truth is as long as the wealth is hyperconcentrated in these cities, you can densify all you want, but you are still going to have massive inequality as to who can afford housing and, because of politics, massive advantages of people already there versus newcomers.
In this age of jet aircraft, high speed rail, and high speed internet, it is a shame that we still cannot spread out the economic opportunities over larger areas.
[+] [-] shuckles|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imtringued|5 years ago|reply
Actually, this only makes thing worse, because your boss gets to decide where you live. After all, you can easily reach all your customers from a single location thanks to these technologies.
[+] [-] coldtea|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neonate|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dr_dshiv|5 years ago|reply
Has anyone given this sort of renter-ownership blend a thought?
[+] [-] Ir0nMan|5 years ago|reply
Oh wait...
[+] [-] rlonn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nly|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skolsuper|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adav|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] globular-toast|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ekaros|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exporectomy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheSpiceIsLife|5 years ago|reply
If renters want to invest why can't they take that bit extra and invest it elsewhere?
[+] [-] cannabis_sam|5 years ago|reply
It’s a deeply, deeply, deeply, vile and evil policy, perpetuated by completely incompetent politicians, high on their own power, 100% done for their own gain (how many politicians rent, just on average... )
Everyone who ever voted for this garbage is a literal thief... including every single property owner... (yes, my parents, your parents, everyone who owns a fucking house is responsible)
Expropriation really is the perfect solution to dealing with these assholes, trying to appropriate the future to pad their own pension..
Fuck ‘em, long and hard
[+] [-] tuyguntn|5 years ago|reply
feels like lobby article.
[+] [-] tedk-42|5 years ago|reply
Simply limit the number of properties a person can own would solve a lot of price issues.
Also limiting property as something you can pass down would drop prices fast as well.
These things are impossible because the rich and their property ownership is protected and this is a dangerous idea for the masses
[+] [-] gigatexal|5 years ago|reply
Being able to have something that’s yours (yes, yes, I know it’s not truly yours until you pay off the bank note...) is a huge boost to my confidence. When we lived there we made improvements, were involved in the community, supported local business and such. I liked knowing the only thing that could raise my monthly mortgage payment was a rise in the assessed property value or a jump in my insurance premium. That peace-of-mind is a huge asset when budgeting. It’s also something one can borrow against to consolidate loans or start a business.