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We need non-profit public housing that is suitable for middle-class families.
Non-profit doesn’t mean “free” or that money is being lost, just that the goal is to provide housing at cost rather than profit-seeking. Subsidies and such would still be available for low-income households as needed.
My take?
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corporations aren’t allowed to own land or houses other than the office space and production facilities.
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people can only own the buildings they live in (with proof of living there at least X% of the year)
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The state takes over all houses and land that become unused by these laws
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The state rents out their property as ‘rent to own’, or as housing for the homeless
Bububutttbut who gets the Waterfront property?!?!?
I saw a new development going up on the river and thought that. Next thought was how delightful it will be to watch the river consume it in my life time. Nature hates vanity.
I say that because some people can’t imagine a system other than the current one and they said that as a kind of a gotcha.
That’s basically China with extra steps. How are you going to deal with your companies siphoning money out of your economy by buying foreign real estate?
Of course, it’s basically a communist idea from even before the Russian revolution.
To answer your question: since corporations aren’t allowed to own more than the buildings they work with, they could not buy foreign real estate - except for facilities or offices they really use.
I don’t think I know all the answers, it was just a interesting idea I read a while ago.
As far as I know it was never implemented, so weather it would work out or not is just speculation.
Corporations should be owned jointly in equal parts by the people who work there. Most live local and won’t want to do that.
Ah there’s that glorious protectionism that just shot the global economy in the foot! Constitutional law is gone and you’re day dreaming about reforming business law lmaooooo CLASSIC.
COMMUNIST REVOLUTION WEN?
This whole thread is about day dreaming about business law reform.
The whole world doesn’t stop to deal with each problem individually.
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I think zoning laws are necessary, but they’re way too strict in some/a lot of places. Like, I don’t want a loud, polluting factory next to my home, but why are there places where all you can build are single-family homes?
The problem is if you have a housing crisis, and developable land, but the only housing projects you approve are $750k houses in giant suburb… There’s a huge difference between deregulation and planned incentivized development.
Communities have so much power as far as local approval for building developments and city design. You guy should be coming together and saying what you just said. How can we get more affordable housing without all the bad effects, what regulations do we need to protect your peace and health? What regulations are blocking a mixed use development in favor of a suburb no one can afford?
Ah the ‘state’ So donald trump should take over all housing…
No wait, the nation of people who elected donald trump, who’s imaginary new government(which will be so much more awesome) that state should do it!
You need your revolution first friends, im waiting. It’s your time to shine and you’re still lurking in the dark quoting theory.
I don’t live in the USA, so my trust in my government is at least a little bit higher.
I agree that the government under trump is… not suitable for such a socialist concept. One can only hope that a better one will rise from the ashes.
That being said, in general, control by the state is better for the people, even though it’s less effective. Taking ‘greed’ out of the equation for the housing market would do wonders.
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Just ban being a landlord guys. Tax owning land that you’re not using out of existence. Rent/leases are simple vectors of wealth transferal - they move money from the poor to the rich. Everyone should own their own flat/house. Every business should own the space they work out of.
There is no good reason housing should be an investment vehicle akin to a stock or a bond.
On one hand, yes this would hurt a lot of people and corporations. On the other hand, we’re already hurting, so fuck it.
It would only be an economic crisis for land owners who seek rent. Really housing shouldn’t be something that people profit from.
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You can have non profit driven rentals though…? Why does rent need to be profit driving?
Landlords are parasites. Period.
Some people WANT to have short-term commitments to their housing location. That is currently accomplished through rent. That’s an important distinction you are missing while trying to preserve elements of familiarity with the way the world currently works.
People don’t “want to rent”. They want shelter. It’s just that renting is the easiest way to get that.
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greedy people have this weird argument that the rest of humanity shares their mental illness of worshiping money.
People don’t “want to work.”
I don’t think that’s true, but I suppose then we’d have a debate over what “work” is.
Statements like that are technically true, but how helpful are they for contributing to a conversation?
Well, we were having a discussion about renting vs. owning which you seemed to understand were two different things.
I mean, 0 new apartments would be built
Existing apartments would be removed from the market too. $100 per month costs the owner more than keeping the apartment empty, because tenants are a risk.
If people thought that such a law was going to be permanent, or if there were fees for leaving apartments empty, then many (most?) apartments would be permanently destroyed - either converted to something else (condos, commercial space, etc) or just demolished so that the land could be used some other way.
You forgot the outcome that they could be sold. You know, so that a non landlord could own one.
The reason most renters are renters and not owners is not because there aren’t any houses available to purchase.
This would just make countless people homeless as they lose the option to rent, because they can’t afford to buy/maintain an entire house.
It’s because the prices are so high! Countless people ARE homeless, and the skyrocketing price of housing is the immediate cause, with the vast profits landlords make the indirect cause. If you can make someone else (tenants) buy houses for you, there is no limit to the number of houses you can buy at no real cost to you, so being a landlord makes insane profits so the prices of houses climb as they’re such a money spinner.
What do you think the cost of a house is, just with the cost of the materials and labor to build it, with zero markup?
A fraction of the cost that they go to market with at the moment. The housing market is overheating and has been doing so for decades. The value is in the scarcity, and the profiteering, not the bricks and mortar.
Renters pay the mortgage and then some. It’s iniquitous. If you’re the one paying for the house, you should get the house, not someone who just has a better credit rating.
You’ve discovered the problem with organising an economic system around profit
Until someone needs a home and they build it
Where are they living while they save up the several hundred thousand it costs to build one?
You’re right, the first time shelter was built in human history it was a Blackrock apartment complex.
How could i forget.
If you have to go back to before the concept of money was invented, you don’t really have a good point.
I didn’t.
Blackrock was the only corporate entity that had the building rights to the ferile cresent.
If it weren’t for them nobody would have ever had shelter.
God bless Blackrock
in which part of the world can people build tents that won’t immediately be torn down or vandalized? You make being part of society sound like hell.
Yes because we would decommodify housing and still commodify land.
Use your big boy brain instead of just the angry part
It would be a crisis for renters. Land owners by definition already have a place to stay, but the second you implement price controls you’re going to see the rental market go into convulsions. The correct solution is to Just Tax Land.
There would literally be no rentals except maybe shitty murder sex room hotel rooms.
Why couldn’t the US have guaranteed government housing available to any citizen that needs it? A $100 a month apartment to cure homelessness shouldn’t be a funny joke … it should be questioned with “why should it even cost money”?
Government housing tied to the cost of 1 weeks minimum wage. So simple, so elegant.
The government actually helping people without lining the pockets of the capital class? That’s commie talk
NOT IN MY AMERICA HIPPY!!! -Richard Nixon
Because then Trump gets elected, state housing gets neglected and people start dying.
Democrats never directly helping people (without lining the pockets of billionaires) is exactly why Trump was elected. FDR was the last President that actually fought for the working class and he was so popular he was elected 3 times.
I know it’s not trendy to say, but I’m gonna say it anyway: Bill Clinton is a bad person, but he was a good president.
We’re well past things leading to economic crisis, and it sure wasn’t caused by affordable housing.
HeLpiNg pEoPLe iS tOo ExpeNsiVe
Fuck. You.
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For me personally I’d like a 50-60 square meter apartment for no more than 2x my annual income. And I’d like to be able to get a loan with a monthly down payment equal to whatever I’ve been paying in rent for the last couple of years.
I can pay 12500 NOK a month in rent, but for some reason the bank can’t trust me to pay the same amount if I were to buy an apartment? Fuck that.
That was a scam they put in place after 2008 when they were being punished for scamming us. (while scamming us for bailouts for the previous scam) It takes a lot of government regulation to keep the banks from stealing, good thing thats gone now!
Banks used to trust people and that has led to GFC. So most governments now have legal frameworks to ensure that banks don’t trust you anymore. I don’t think you want another GFC.
Surely there can be a middle ground.
I hate that I’ve been paying close to 150k NOK a year in rent for the last ten years but for some reason I can’t be trusted with a loan unless I make a lot more and save up something like 300k.
Except for the fact that I have a place to live it feels like I’m throwing money out the window.
I don’t know what the situation is in your country, but here’s an example from the UK.
Imagine you bought a £500k house in London just after the pandemic. The mortgage rates were around 1.2-1.3%. You could afford monthly payments at the time, everything looked cool. Now a couple years later the war in Ukraine starts, economy tanks and interest rates go over 7%. Now your monthly payments become 3-4x higher and you’re fucked. You lose your house, become homeless and you still owe half a mil. The end.
The interest rates going up was because of Liz Truss and her loony huge unfunded tax cut for the most wealthy.
The war against Ukraine was the spark for the separate general inflation profiteering that started with the energy generating companies.
Interesting to see the difference. In the US it’s most common for mortgages to be “fixed rate” and remain the same for the entire loan period. Downside is a higher base percentage, we got down to about 2.6-2.7% in the same time period. Upside is that your payment will never go up.
The situation in Norway is luckily a bit better than that, but I’ve heard from friends that their mortgages became a bit more expensive the last couple of years. Shit, is it really that bad in the UK? People’s payments tripled or even quadrupled? Sounds like capitalist dystopia.
From what I can gather the payments didn’t increase near that much in Norway, and we have solutions like exemption from down payments among other things for situations like the one we’re in now. I know some people with really expensive homes sold them and bought smaller cheaper ones to lighten the economic load, and a lot of people defaulted on expensive car loans. I think the situation hit people with expensive homes and cars the hardest because a lot of those people weren’t willing to adjust to the reality.
If I was allowed to get a loan I wouldn’t have gone over 1/3 of my income, just like with the rent I pay today. I’d manage, but they’re incredibly strict with who gets one.
Norway didn’t have Liz Truss crashing the economy and causing a run on the pound. It always comes down to trusting right wingers with the economy.
Seeing the way things have been going in different countries the last couple of years have given me a newfound gratitude for the country I live in. Even our most right wing party is left wing by any international standard.
Yup. When the UK had big revenues from oil, Margaret Thatcher spent it on tax cuts. Norway invested it for the future of the nation.
So everyone else should bail you out? That’s what it is
Not sure what you’re talking about…
pretty sure this would lead to some sort of economic crisis
And? We’ve already tried it the other way around, and we’ve really got nothing to lose at this point by trying OOP’s idea out.
We should live in Tardises
Then this is my take:
- no taxes on first home
- some tax on second home
- taxes on any home past the second grow exponentially, doubling for each additional home
- order of the homes is always from less expensive to most expensive
- same is valid for companies
- for companies owned by other companies, all the houses owned are considered as belonging to the mother (root) company, so there’s no “creating matrioskas to that each own a single house”
Obviously offices and factories are not habitable space and therefore not counted in this system.
Housing shouldn’t be an investment asset, especially in a for profit system, or you’ll just make BlackRock again.
I think that’s what s/he was trying to resolve with the doubling of tax on each additional property. It would become cost prohibitive very quickly to have multiple properties.
You would have to close the endless amounts of tax deductions on real estate to make it matter. If they can write off the loss as a business cost than the portfolio will just eat the tax and pass it on to the renters.
Yes. No single change will solve the problem. It would have to be comprehensive.
And persistent. We cannot get complacent half way through this one.
It shouldn’t be an investment asset.
Homebuilding is still a business though. You still need someone to risk their money, assemble the materials and crew, complete the project and find a buyer for it.
If there’s no demand for a product no one will build it. There’s always going to be demand for a mythical product that can’t be built. Like cheap housing.
I just spent $2,000 on a handful of wood, shingles, and siding to patch my house up. like 1/10th of a single wide trailer. That’s just the materials i’ll be providing the labor which would normally cost $30-$60 hour.
So it shouldn’t be an investment asset, someone still has to invest in it being built, so that a homeowner may live there.
Is that sort of thing not exactly what our taxes should be paying for?
Ya in an ideal world. Currently the system runs by me fixing up a house and losing $50,000 of my hard earned money so a young family can get a cheap house. I’d preferred if the government compensated me for my contribution to the housing crisis?
It should be locked at 50 cents per square foot. So a studio apt would be like $500 a month. Its close enough to what prices were in recent memory before the insane jumps in rent cost the last decade.
Economic crisis? That would be terrible! It’s a good thing we never have any economic crises under the current system!
you could honestly make every apartment cost 100 dollars and no one would actually get affected
Those who own the land and go ape shit over their value don’t even take advantage of it and sell it off, more often they just die and have their kids inherit it, and the landlords who benefit from every type of inflation in real estate
of course this assumes every housing unit is owned and managed by the government, and these themselves are incredibly successful even if they only have 10% of the real estate market
No good person can become the president of a rigged as fuck system
