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Houses are for living, not for speculation

82 points by robtherobber

by xtracto

13 subcomments

I wholeheartedly agree with this. My opinion is that governments should tax 2nd, 3rd and further housing so as to prevent people from accumulating residential buildings.
If you want to live of your rents, buy a commercial or industrial building, speculate with that. But residential construction should be protected to ensure each household is able to buy one with the average country salary.

by recursivedoubts

2 subcomments

You have to understand that our money supply is based on debt. It shouldn't be: the money supply is a public good and should be managed for the public good via citizens dividend or whatever, but currently it is debt-based and managed for the private good of the banks.
Housing debt has to expand or the economy tanks because the money supply shrinks. Since we are at the end of the current debt cycle, housing has gone vertical. It will collapse because eventually exponential curves can't fit reality. We may be seeing the start of that now.
The core problem is how we create money and who benefits from it. That's what needs to be fixed.

by simonsarris

0 subcomment

So that was 2016. Why doesn't it link to "Chinese property sector crisis (2020–present)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_sector_crisis...
Never mind, I added a link to it, and the prior Chinese bubble (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_bubble_(2005%...

by alkonaut

0 subcomment

Where mortgage interest is a deductible expense (usually the case if savings interest is a taxable income) then one simple fix is to limit that to one home. Second homes or homes bought in speculation using borrowed money are at least less attractive then.
Also for land tax and similar: raise them by a lot and use that money to pay for a tax-exemption for one home

by Brett_Riverboat

1 subcomments

Second/vacation homes should be taxed at 200% per year with all revenue going toward low income housing.

by andyferris

0 subcomment

Interesting timing, with Australian budget night (removal of tax discounts for both capital and trusts, and for investment in existing housing stock).

by markus_zhang

0 subcomment

Social housing is the way to go. People who live in social housing are mandated to take free plumbing/electrician/whatever classes to serve the community. In this way people get some internal jobs and sense of community, while government reduces the costs of maintaining them.

by almost_usual

0 subcomment

Chinese property sector crisis (2020–present)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_sector_crisis...

by empath75

0 subcomment

People want to exempt housing from the laws of supply and demand. The reason real estate is expensive is that there is not enough housing available for everyone to own a house that wants a house. If we want inexpensive housing, we need a massive project in this country to build housing. There is no other way to fix it. There is no way to shuffle around ownership of existing housing stock that is going to magically make more houses available. There are not a bunch of houses sitting empty that people want to buy or move into.

by mothballed

2 subcomments

Allow anyone to build a shack and shit into a hole on any postage stamp size of land they could get, and it would be far more affordable.

by juliusceasar

6 subcomments

So is energy, food, water and space. And yet, all cost money.

by bpt3

0 subcomment

Maybe severe capital controls and other heavy-handed and objectively unwise but politically desirable (for a certain group) financial policies aren't the best plan for maintaining a stable economy?
I wonder when Xi will come up with a witty one liner for that one.

by Markoff

0 subcomment

XXX are for living, not for YYY
you can apply this for pretty much everything, who will decide what can be used for speculation? I want much rather free market than someone deciding what I can buy with my earned money
yeah, and gold should be for making space stuff, electronics or jewelerry, and water should be for drinking/cooking, not for having fun in swimming pool, etc.
edit: the problem in China is not expensive real estate, but no options to invest money, Chinese stock is shit, you would earn pretty much nothing over 10 year period, made that mistake once, even real estate prices are not really growing in China, my in laws bought apartment many years ago, now they would be lucky to sell it for zero profit, blame chinese economy with minimal real growth causing minimal inflation causing all these issues
on the other hand it's nice to come to China after 9 years and find out meals in restaurant cost pretty much same as 9 years ago, unnelievable in Europe, sadly so are their salaries and I have still seen job ads offering like 2500-3500RMB same as 10 years ago, though you can rent small apartment for 1200-1600 RMB (talking both about Beijing suburbs)
nice bonus in China is you can't even own the land with your house, just lease it for few decades

by gverrilla

0 subcomment

10 years ago: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-39512599

by rvz

3 subcomments

This is probably the reason why Gen Z is turning towards China and will eventually come out on top if a economic collapse in the west were to happen.

by arh5451

1 subcomments

Government causes speculation. Asks people not to speculate. Classic.

by throwaway132448

1 subcomments

Unaffordable housing turns entrepreneurship into a rare privilege.
Whether you think that’s a good thing or not depends on whether you _actually_ believe in meritocracy or not. I’ve found most people don’t believe in it as much as they say they do.

by ubermonkey

0 subcomment

It's not wrong.
I would 100% support measures that inhibit corporations from owning residential property.
Apartments are probably a special case, but I'm not entirely convinced the age of giant corporate complexes is a good one.
I also don't necessarily mind if a PERSON owns a house and rents it out (e.g., to spend a year somewhere else, or because it's a lake house or something), but I get suspicious of they own a bunch of them and make it a business. Denying corporate status would discourage that.