Not pictured, all the landlords paying an app to create a higher market rate.
It boggles my mind how people still insist there’s a “free market” in rent when we have proof of giant property management corporations colluding nationwide to raise rents.
This shit is why we need rent control.
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Corps and foreign investors shouldn’t be able to own housing (multi unit should be co-op/market rate nonprofits)
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Individuals should not be able to own more than 5 homes. (The number is semi arbitrary, but at a certain point it is very clearly hoarding, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed)
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AirBNB and similar should be heavily regulated. (They turn permanent residences into short term, which reduces capacity, and drives up prices all around)
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Shift to a land value tax system as the primary means of tax collection. What few landlords/scalpers exist after the above changes will have even less room to breathe. And it would punish vacancy, which would put pressure to keep as much housing available as possible.
There may need to be some exceptions. But if changes like this were to occur, we wouldn’t have this problem.
An easier approach would be to turn every apartment building into a housing co-op.
Capitalist for-profit housing simply should not exist.
An easier approach would be to turn every apartment building into a housing co-op.
That would also be a good idea. Not sure about the easier part though.
Capitalist for-profit housing simply should not exist.
Agreed
Each successive property beyond one should add an additional 10% to the property taxes. The owner may list them in any order, but you pay 110% for the second property and 200% for the 11th
A land value tax would be a good idea as well, especially if its the main form of tax collection. Each successive property would automatically, drastically increase the cost.
It would become a defacto tax on the rich, while helping to prevent hoarding. Two birds one stone.
…And the net result would be that they would charge more on rent. And since taxing at higher rates would deter people from building more rental properties, the housing shortage would get worse.
And since taxing at higher rates would deter people from building more rental properties, the housing shortage would get worse.
Housing is a public good and should be funded as such.
That would be great! Except that cities refuse to do that, and no one wants to put high density housing anywhere near their cute, historic neighborhood.
If you can build the political will to steamroll the NIMBYs, I’m all for it.
If you can build the political will to steamroll the NIMBYs, I’m all for it.
Any solution to the housing crisis necessarily would require the political will to do that. There’s no getting around it.
But yeah, I think we more or less reached a point of agreement. We need to change the culture, it must become more collectivist. We gotta finally start caring for one another.
The problem isn’t political will per se, but specifically steamrolling local NIMBYs. The people with the most political power and will tend to push high density housing out of more desirable areas and into less desirable areas. If you wanted to, for instance, but a 100 unit building in Ukrainian Village or Wicker Park in Chicago, you’d have a really stiff fight on your hands from local property owners who want to keep their neighborhood all brownstones. OTOH, if you want to demo a square block near Garfield Park and build there–and I wouldn’t recommend doing that–you’ll have the local alderman holding a golden shovel for the groundbreaking.
Developers are not generally landlords. They want to build and are fully capable of setting up building co-ops. (They already do it) So fucking with landlords does not in any way mean less housing available.
Fine. Cap the rents and tie them to inflation. These fuckers are greedier than literal dragons, and I’m down for some dragon slaying.
Okay, now you have waiting lists like they do in Copenhagen.
Pretty much every economist will tell you that rent control creates disincentives to building more housing.
Then we lift the restrictions that Clinton put on government housing, and increase the supply.
I don’t care what the racists trained by the Chicago school of economics say, the real world has only proven them right when the rich are pushing on the scales.
Keynes is correct, and 2020 proved that far too well, to the point that the rich started screaming about their wage slaves.
Great! I’m all for gov’t increasing housing supply! But, frankly, most of the pushback from building affordable, high-density housing is coming from the local level. If we build high-density, affordable (e.g., low-income only, versus mixed-income) housing in it’s own area, rather than integrating it into existing communities, we’re only building the slums of the future. As it stands, well-off communities, even in areas that are heavily Democratic (such as, most of California), have been strongly opposed to locating such housing in their neighborhoods, and do everything they can to prevent it.
The YIMBY movement is gaining traction in IB and San Diego
No reason whatsoever anyone should own 5 “homes” (at that point they are not homes, they are a commodity).
Housing is a human right, and it needs to be entirely decommodified.
Preach.
Housing is a human right.
Private land ownership violates that human right.
All land should be held in trust for the people as a whole and managed by the government for the benefit of the people. Including the houses and apartments on that land.
We should not have private homeowners. We should not have private landlords. We should have socialized housing, just like we should have socialized medicine. Apartment buildings and neighborhoods should be managed by tenant associations, with strict legal limits on their authority over individual tenants, and government facilitators to provide expert advice on building management and keep meetings running smoothly.
But we are a long way from implementing that.
I think I would swap the word government for collective, but otherwise I completely agree, and yeah, we’re a long way away unfortunately. But we can hope, and inform others, and join/invest in projects that are working towards that end!
But consider all the investment banks that would irreparably harm!
The vast majority of ‘good’ landlords are people who were sketchy about investing in stock markets. As they rightfully should be because it requires infinite growth to keep people retiring without serious wage redistribution. But let’s kick that football down the road more.
Most of them are old and elderly. There’s no way the government forces private land owners to sell off anytime soon though. Let alone the difference in taxing/sales of land ownership vs home ownership. A hard cap on total homes owned would be nice though. People really out to diversify their savings and equity is a huge one.
There’s so much good that could be done that starts failing when defacto mini government coops start up though. You’ll have a hard time finding the difference between Coop and government owned housing but you’ll see people lambast government ownership like we’ve already seen in this thread lol.
I’d even say no more than two properties. Make people apply for a permit to own more than that and put extreme limits on the reasons they could be successful depending on the current market.
I don’t have a problem with that either. But yeah, the number itself is semi arbitrary. It should be voted on really.
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Investors and Airbnb have really undermined historical market forces here. also data pricing apps that fix prices between “competitors” should be noted here
One landlord told me he had to charge so much because of his Asian wife was greedy.
Glad that old white landlord can hide is greed behind his racism for his wife’s ethnic background.
Rich people are shit people.
“I’mma need to be greedy with you because my wife is asian” AKA why capitalists will always side with racism even if its a transparent attempt to bilk people of money.
Just build more housing lol
Imagine a hoard of people saying that in a drone similar to “this is extremely dangerous to our democracy”.
I hate the player and the game. After all why not both?
I mean, they’re sort of right.
If there’s 150,000 identical homes for rent in an area, and 200,000 people/couples/families want to live there, then 50,000 are going to be shit out of luck.
The going rate is going to be the maximum that the 150,000th person out of those 200k is prepared to pay.
How do you fight maths?
Build more houses. Less competition means lower prices.
Social housing schemes.
Work from home being a right so you don’t end up with everyone needing to work in a massive city to make ends meet.
Tax landlords. They’re already charging the most the market will bear, and taxes would mean they can’t just snap all those homes up and offer them for rent. If buying and renting homes is a valid business plan, then the tax isn’t high enough.
The problem is there aren’t 150,000 homes for 200,000 people. It’s probably the double but 100,000 of those homes are owned by people/companies who’d rather have them empty while the price rises. Basically using them as stocks instead of shelter for actual persons.
So you think the vacancy rate in expensive areas is 50%? That is extremely wrong.
So you aren’t aware of the Homebuilder Cartel, I’m assuming?
This fundamentally misunderstands the way that the market works.
If you have 1000 people trying to rent a 1br apartment, and there are 500 1br apartments on the market, then yeah, the price is going to go up, because there’s more demand than supply. But supply is constrained by outside factors, like zoning, and neighborhoods that don’t want to ruin their “character” be someone building high-density housing next to their cute, retro bungalow. Sure, you can build your apartment complex out in BFE, but no one wants to rent a place out in BFE because now they can’t get to their job in a reasonable amount of time, and have to drive rather than take public transit (or walk, ride a bike, etc.). Plus, that creates sprawl.
If you really want more housing, blaming landlords–including corporate landlords–isn’t going to fix it. Blame the cities that won’t allow proper high density housing, blame the NIMBYs.
I don’t know where people think that more housing comes from; someone has to put up the money. I’m fine with it being the state, but someone has to front the money in the first place.
It’s really not that simple.
You can, for instance, buy land and build your own home. But if you do that, you’re likely going to end up paying prices that are very comparable–or much, much higher!–to the prices you would pay to get the mass-produced homes from one of a few companies that are building massive sprawl. Those companies have economies of scale working on their side; they have limited floor plans, and have more control over the cost inputs, because they can negotiate bulk pricing. If you break up the ‘cartels’, then you’re suddenly dealing with much, much more custom homebuilding.
(FWIW, I’m currently looking into custom homebuilding, so I’ve got a pretty decent idea on what some of the costs will be for even a fairly modest home where all I really want is a shell that’s stub plumbed and has a breaker box.)
You have it all wrong. Housing is expensive because investment firms are allowed to buy up entire neighborhoods thus slashing supply.
Building new homes doesn’t change the equation as these same investment firms are buying up new homes as well.
They control the market because they own the majority of it. They prop up home prices and rental prices. They’ll sit on empty homes just to maintain said control.
If you want anything to change the first step is stopping companies from investing in homes.
Any other fight is pointless.
It can’t possibly be the price fixing cartels the DOJ is currently going after. It’s nebulous market forces that we just can’t do anything about. (/s)
And in places there’s actually a shortage, government built buildings that rent at cost and offer rent to buy would solve it. But we’re too busy congratulating wall street for making the line go up while ignoring rising homelessness, even while stuff is getting built.
The price-fixing cartels refers to rent specifically, rather than sales. And yes, there is a shortage of units for sale, and that is due largely to market forces. For instance, if I have a house right now that I still have 25 years of mortgage on, my mortgage is probably at a very low rate. Selling that home and buying a new one would mean a new mortgage, at a higher rate, which means bigger monthly payments. This is a problem that older people are running into right now; their homes are too big now that their kids are gone, but they can’t afford the new mortgage rates.
Even without rental software suggesting market values for landlords, it’s very easy to look at comparables in your general area to set your own rates close to what other people have their at. Similarly, if you list a property at $X, and get 200 queries in a single day, you are likely to set your prices higher because you know that you’re listing lower than average. (I sold a car like that; I got 50+ inquiries in just a few hours, because I’d set the price lower than market rate.)
And in places there’s actually a shortage
…Which actually is most places.
IIRC, the gov’t is restricted right now, and can’t build more without a change in the law. And sure, let’s change that. But you’re also going to need to change local zoning restrictions that prevent high density housing from going into certain residential areas.
OP very clearly referenced landlords. And no, this is not just checking competitor prices. It’s literally an app landlords can collude on. They all give their pricing and vacancy data and the app tells each one how many units to keep vacant to make the market price go up. It’s literally a pricing cartel and literally illegal.
The answer was always greed.
