• @SCB
    5•11 months ago

    In any ideal scenario, renting would be preferable to buying for the vast majority of people.

    The reason buying crushes renting, in terms of value, is that the value of housing (and thus the price) continually rises. Homeowners get equity and renters get fucked.

    This happens because we literally are not allowed to build enough housing. This makes owning a home an investment.

    I’ll give you three guesses as to what bloc of voters instituted those restrictions, and continues to fight for them today.

    • @[email protected]
      5•11 months ago

      We are in the actual thread that tells you why there’s a problem, it’s corporations and investment funds buying up all of the available supply. We might be tight on supply if we got rid of all of them doing that, but it wouldn’t be a crisis.

      • @SCB
        2•11 months ago

        Buying up supply happens because of what I described above.

        If housing isn’t the most reliable investment you can possibly make, then there is less incentive to buy up all the housing.

        This program is fine. Whatever. Every little bit helps and I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. But it’s a band-aid on a bullet wound

        We might be tight on supply if we got rid of all of them doing that, but it wouldn’t be a crisis.

        This, however, is flat wrong, because the crisis preceded the investment

        • @[email protected]
          6•11 months ago

          I think you might be having a math problem.

          Corporation Plan

          • Step 1, US has a financial meltdown
          • Step 2, corporations buy up all of the housing at cheap prices, price fix the rentals and use a shit ton of them for airBNBs
          • Step 3, not worry about the empty units or homes because price fixing and airBNBs will fix that
          • Step 4, develop a crowdfunding site so “investors” can get in on the renting/price fixing game
          • Step 5, complain that there isn’t enough housing to get the zoning changed, so they can build “luxury” apartments where they continue to price fix or rent out to tourists/business people because they’re ToTALLy NoT A hoTEl!
          • Step 6, profit, profit, profit

          Common Person Plan

          • Step 1, look to buy a home but there’s not enough supply so the prices go up
          • Step 2, try to save but their rent keeps getting raised because it’s being price fixed and there is a lack of supply (sometimes real because of the tourists)
          • Step 3, continue to rent while nervously waiting to try and build up a deposit and there’s less and less supply
          • Step 4, rent, rent, rent further away from the city core
          • @SCB
            -4•11 months ago

            I really don’t because the economics here doesn’t change. You’re just trying to moral high-ground economic concepts, which isn’t useful for policy solutions.

            It’s good for rhetoric tho, and we need to change minds, so it’s not a total waste.

            • @[email protected]
              3•11 months ago

              You’re just trying to moral high-ground economic concepts, which isn’t useful for policy solutions.

              What moral high ground? It’s easy to fix, make it so corporations can’t own more than a certain amount of units and corporations in general as a percentage of units in a city. If anyone has more than 4 airBNB units, you have to become a hotel. Simple solutions that won’t catch every instance but will make a dent.

              • @SCB
                -5•11 months ago

                “corporations bad” is a moral stance. It’s irrelevant to the underlying economics

                We aren’t debating policy. we agree on policy.

    • @[email protected]
      1•11 months ago

      I suppose my ideals are different: in an ideal scenario, I think buying is preferable to renting. But besides the problem of having enough money to get started with buying, renting gives a flexibility and reduced (outsourced to landlord) responsibility that’s very valuable for many people, especially in the short term.

      • @SCB
        1•11 months ago

        By “ideal scenario” I mean a situation in which home prices do not reliably go up every single year forever