[refurb]

If landlords don't exists, the land is still there, and we lost nothing, since land can't be created or destroyed.

If landlords don't exist, people couldn't have a place to live unless they could purchase themselves. I think landlords are great - I can get a nice place to live and have none of the risk the landlord does. Property prices go down? I don't care. House burns down? I don't care. If I want to pick up and leave in a year? Great, here's notice. No real estate fees, paperwork, etc.

I think landlords offer a fantastic service.

[neilparikh]

Two points I want to make.

> House burns down? I don't care.

You're conflating land rents and building rents. The "landlord", in their position as the building owner clearly provides a valuable service: the upfront capital/labour to construct the building and the maintenance. I'm not saying this shouldn't exists; it definitely should. They should capture all the profits that come from the rent you pay because of the building. My point is simply that they shouldn't be able to profit from the landownership itself.

> people couldn't have a place to live unless they could purchase themselves. > Property prices go down? I don't care.

The only reason land has a purchase cost in the first place is because you can extract a rent from it indefinitely. If land did not allow you to extract a rent from it in perpetuity [0], the purchase price would go to zero.

[0] - we can achieve this through a land value tax equal to the rent you could extract from the land.

[erik_seaberg]

Some people buy land to live on indefinitely, with no plans to rent or resell. How would you decide who gets to live in North Beach and who has to commute from San Bruno, if not price?

[neilparikh]

The idea is that we charge a land value tax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax) equal to market rent value of the land. So you're free to own the land if you pay the tax.

This tax would obviously be higher in desirable areas, so there would still be a price mechanism to ensure that the land is allocated effectively. If I bought a parcel of land in North Beach, but then didn't use it productively, I probably wouldn't be able to pay the tax and I would have to get rid of it. Additionally, since the market value of land reflects its most productive use, it would incentivize using the land in the efficient use (ie. densely in a high value area, since that lets you split the tax over more people).

[imtringued]

You don't seem to understand what the term rent means. It's the act of giving someone temporary access to something and charging based on the amount of time it has been used. That's a pretty useful service if you don't have enough money to outright own your house or apartment.

[neilparikh]

Do you really think I don't understand what rent means? I pay rent every month, I better go figure out what it is I'm actually paying...

I'm not proposing we do away with rent as a concept. In the current situation, when you pay rent, you're really paying two rents combined.

The first rent corresponds to renting the land the building is on. This rent is why an equivalent apartment has a higher rent in SF than it does in Detroit or Houston.

The second rent corresponds to renting the building/unit itself. This rent is why a 2 bedroom apartment has a higher rent than a 1 bedroom apartment.

Now, the first rent is entirely uncorrelated with the value the landlord provides. It is essentially paid due to the landlord owning a monopoly on scarce good, which is only valuable due the community and government putting the effort to make the area valuable. Someone who owns land in downtown NYC didn't make it valuable, it became valuable because the government built the infrastructure to make the city livable, and the other residents made the city into a place where people want to live. Therefore, it's only fair that this rent goes to the commons rather than the landowner, where it can then be used to fund the government, rather than through other taxes.

What I propose is a land value tax equal to this land rent, so it is returned to the commons. The owner is still free to keep the rent from the building. This ideology is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism, and is pretty well supported from both an economic and fairness perspective.

[kamaal]

Unless you can magically bring a home into existence, you will always pay for it in some way: Taxes, Interest, Rent.

And any one issuing any money to build anything won't be doing it unless it is profitable.

What you are against is basically profit. Unfortunately there is no way to arrive here(even with taxes) unless you can arrive at 0 inflation.