[foldr]

I don't agree with squatting on the whole, but this distinction clearly does matter. If someone squats a property that you were planning to rent out then you lose the income that you could have gained thereby. That's not nearly as bad as losing access to the home you currently live in.

[s1artibartfast]

It can be worse, as you are losing rental income, which can have larger impacts on your budget and life.

I have family in California that had to deal with squatters on a rental property. It cost them ~400k, which included their kids college funds and retirement.

Costs were 3 years of lost rent while they paid the mortgage 250k damages done by the squatters, plus legal fees.

[foldr]

It could be worse for some people in some cases, but it’s pretty clear which is going to be worse in general most of the time.

[s1artibartfast]

Perhaps, financial damage is real and can have long term consequences that outlive short term inconvenience.

You are probably right in the majority of cases,but I do think it is a mistake to automatically discount financial harm as less.

If I invest 20 years of my income in a property that someone has stolen, that is a significant loss to me in human terms as well as financially.

I would be open to treating the destruction of such property equivalent to the taking of an equivalent amount of one's life.

[foldr]

>If I invest 20 years of my income in a property that someone has stolen, that is a significant loss to me in human terms as well as financially.

You've also paid for your primary residence. But on top of that, you need it to live in. So it's a worse situation, generally speaking.

[s1artibartfast]

That was a general comment, true for both cases.

[hgomersall]

Maybe the moral point is that housing shouldn't be an investment class?

[s1artibartfast]

Housing is inherently an investment.

It take a huge amount of materials and labor to build, and returns value slowly over time. Depending on the inputs and returns, this can either create positive or negative value.

[hgomersall]

Of course we should invest in actual property building, I meant investment class as in asset class - a thing you buy with the hope of capital increase. This is clearly quite different from investing in building houses that results in a new house.