[RestlessMind]

> That logic also applies to demand. Why would you buy a house if someone can waltz in and...

The clear answer is you'd buy one if you know how to handle squatters. In other words, you are well connected and have enough capital to take preventive measures described in the article.

In other words, rich can get richer by having lengthy security apparatus to protect their property. Middle class investors, who might want to buy an extra house to have a stream of income from rents gets that ladder pulled away from them.

One might believe that renting itself should not exist and making money from housing is immoral. If so, let's pull that ladder away from everyone including the rich (though that won't end well since not everyone can be a homeowner).

[kerkeslager]

> Why would you build new housing when someone can waltz in and change the locks and youre shit out of luck?

The clear answer is you'd build one when you know how to handle squatters.

> If so, let's pull that ladder away from everyone including the rich

Yes!

> not everyone can be a homeowner

Why?

[RestlessMind]

> > not everyone can be a homeowner

> Why?

Criminals who were behind the bars for 20 years, just came out and have nothing to buy a house with.

Families moving to another city for 1-2 years because one of the parents found a lucrative job assignment (I literally have some extended family members in this situation).

People who declared bankruptcy recently and cannot have any assets in their name by definition.

Grad students who are in a university town only for 1-2 years (I was one and I know dozens of my classmates who were in the similar situation).

and on and on. Society is just too complex to make everyone a homeowner. Lot of people need to rent.

[kerkeslager]

> Criminals who were behind the bars for 20 years, just came out and have nothing to buy a house with.

Criminals who were behind bars for 20 years, just came out and have nothing to pay rent with either. This isn't logic.

We shouldn't be releasing people from prison with no way to house themselves because that's practically guaranteed to push them back into crime. Solutions to that unavoidably involve giving them housing in some way: if your solution gives them rent, all your solution does is add landlords as middlemen and ensure that criminals never become homeowners. Giving them housing that they can work to buy is a much better solution.

> Families moving to another city for 1-2 years because one of the parents found a lucrative job assignment (I literally have some extended family members in this situation).

Why can't they buy a house for 1-2 years? Why are you assuming that housing liquidity would remain just as bad as it is now, when rentals and speculation removing liquidity from the market?

> People who declared bankruptcy recently and cannot have any assets in their name by definition.

That's... not how bankruptcy works. Many bankruptcies do not result in homeowners losing their residences, because that's obviously bad, so there are options to not do that. You may not be able to buy a new one... but maybe that should change, i.e. if you're selling your house to buy a newer one, that should be allowed, even encouraged if you're downsizing.

> Grad students who are in a university town only for 1-2 years (I was one and I know dozens of my classmates who were in the similar situation).

See previous.

> and on and on. Society is just too complex to make everyone a homeowner. Lot of people need to rent.

Well, right now your examples just sound like lots of people are forced to rent by current systems which are designed to maintain rental properties as investments.

[RestlessMind]

> Well, right now your examples just sound like lots of people are forced to rent by current systems which are designed to maintain rental properties as investments.

Rather, right now your arguments seem to be based on some idealized utopia with fancy assumptions - perfect liquidity in housing market without any friction of transaction costs, perfect society with ideal treatment of prison population, perfectly rich grad students who can buy housing etc. If such things were possible, other initiatives based on ideal human nature would have succeeded as well (eg. communism).

I will flip your argument back to you - show me a place where the system is NOT designed to maintain real properties as investments.

[kerkeslager]

> Rather, right now your arguments seem to be based on some idealized utopia with fancy assumptions - perfect liquidity in housing market without any friction of transaction costs, perfect society with ideal treatment of prison population, perfectly rich grad students who can buy housing etc. If such things were possible, other initiatives based on ideal human nature would have succeeded as well (eg. communism).

No, this is just a perfect solution fallacy. We don't need perfect liquidity, frictionless transactions, or rich grad students to make this work. We need no landlords and no speculative investment in housing: the rest will take care of itself, due to basic free market principles because that's massively increasing supply with a demand that's bound by population. And it doesn't have to happen perfectly, just well-enough. If you don't believe in supply and demand I'm not sure you have much grounds for accusing me of communism.

> I will flip your argument back to you - show me a place where the system is NOT designed to maintain real properties as investments.

I am truly confused how you think this is flipping my argument back at me.