[oldjim798]

Ban corporate ownership of residences. Only individuals, Coops or condominiums. Cap how many rentals an individual can own.

The government should also build massive amounts of housing. Everywhere of all types - apartments, townhouses, single family. After built transferred to the residents as coops.

[BeetleB]

> Ban corporate ownership of residences. Only individuals,

Many/most corporate owners are individuals (as per the linked report). See my comment here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46208561

> Cap how many rentals an individual can own.

Yes. Cap to 0. Until we get data on the breakdown (what percentage of rental homes are by owners who own 1, 2, 3, etc), we don't really know. It won't be easy to determine because a lot of RE investors create a new LLC for each property they own.

[jjav]

> > Cap how many rentals an individual can own.

> Yes. Cap to 0.

That is saying let's eliminate rentals entirely. If nobody can own a rental, there can be no rentals.

Some people do prefer to rent. I wouldn't, but I know people who truly prefer that.

[BeetleB]

Let's elaborate to: Cap condominiums and detached houses to 0. Apartment complexes is how people should rent.

It is, of course, an extreme scenario. As I said, this is absent good data. If we get a sense of the impact one would have if we limit it to 1, supported by data, sure - cap it to 1.

[jjav]

> Apartment complexes is how people should rent.

Why would you get to decide that?

Some people like to rent single family homes. Some because they have a large family. Some because that's just what they want. It's not ok to tell them they can't do that and must be forced to live in an apartment.

[tptacek]

I love that there are people that can't even conceive of the idea that entities that let out apartments are providing a service to residents. In their view, the natural state of every resident is a desire to own their home.

A fun knock-on effect of this policy proposal: it would effectively halt all new development of dense multifamily.

[oldjim798]

Yes, the natural state of every resident is to live in their own home. To be clear by home I don't mean "single family detached house on a suburban street", I mean a place to live with water, electricity, and a roof.

Landlords provide no 'service'; they are merely an existence tax.

The market already does not build dense multifamily; what is there to halt?

[BeetleB]

> The market already does not build dense multifamily; what is there to halt?

Landlords have existed since forever, and the market was until recently very happy to build enough supply.

That it's suddenly gone downhill implies a problem well beyond "landlords".

[tptacek]

There's also the obvious fact that we do build dense multifamily (not enough of it, but some is better than "none", which is the endpoint of that policy).

[J_Shelby_J]

The real reason single family housing ownership is the only real option is that society effectively pays people to own; appreciation out weighs all costs of ownership so in the end it’s free or even an investment.

But if it was truly a free market and supply met demand owning housing would be a depreciating asset and renting would be cheaper.

Land ownership is a cultural construct. Their is no natural state.

[tptacek]

You can't fathom that someone might not want an ownership stake in the property they happen to reside in, that there could possibly be a downside to that.

[BobaFloutist]

You know how it's recommended to sell employee stock grants asap, so your not over indexed into your employer? I.E. if the company you're working for performs poorly or goes under, you don't want to lose your job and wealth, and if it does well, you'll keep making money at your job anyway, so there's no advantage to investing more of your personal capital into your employer than you would if they weren't employing you (barring insider trading).

It's funny that people rarely seem to apply the same reasoning to their dwelling place.

[tptacek]

I think everybody has to be obliged, at least once, to move within a year or two of buying a house, just so they can understand what it is to take a huge bath on closing costs.

And that's before you get to things like the furnace going, or the roof failing. Two kinds of people with this "landlords provide absolutely no services" perspective: people so comfortable financially that the y-o-y costs of maintaining a property don't even register, and renters who have never owned and been on the hook for an urgent big-ticket maintenance problem.

[kasey_junk]

Can I get a waiver due to my home purchase at the height of the bubble before the gfc? Cause I feel like I’ve paid enough for lessons learned.

[oldjim798]

I never said homeownership. Just a place to live thats not owned by a ruthless corporation that spends every day trying to squeeze every penny possible out of the tenant

[tptacek]

I'm responding to your policy proposal! It's not my fault if that policy doesn't cohere with your preferences!

[bpt3]

What about a non-ruthless corporation? How do you test that?

What about the fact that most homeowners get the vast majority of the money for said purchase from a (presumably ruthless) corporation?

[oldjim798]

No such thing as a non-ruthless corporation, it is inherent with the legal structure.

[raw_anon_1111]

There is absolutely no way I would have wanted to be tied down to buying a house when I was young.

[garbawarb]

It's interesting to think of the second-order effects of this. If these corporations can't invest in housing, they'd direct their money elsewhere. Maybe we'd see a stock market or commercial real estate boom. Maybe a proliferation of new ventures.

[phkahler]

>> If these corporations can't invest in housing, they'd direct their money elsewhere.

I think that's why they're buying residential - there aren't any other traditional investments that aren't in a bubble or just have low returns. If you anticipate economic collapse or hyper inflation or whatever, physical assets make sense - when you measure wealth in houses you don't care what the dollar does. Gold people can do without, housing not so much. Whatever happens next, people will need a place to live. OTOH the population collapse is also coming so housing doesn't make much sense beyond 2030 or so.

[the_sleaze_]

There will be a squeeze on real estate as the sea level rises and insurance increasingly withdraws from coastal and fire-prone areas.

[quesera]

If insurability becomes a crisis, I'd expect it to reduce housing availability and raise prices for competing (insurable) properties.

Of course it wouldn't happen in isolation, so there are other massive forces to consider.

Maybe wide swathes of formerly-occupied (but now uninsurable) land would sell cheaply enough that middle-income people could build inexpensive semi-disposable vacation cottages, like the old days.

GP's assertion of population collapse in five years is a bit extreme for me!

[phkahler]

>> GP's assertion of population collapse in five years is a bit extreme for me!

Check the population pyramid for the US. the baby boomers are moving into the top part (I call the grinder) where they will die out over the next 20 years. At the bottom, we have 20 years of slowly decreasing births, so the bottom AND top are shrinking. Combine that with current policies stopping immigration and I don't know how the US population can be doing anything but decreasing. College admissions people are talking about the cliff (an exaggeration for sure) in enrolment this year and for years to come. People are also getting married closer to 30, and having much less than 2 children per couple.

[quesera]

"Collapse" is a dramatic word for "slow, orderly, decline". :)

[asdff]

I'd expect to see a surge in self insurance. These areas are so valuable already in a lot of cases where rich people are content to pay six figure property tax bills. Especially with cost of construction being a fraction of that property's value.

[the_sleaze_]

> a surge in self insurance

What is this? Would this just be "putting a little to the side each month" to cover your 12 million dollar loss to Hurricane Micheala ?

[asdff]

It could be as simple as that or something with more structure as well. It won't be a 12 million loss because you own the land already. You are just paying for construction which is a fraction of that value.

[teeray]

I wonder if they could develop some legal apparatus to employ individual straw buyers to circumvent such a restriction.