There are a bunch of successful models, people usually mention Vienna as having a particularly effective housing policy - what they did is the city bought up a bunch of land, and built housing on top of it in various government subsidy programs, from non-profit public benefit corporations, to social housing for the poor.
They have strong renters rights, protections against rent increases, and high standards to which dwellings must conform to.
So while you can be a landlord in Vienna, you have to compete with affordable housing options, and you're forced to maintain a high quality yourself.
So that means that unless you can offer something the market's willing to pay extra for, being a landlord is not particularly lucrative thing.
Notice nowhere in my post did I mention the typical 'landlords are evil and must be taxed to death' approach.
Which is in stark contrast to most places where you're paying through the nose, the standard of rented dwellings is low and your rent can be increased or you can be kicked out on moments notice.
Investment companies own only about 2% of the housing market, and most of these are rented out. Investment companies aren't really the cause of housing prices remaining high - in moderate- and high-demand areas, we simply aren't building enough to keep up with demand.
Investing in housing only makes sense when supply is limited. The way to stop investors from hoarding housing is to make housing a bad investment by building a lot of it so cornering the market is impossible.
The De Beers cartel was able to avoid anti trust scrutiny because the best reserves are outside (Africa/Canada/Russia) of the most lucrative markets (US/Europe/Asia).
Corporations control only a small faction of housing supply.
That's not a different choice. LVT makes it more expensive to hold land that's less productive than it could be, the result of which is that development is encouraged.
I do really enjoy all the arguments coming up in this post that are pretty easily defeated by “build more housing”. No one has been able to come up with a compelling argument about why this doesn’t work.
It can be both affordable and an investment - it cannot (and will not) perpetually be a market-beating top-tier investment.
All of the items above can have drastic unintended consequences; the way to keep prices affordable is to make sure that supply is always outstripping demand by a bit.
Some examples of unintended consequences:
* I can't add an ADU to my existing property which would add one more dwelling unit
* Subdivision of property is discouraged; combining parcels reduces tax even if no new dwelling units are created
* This might be the closest to doing something though it could substantially discourage non-citizen immigrants (legal or not)
* This has been tried before and had well-documented issues, but might be doable if they can provide a "floor"
At least in the US, up until the rise of 'flipping' and AirBnB home values typically tracked with inflation. Personally owned real estate was a hedge against inflation and a tax shelter, not an 'investment'.
By definition if something is affordable, it’s not a good place to store money with the goal of it increasing.
> All of the items above can have drastic unintended consequences.
Yes, absolutely. These are not fully fledged solutions, but a starting point. Some of them may need an asterisk or two.
Of course, unintended consequences are perfectly fine if the final result is better than what we have today
> I can't add an ADU to my existing property which would add one more dwelling unit
Your wife or kid could own it. If you don’t have either of those, you don’t need two homes.
> Subdivision of property is discouraged
Subdivision and sell is perfectly encouraged.
> This might be the closest to doing something though it could substantially discourage non-citizen immigrants (legal or not)
I am a non citizen immigrant in Canada. I just had to bide my time until I became a PR then could buy a house. Perfect.
> This has been tried before and had well-documented issues, but might be doable if they can provide a "floor"
Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect, just better than what we have now.
So like what California did, which resulted in only a couple hundred thousand units over half a decade when they were hoping for/needing a couple million statewide.
Not the mention that ironically, the private owners with the space to build an ADU on their lot are the ones most likely to already be wealthy, and not actually rent it out to anyone below their socioeconomic bracket.
The majority of voters would vote to make income tax zero, that doesn’t mean we should accept that simply because the majority wants it.
In the US the majority of voters just voted for a racist, homophobic pedophile convicted felon.That doesn’t mean everyone should shrug and say “it’s the will of the people”
I refuse to believe you would have this attitude if you and your family had to rent drinking water while people profited wildly from it.
The situation is unacceptable and needs to change, irrelevant of what certain people want.
Sure, I agree, but this isnt a technocracy. If you want the government to change you do need to convince the voters at large.
> The majority of voters would vote to make income tax zero
Im not sure this is true. Most people recognize the taxes are needed for the government to provide services.
> That doesn’t mean everyone should shrug and say “it’s the will of the people”
This is the reality though, it doesnt matter that you or I disagree. Trump is the legitimate president even if he's a racist, homophobic pedophile convicted felon.
They have strong renters rights, protections against rent increases, and high standards to which dwellings must conform to.
So while you can be a landlord in Vienna, you have to compete with affordable housing options, and you're forced to maintain a high quality yourself.
So that means that unless you can offer something the market's willing to pay extra for, being a landlord is not particularly lucrative thing.
Notice nowhere in my post did I mention the typical 'landlords are evil and must be taxed to death' approach.
Which is in stark contrast to most places where you're paying through the nose, the standard of rented dwellings is low and your rent can be increased or you can be kicked out on moments notice.