this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 88 points 2 months ago (47 children)

What a terrible article. The solution is throwing more subsidies? Of course it's not! The solution is making it illegal to own more than a few properties. It really is that easy.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why is the for profit house building industry involved in solving the problem they had a hand in making?

Reform the CPA and just build ourselves. Or use the army core of engineers. They are getting paid either way.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Don't be stupid. How else an I going to make money by doing nothing? Get a job? That's for people who don't pull themselves up by their bootstraps!

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Raise property taxes 500% for property that is not registered as the owners primary residence.

That should do it

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The solution is to build more housing where people want to live.

Don't get suckered into their blame game. This just results in everybody pointing fingers while the prices continue to soar.

Prices only go up because there's competition to buy them.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 2 months ago (18 children)

Build. Social. Housing.

Its not a difficult concept. The “market” is not going to build anything that lowers the price. The market is not going to build anything fast enough. The market is absolutely not going to give a flying fuck about building to create communities.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Not in my back yard! Think of all the poor and homeless. Crime rate always goes up around them! This is a nice neighborhood!

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Decommodify housing along with every other human necessity, like water, food, utilities, and healthcare. There's no way that any of these problems will be fixed permenantly otherwise.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 months ago (3 children)

My piece of total shit landlord just took 4 months to fix my bathroom then raised rent an absurd amount. I’m enraged.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

I mean he had to pay for the repairs somehow /s

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

This is something I'm currently struggling with. I rent a house and the roof is leaking in two different rooms. Problem is that last time I had the landlord do any repairs he increased my rent by $300 a month. I know that having a leaky roof is damaging his property, but it's only a minor inconvenience for me at the moment.

I'm not about to spend an extra $6,000+ a year just to preserve his property when I can keep it from bothering me with a tack, some string, and a pitcher for the water to go into.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago (6 children)

We don't need tax credits.

We need Private equity out of the housing market.

We need better safeguards for tenants.

Financial moves like tax credits and incentives always end up benefitting the haves.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (9 children)

How would people here feel about a tax that increases in rate per-property owned? People and organizations can still own as many properties as they want, but at some point they're going to be taxed so much it'll be impossible to profit off of them.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Until we actually remove republicans and republican lites from the legislature I highly doubt we'll see any progressive tax reforms, like actually taxing the rich. You could probably find more support for expanding house buying programs. Stuff like lowering the down payment requirements, and or give a large grant for a portion of the house value if it is high and it could be clawed back at sale.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Personally, I'd prefer a monthly fine for unfilled housing, that is based on the rate you are charging for it. Landlord wants to jack your rent up 20%? If you leave, they pay a fine, based on that amount until they fill the unit. The fines go to subsidizing housing costs, so there is a self-balancing system. Right now, with property values increasing at insane rates, owners don't really need to rent to break even, which leaves them free to price gouge their tenants. There is little pressure pushing rates back down, and there is all the freedom in the world to jack them up as high as you want.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Could that be because those homeowners are charging rents high enough to cover both mortgage and insurance and more on the rented property?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Correct. In capitalism one must profit off the necessities of life.

Also, when you buy a house, the cost of the mortgage is locked in...assuming you don't do an adjustable rate mortgage which were never designed for long term homeownership.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (6 children)

I've never understood the need for a downpayment to purchase. If you can make the monthly payments that's all that should matter.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In theory I guess it protects against the costs of dealing with defaults or having people walk away from underwater mortgages. But on the other hand, all of that stuff could be insured against.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

But on the other hand, all of that stuff could be insured against.

Thats exactly what PMI (Private mortgage insurance) covers. However if the insurance company doesn't think you're a good risk, then you might not be able to get that either. I have never looked at what criteria they use to grant or deny PMI. I've also never known anyone personally denied PMI.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The downpayment requirements are much looser now then they used to be. Pretty much anyone in the US can get as low as 3 to 3.5% down, which means the down payment can easily be less than all the other home buying expenses (closing cost, inspection, title insurance, loan origination, moving, transfer taxes, ...). You also typically have a month before you need to make your first principle repayment, which helps offset the down payment.

Veterans, active service members, and people buying in qualified rural areas can get 0 down mortgages.

Depending on where you live, there might be further assistance available. Around here, the county offers (means tested) down-payment assistance loans that cover 100% the minimum down payment, and has an interest rate that is at least 2% lower than that of the main loan. They also wave all transfer taxes for all first time buyers.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

It's risk mitigation for the banks. You don't have to put 20% down, but generally you'll have to pay an additional insurance (PMI) if you don't.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Its to keep us uppity poors on the down low

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

When they say "the housing crisis", is that what the poors call the record profit boon?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

That's just the ruling class acting blind, disguising as a neutral news source

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why don’t they just buy homes? Are they stupid?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The sarcasm was lost on someone.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Of course they are, landlords are buying the house for what you would and doubling the mortgage payment as your rent. It should be illegal for people/corporations to rent out more than one single family home.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's so bad, I would happily accept the mega cities from judge dredd being built.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (11 children)

Ban corporations/private companies from holding empty residential housing. Problem solved. Not complicated. Our system fucking sucks and is designed to protect land owners which is why we're in this situation. This is fucking up our entire society, slowly bringing us down, we're losing to China. This change needs to happen soon otherwise we're going to see the working class get milked hard enough that our real economy will collapse.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

A partial solution is to remove nimby laws that prevent accessory dwelling units, duplexes, and medium and high density housing. Then you use the tax laws to heavily punish corporate ownership of low and medium density housing, and make it progressively more expensive for mom and pop landlords after a reasonable number of properties.

Hopefully this would lower the cost for single family housing, while increasing supply and variety of rentals. But somehow you'd have to prevent end stage capitalist collusion from fixing prices so competition could actually work to drive down prices.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

my rental office rose my rend $200 and I couldn't afford deposit on a new place. am fucked.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If I could, I would pass a law saying that no corporation could own more than two dwelling structures. That still allows them to own things up to apartment high-rises. But only two.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No. You make it so that they cannot hold single family dwellings period unless for the purpose of listing and selling them to non-corporate individuals.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

they'd just make nesting doll structured holding companies with all profits going to the top but any losses being contained within each branch

actually this sounds like a great idea BRB gotta register some LLCs in Delaware

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

What frustrates me is there doesn't seem to be anyone in a position to promote change to this problem that is really talking about it. They may pay it lip service but nothing beyond that.

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[–] derpgon 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Just a shot in the dark, but are there any apparent problems with capping the rent at like half the mortgage? Or like 80%? Then there would be financial incentive to keep the tenant happy, to keep working, and keep the property in working order.

Of course, this does not take into account properties without mortgage, or properties where the housing was paid in part with liquid cash.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That will disproportionately punish small time landlords and incentivize megacorp landlords, which is probably not what you want

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