One time, I had a guy screaming at me in the comments that the reason why I'm on the brink of homelessness is because there just aren't enough houses being built to accommodate people like me. It's very easy to spot a corporate plant nowadays, isn't it?
City level is unfortunately very complicit in the swindle. My neighborhood got its main road gutted for a bigger poop tube due to 3 new apartment complexes coming in. They posted about how they were improving the area...50 ft of new sidewalk after 1 year of construction and now the apartments go for 1800/month at 700 sq. ft. No widening of roads or turn lanes because, "Public transportation is too close" to justify extra egress.
Hey here's another idea, how about we increase the property taxes on any non-private legal entity (aka anything that's not a private person) that owns more than 3 houses, and then increase it further for every year that it does not contain a long-term renter? By long-term I mean someone with a lease or renting contract lasting multiple years, not some airBnB scam contract.
Just more "market" bullshit. Housing has been left to "the market" and this is why we have a crisis, and it's not just in America. It's Trickle Down Reagan's fucking problem creating economics. Yeah, seemed to work for a while, but wages have stagnated and the rich are now the ultra-rich. Housing stock has dried up because corporate buyers don't want more houses built. They want to maximize rents. Fuck 'em all, order them to sell it all. Watch the "housing crisis" disappear.
West vancouver, part of the Greater Vancouver area has been fighting it out with the provincial government over not wanting zoning to add 222 new domiciles. The kind of like Mercer Island in Seattle. Convinced that they can survive completely without the greater City paying for their stuff
As long as interest rates are low, investment firms will snatch up housing instead of investing in bonds. That means your retirement fund, your insurance company, and your bank hedge funds are fucking you out of affordable housing. Killing the rich frees up capital, but raising rates changes the flow of that capital. Both are needed.
Not the full story. There are millions of finished houses off the market bought by corporations and banks to drive the competitive market. The state of Florida alone has over 3 million un used houses. That could house the entire homeless population (600,000) 5 times. Just one state
Incentivizing more properties to be built will mostly benefit enormous multinational housing developers slapping together substandard housing. Make it illegal for private companies to own residentially zoned property.
So, the capitalists that have refused to build because the profit margins weren't great enough WILL build if we pay them our tax dollars and cut their taxes?
How about we cut them out and just build the houses with tax dollars? As long as we break even, it's still better deal for us as a whole.
Yeah, this is the way. Here in Sweden people often also complain about it taking too long to get permits, which might be true, but is irrelevant, since the building companies have many approved ones they are not building. It's in their interest for there to be a high demand when each building is completed. They don't want to build 10 buildings this year and 0 next year, but 2-3 EVERY year, always.
The neighborhood I bought my house in ~15 years ago has gone from everyone owning to everyone renting. I would say more than half the houses are rent houses now. It was mostly old folks and when one of them passes their house gets rented. Zoning allows it, so guess it is what it is.
The talking points are just slightly updated trickledown vapid investor speak to shovel more money to the entities creating the problem, so the background imagery is both the sarcasm and the deadpan humor of the bit.
Basic rights should not be left to the market. We should know this by now. You need government regulations like you used to have in the Netherlands and have now in Vienna if I'm not mistaken. Good social housing is the start.
This is something property developers have been saying for decades now. What's needed is to get capital out of speculation on a life essential and get government involved in building housing for those who need help. This used to be the case here in Canada and we still have legacy co-op buildings where middle and low income families can afford decent housing but the government moved away from that so now there aren't enough and wait lists are several years long.
More houses built. Companies biy them up and rent them out. Rents keep increasing where nobody can save for a down payment. Wash rinse repeat. Use third party analytics companies to collude on rents legally
Nope...they tried that in a town I used to live in...open season on developers to just stick a dwelling whereever they pleased. Zoning was cheap and easy and basically rubber-stamped. Know what happened? Those homes were built an they were inexpensive and people flocked to them in droves...Then came the problem....Gridlock! NONE of the infrastructure was increased to handle the massive influx of homes...Water, power, gas, roads...none of it was updated...Brown-outs happened every summer, (-2-)
(-2-) people's homes were freezing in the winter due to no gas for heat. And it took HOURS to travel less than 30 miles to work during rush-hour. It was a disaster! So after 10 years of this "growth", a new county administrator came in and put in some rules that dictated that ALL building, commercial or residential MUST include adequate funding to increase power, sewer, gas and roads...know what happened then? Building ground to a halt. New homes skyrocketed in price because of these costs.
Exactly. This is libertarian propaganda. Zoning is in place so that you don't have a nuclear waste facility next to a preschool. Remember kids: capitalists are not your friends.
This. All this "we just need to get rid of regulations" abundance crap is just trickle down economics for people who don't like the taste of trans genocide.
Most places just need more high and medium density housing. And in many places that just simply isn't allowed to be built due to zoning regulations. Which are local Government issues, so this problem can be fixed by getting reformist local governments. Because zoning and permits are all managed at the local level. And local level politics is the easiest one to run for and win. So if you want more cheap density housing in your area, run for your local government and work to change the regulations
Yeah, and thee's kind of a tug-o-war of interests between boomers and everyone else. Many booms retirement plan is their house growing in values. They own a home or two and want to see prices go up, up, up like it was a stock. Boomers also tend to vote more in local elections. Well, boomers are more likely to own a home, and home owners are more likely to vote in local elections, and vote in favor of things that keep house values up, and against anything that might bring them down.
The Boomers are 90% already all retired. They crossed that line in 2024. And all of them will be retired or dead by 2030. And Millennials now out number Boomers. So most of those factors are none factors anymore, because the time they were accurate have passed.
This is where we see if millennials flip and become NIMBY home owners once they start owning and worrying about property values, or if they're willing to see their home not appreciate in values as much, so that more homes can be available to more people.
That's the thing, most of them still can't. Because wealthy Landlords own all the housing stock. So it is ensuring that they remain passionate about variability. The other big problem is short term rentals need to be banned. Things like Airbnb have taken thousands of houses out of the housing market. Because they can earn multiple months worth of rent in a single week of people staying the night. As you can charge a whole months rent for a single nights stay.
And that is often something that is also controlled by local government. Though it can also tip into state government. But it can be managed if you add more bus routes and bike lanes and footpaths for people to walk and run on. Public infrastructure isn't actually a hard problem to solve, there's just rarely the political will to do it.
Traffic isn't the only issue, there is also water, sewer, trash, power, medical, drainage, green space, etc. So no, you can't just increase population density willy nilly.
None of those issues are actually difficult. They were all solved decades ago. The solutions are there, just needs the will to do them and the funding to build them. That's the only thing stopping this transition from being done. This stuff gets done fairly frequently in places that have better systems for building in place within their governmental systems.
Well they are actually difficult and costly that's why there are planning departments and zoning. Also upgrading the other systems affects traffic because you have to rip up the streets.
The problem is not a lack of houses, its people owning houses as investments and to rent them out. We have more empty houses than homeless people. The problem is that its profitable for blackrock to buy them up.
Not only more empty houses than homeless people, more empty houses in just a single state (and not California or Texas, so it's not just because it is soooo big) than homeless people nationwide. So while there can still be supply issues in some cities or towns, as a whole, yeah, there is a Huge surplus that is being held out of the market in order to preserve inflated investment values instead of allowing them to serve their purposes.
And private ownership of not self used homes. Tax rate of +50% after the first. Homes are a necessity, not any investment besides the people using it directly.
I'd also like to see taxes reduced or not taken on property tax for low income famililies, leveraging the taxes on high income homes to help with that. The gov doesn't need property tax from a family making 40k a year.
That plus we have empty homes where the homeless isn't as bad, and lack of homes where homeless is worse. So part of it is investments and part of it is location.
Debadguy
One time, I had a guy screaming at me in the comments that the reason why I'm on the brink of homelessness is because there just aren't enough houses being built to accommodate people like me.
It's very easy to spot a corporate plant nowadays, isn't it?
MoxieMonster
City level is unfortunately very complicit in the swindle. My neighborhood got its main road gutted for a bigger poop tube due to 3 new apartment complexes coming in. They posted about how they were improving the area...50 ft of new sidewalk after 1 year of construction and now the apartments go for 1800/month at 700 sq. ft. No widening of roads or turn lanes because, "Public transportation is too close" to justify extra egress.
Grumpy72
Pretty sure OP forgotvto tag this /s
UnaccomplishedWatcherImNotaBot
Socialism is good, but don't mix it with Mao. He made a LOT of people die
Toqom
False, 40% of homes are being intentionally left empty, most listed on airbnb but most are never used
Ivain
Hey here's another idea, how about we increase the property taxes on any non-private legal entity (aka anything that's not a private person) that owns more than 3 houses, and then increase it further for every year that it does not contain a long-term renter? By long-term I mean someone with a lease or renting contract lasting multiple years, not some airBnB scam contract.
fluffybaer55
Love the Luigi drip.
DJOldguy
Just more "market" bullshit. Housing has been left to "the market" and this is why we have a crisis, and it's not just in America. It's Trickle Down Reagan's fucking problem creating economics. Yeah, seemed to work for a while, but wages have stagnated and the rich are now the ultra-rich. Housing stock has dried up because corporate buyers don't want more houses built. They want to maximize rents. Fuck 'em all, order them to sell it all. Watch the "housing crisis" disappear.
CorgisButtsDriveMeNuts
Either that or Luigi!
petonious
Murder Pirate Equity and the forever banks that tell them what to do.
LadyofHats
as long as owning a house is an invesment, you will have people who doesnt want that invesment to loose value
EMHPicardo
thatwoodguy
West vancouver, part of the Greater Vancouver area has been fighting it out with the provincial government over not wanting zoning to add 222 new domiciles. The kind of like Mercer Island in Seattle. Convinced that they can survive completely without the greater City paying for their stuff
bubaka
I see what you did there.
kurvarVillain
As long as interest rates are low, investment firms will snatch up housing instead of investing in bonds. That means your retirement fund, your insurance company, and your bank hedge funds are fucking you out of affordable housing.
Killing the rich frees up capital, but raising rates changes the flow of that capital. Both are needed.
ForPriestSake
Not the full story. There are millions of finished houses off the market bought by corporations and banks to drive the competitive market. The state of Florida alone has over 3 million un used houses. That could house the entire homeless population (600,000) 5 times. Just one state
ForPriestSake
https://www.lendingtree.com/home/mortgage/vacancy-rates-study/
Here’s 15 million houses perfectly fine but off the market and unused.
Capitalism is about controlling options to drive the prices up
sakm
Incentivizing more properties to be built will mostly benefit enormous multinational housing developers slapping together substandard housing. Make it illegal for private companies to own residentially zoned property.
ayers231
So, the capitalists that have refused to build because the profit margins weren't great enough WILL build if we pay them our tax dollars and cut their taxes?
How about we cut them out and just build the houses with tax dollars? As long as we break even, it's still better deal for us as a whole.
Clockworkdancerobot
I for one thought we should have had more public funded construction groups to build without the profit motive. Keep it public.
RevengeIsIceCream
Yeah, this is the way.
Here in Sweden people often also complain about it taking too long to get permits, which might be true, but is irrelevant, since the building companies have many approved ones they are not building. It's in their interest for there to be a high demand when each building is completed. They don't want to build 10 buildings this year and 0 next year, but 2-3 EVERY year, always.
friendsofsandwiches
Maybe get property out of the hands of foreign interests.
Also houses should not be multiple owned and rented out.
commentsbadcomments
But how will my landlord survive if the people in my neighborhood aren’t giving him 20k a month?!?
Reidsb
This will go a long way to increasing supply short term, but we absolutely need to build more as well.
Gibleteousjack
The neighborhood I bought my house in ~15 years ago has gone from everyone owning to everyone renting. I would say more than half the houses are rent houses now. It was mostly old folks and when one of them passes their house gets rented. Zoning allows it, so guess it is what it is.
SliderOfElay
Also let's stop corporations from owning single family homes. Or more than a handful of buildings
Kemi337
Property taxes should progressively increase the more homes one entity or person has.
SliderOfElay
And we need some way of linking shell corps or whatever other loop whole they come up with. God I wish we had a functional FTC.
sitenickname
Am I the only one to notice the backgrounds? :D
LateNightBunnyParty
One would hope not. It's kinda half the point. Good on you for figuring it out too, bud. Keep up the good work.
BenderRodriguz1010
It's why I clicked
hmijail
I suspect that the line "the market just needs the right signals" is also load-bearing
stukajr
The talking points are just slightly updated trickledown vapid investor speak to shovel more money to the entities creating the problem, so the background imagery is both the sarcasm and the deadpan humor of the bit.
TestSubject86
How Many Houses Are in the U.S.? Data by City - United Way NCA https://share.google/HVhemBfM5IKzJkmqO
2fligh2high
Basic rights should not be left to the market. We should know this by now. You need government regulations like you used to have in the Netherlands and have now in Vienna if I'm not mistaken. Good social housing is the start.
CelestialSea
This is something property developers have been saying for decades now. What's needed is to get capital out of speculation on a life essential and get government involved in building housing for those who need help. This used to be the case here in Canada and we still have legacy co-op buildings where middle and low income families can afford decent housing but the government moved away from that so now there aren't enough and wait lists are several years long.
DYLANLEE79
This always ignores the infrastructure issues, water, sewer, trash, traffic, flooding, schools, etc. We need to bring back SimCity.
Knotpocket
Song at the end if anyone was curious https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zz9q9xpjak
sadurdaynight
More houses built. Companies biy them up and rent them out. Rents keep increasing where nobody can save for a down payment. Wash rinse repeat. Use third party analytics companies to collude on rents legally
OrkenMork
Nope...they tried that in a town I used to live in...open season on developers to just stick a dwelling whereever they pleased. Zoning was cheap and easy and basically rubber-stamped. Know what happened? Those homes were built an they were inexpensive and people flocked to them in droves...Then came the problem....Gridlock! NONE of the infrastructure was increased to handle the massive influx of homes...Water, power, gas, roads...none of it was updated...Brown-outs happened every summer, (-2-)
OrkenMork
(-2-) people's homes were freezing in the winter due to no gas for heat. And it took HOURS to travel less than 30 miles to work during rush-hour. It was a disaster! So after 10 years of this "growth", a new county administrator came in and put in some rules that dictated that ALL building, commercial or residential MUST include adequate funding to increase power, sewer, gas and roads...know what happened then? Building ground to a halt. New homes skyrocketed in price because of these costs.
TrickerTreater
Exactly. This is libertarian propaganda. Zoning is in place so that you don't have a nuclear waste facility next to a preschool. Remember kids: capitalists are not your friends.
marsilies
I think you two might have missed the subtext of the video. It's subtle, one could say in the background of it....
LostCaterpillar
This. All this "we just need to get rid of regulations" abundance crap is just trickle down economics for people who don't like the taste of trans genocide.
NussKnuspermix
The point is that this approach is just as viable as trickle down economics. Not.
Targe0
Most places just need more high and medium density housing.
And in many places that just simply isn't allowed to be built due to zoning regulations.
Which are local Government issues, so this problem can be fixed by getting reformist local governments. Because zoning and permits are all managed at the local level. And local level politics is the easiest one to run for and win. So if you want more cheap density housing in your area, run for your local government and work to change the regulations
DropDrop
Yeah, and thee's kind of a tug-o-war of interests between boomers and everyone else. Many booms retirement plan is their house growing in values. They own a home or two and want to see prices go up, up, up like it was a stock. Boomers also tend to vote more in local elections. Well, boomers are more likely to own a home, and home owners are more likely to vote in local elections, and vote in favor of things that keep house values up, and against anything that might bring them down.
Targe0
The Boomers are 90% already all retired.
They crossed that line in 2024.
And all of them will be retired or dead by 2030.
And Millennials now out number Boomers.
So most of those factors are none factors anymore, because the time they were accurate have passed.
DropDrop
This is where we see if millennials flip and become NIMBY home owners once they start owning and worrying about property values, or if they're willing to see their home not appreciate in values as much, so that more homes can be available to more people.
Targe0
That's the thing, most of them still can't.
Because wealthy Landlords own all the housing stock. So it is ensuring that they remain passionate about variability.
The other big problem is short term rentals need to be banned. Things like Airbnb have taken thousands of houses out of the housing market. Because they can earn multiple months worth of rent in a single week of people staying the night. As you can charge a whole months rent for a single nights stay.
DYLANLEE79
Higher density requires increased infrastructure. Didn't you ever play sim city?
Targe0
And that is often something that is also controlled by local government.
Though it can also tip into state government.
But it can be managed if you add more bus routes and bike lanes and footpaths for people to walk and run on. Public infrastructure isn't actually a hard problem to solve, there's just rarely the political will to do it.
DYLANLEE79
Traffic isn't the only issue, there is also water, sewer, trash, power, medical, drainage, green space, etc. So no, you can't just increase population density willy nilly.
Targe0
None of those issues are actually difficult.
They were all solved decades ago.
The solutions are there, just needs the will to do them and the funding to build them. That's the only thing stopping this transition from being done.
This stuff gets done fairly frequently in places that have better systems for building in place within their governmental systems.
DYLANLEE79
Well they are actually difficult and costly that's why there are planning departments and zoning. Also upgrading the other systems affects traffic because you have to rip up the streets.
Jimthebutler
The problem is not a lack of houses, its people owning houses as investments and to rent them out. We have more empty houses than homeless people. The problem is that its profitable for blackrock to buy them up.
eathotdog
The problem is endless suburban sprawl and dogshit city planning
JesaraB
Not only more empty houses than homeless people, more empty houses in just a single state (and not California or Texas, so it's not just because it is soooo big) than homeless people nationwide.
So while there can still be supply issues in some cities or towns, as a whole, yeah, there is a Huge surplus that is being held out of the market in order to preserve inflated investment values instead of allowing them to serve their purposes.
RooGryphon
then we need to ban the cooperate use/ownership of private homes
Infinias
And private ownership of not self used homes. Tax rate of +50% after the first. Homes are a necessity, not any investment besides the people using it directly.
Sensiblyinteresting
I'd also like to see taxes reduced or not taken on property tax for low income famililies, leveraging the taxes on high income homes to help with that. The gov doesn't need property tax from a family making 40k a year.
martineb72
That plus we have empty homes where the homeless isn't as bad, and lack of homes where homeless is worse. So part of it is investments and part of it is location.
kitterskills
This is not entirely true. For every 1 home built, 4 are deprecated.
Jimthebutler
Can you elaborate?
kitterskills
There's a severe housing crisis where I am. A significant number of homes are uninhabitable due to disrepair.
Jimthebutler
Wouldn't it be cheaper to repair the homes than it is to build new ones? Also isnt this the exact reason squatters rights exist?
aRabidGerbil
Often it is cheaper to just start over