NationStates

An Alan Smithee Nation wrote:Houses shouldn't be empty when there are homeless people.

It isn't the owner's fault or problem if certain people don't have a house or can't find shelter. They probably deserve the house more than the typical homeless person when I think about it, given that they're paying a mortgage on it; if not have already done so for decades before getting full possession of it.

The issue with houses is not buying them, but not maintaining them and leaving them empty creating shortages.

Tuvalu Princesses wrote:

An Alan Smithee Nation wrote:I don't support rules stopping people buying property for investment. But I do support land values taxes, and rules that allow local government to use properties that are empty for more than a certain length of time (a year) to house people in need.

Houses shouldn't be empty when there are homeless people.

Houses should not be empty (except maybe 1% for inspection churn) when there are homeless people. Yes.

There should be more houses than people seeking to rent/buy. Make it a renters market.

But the homeless? Typically they are too poor to rent (let alone put down a deposit to buy). Credit rating matters too.

So to solve that problem, you need some properties available to rent very cheaply.

And for that to happen by market forces, you need MUCH MUCH more property available, than there are people (including homeless) seeking to rent.

Solution: government builds a thundering butt-load of houses, and sells them at market price.

Sounds good to me. It would also save money on health and some other government departments' spending.

Tuvalu Princesses wrote:Bear in mind castle law. Who "owns" it doesn't matter shit, face to face with guns drawn.

It is still nobody else's right to that piece of real estate. The owner is the one paying for or doing maintenance on the property or is paying the taxes and other costs associated with owning real estate. The homeless person can go elsewhere for shelter or take a hike, given that it isn't their property and they certainly didn't work for it in any sense of the word.

The local governments are more at fault for not allocating some housing option for low to no income citizens.

Even if a generous homeowner were to voluntarily host a bunch of homeless people, all it'd accomplish is risk getting their property condemned for some arcane code violation and they'll lose their house along with the homeless people being given sanctuary.

Talking sheep should be able to buy houses.

>_>

The Blaatschapen wrote:Talking sheep should be able to buy houses.

>_>

Even the more introverted ones.

Iwassoclose wrote:For single dwelling houses should hedge funds,corporations, millionaires and billionaires be allowed to suck up all the small properties to then hold on to and rent out while they artificially inflate the market by creating scarcity? I am talking like a 2-4 bedroom houses for families.

I think houses shouldn't be used as a investments and instead used to be provide shelter and a better quality of living for the population.

I agree that houses should be used to house people. That's why I think that no one should be able to buy houses. Just give houses to people who need them. Stop having houses cost money.

---

Senkaku wrote:

Atheris wrote: the landlord's at least a decent guy

Saiwania wrote:If the homeless can't afford houses, they need cheaper housing options and not more expensive ones like actual houses/buildings. In my mind, it should be sufficient to have the homeless get outdoor tents or live in military hangers/barracks which are easy to set up instead. The only true expense would be to find vacant land that can be used for an encampment.

yurts and flophouses, what an inspiring vision of modernity for the masses!

Local fascist wants the poor to live in abject misery. Shocking.

Tuvalu Princesses wrote:

The Nihilistic view wrote:Anybody, because believe it or not sometimes renting is a lifestyle/work decision. I used to rent a place in London to stay in when I couldn't be arsed to commute home to my house outside London when working late.

Cool story bro.

Trouble with a lot of idealist stuff designed to restrict something there are plenty of situations it screws over.

It's much better to come up with a positive policy that targets the people you wish to help than screw everybody else.

Government builds lots of houses, sells them to willing buyers. Housing surplus, renters and buyers market.

And everyone who currently owns property sees a loss in their "investment".

Guess what? I don't give a fuck about their investment. If they got into the property investment market without considering RISK then they can go back to school. They got played by the banks, who didn't see this coming either? Well they might get some satisfaction of revenge, when we burn the banks to ground. At least they won't owe anything to a non-existent bank, and they will have a house to live in if they need it.

You should probably understand the underpinnings of the property market and why its so important to modern Western economies before you advocate policy that would see millions of ordinary homeowners upsidown with their mortgages with houses they can't sell and that then leads to a massive economic crisis. The genie is out the bottle, you can't put it back in anymore.

The Blaatschapen wrote:Talking sheep should be able to buy houses.

>_>

I think some ancient tribes made tents out of sheepskin. Not sure I'd want a talking tent though.....

Ifreann wrote:Local fascist wants the poor to live in abject misery. Shocking.

It is frustrating to no end. If the poor already live in misery materially, then tents/barracks are an improvement if anything, they literally have nothing to lose if homeless and as such- should appreciate getting anything at all. This is only following the principle of: beggars can't be choosers. It is trying to find what housing is most practical whilst still cheap enough to scale well.

Of course people down on their luck aren't going to be given the Taj Mahal, much less the equivalent of what two minimum wage jobs can pay for in terms of rent, lest people who actually work for a living and support themselves with no problems will want to protest the assistance those beneath them in status are getting.

Tuvalu Princesses wrote:Uh, I'm not familiar with the economic jargon. "Upsided" means getting the better of the deal?

"Upside down" on their mortgages.

They mean that what you propose would have most mortgage holders suddenly owe significantly more on their property than what it is worth. A bank isn't going to care if the housing decreased in value. From their standpoint, the landlord still borrowed a ton of money from them that will have to be repaid along with interest. There is no getting out of that mortgage unless they sell at a loss or go into default which is very bad for those individuals.

Saiwania wrote:

Tuvalu Princesses wrote:Uh, I'm not familiar with the economic jargon. "Upsided" means getting the better of the deal?

"Upside down" on their mortgages.

They mean that what you propose would have most mortgage holders suddenly owe significantly more on their property than what it is worth. A bank isn't going to care if the housing decreased in value. From their standpoint, the landlord still borrowed a ton of money from them that will have to be repaid along with interest. There is no getting out of that mortgage unless they sell at a loss or go into default which is very bad for those individuals.

It's not even investors that is the problem. Its ordinary home owners that are most affected.

Tuvalu Princesses wrote:Government's response to bankruptcy could even be hardened up a bit. Why are honest traders punished for doing business with deadbeats? Is it really just "can't get blood from a stone" ie sheer practicality, which lets busted mortgage holders or bad business operators, spend now but not have to pay later?

It is a simple matter of what's more practical. Nobody gets a loan unless they have good credit or have collateral so that in the event that repayment stops, the lender isn't completely screwed over. I'm sure you wouldn't want to lend out $1,000 or any other large amount to just anyone, unless you could be fairly certain that you'd be getting $1,100 back in that example. But in any case, you'd be taking on a risk that worst case scenario- you'll never get paid back and you'll lose all the money that was lended out.

How the credit system works is a bit arbitrary, but it works in that people with a history of repayment or no late fees and etc. (also known as having "good" credit score) are more likely to repay what they borrowed and thus, are a better risk from the perspective of creditors of all types.

If someone defaults on a mortgage, their real estate is supposed to be the collateral for the bank, in the event that the mortgage can't be fully repaid. Its worthwhile from the bank's perspective because if they can evict the previous owner and get ownership of the real estate, they can usually sell at a profit to someone else, enough anyways to fully recoup more than the amount that was owed to them. But this isn't always a given.

As for a business owner, they have to convince a bank that their business model actually works in terms of being profitable or have some form of collateral if they want a loan to make payroll or whatever other major expense. The expectation of repayment + interest is the same.

Tuvalu Princesses wrote:

The Nihilistic view wrote:
You should probably understand the underpinnings of the property market and why its so important to modern Western economies before you advocate policy that would see millions of ordinary homeowners upsidown with their mortgages

Uh, I'm not familiar with the economic jargon. "Upsided" means getting the better of the deal?

I said in the last sentence that mortgage holders would be first in the queue as creditors of the banks I burned down. As they are the least likely to ever pay up, the balance of their mortgage would be zero'd out and they would outright own their homes.

with houses they can't sell and that then leads to a massive economic crisis. The genie is out the bottle, you can't put it back in anymore.

Genies and their bottles aside, I'm not actually that bothered by "massive economic crisis". Banks make and break governments, by manipulation of the spook known as "the economy".

Killing the puppet master will of course lead to the puppet falling to the ground. It's worth it. Banks have way too much power, in exchange for doing only such good in society as they deem necessary. Slaves must be freed. Let's worry about whether the slaves are fit to earn their own living, after that.

I must admit your posts are a good laugh.

Anybody who can find somebody willing to sell a house to them and can afford the price should be allowed to buy houses.

Saiwania wrote:

Ifreann wrote:Local fascist wants the poor to live in abject misery. Shocking.

It is frustrating to no end. If the poor already live in misery materially, then tents/barracks are an improvement if anything, they literally have nothing to lose if homeless and as such- should appreciate getting anything at all. This is only following the principle of: beggars can't be choosers. It is trying to find what housing is most practical whilst still cheap enough to scale well.

Of course people down on their luck aren't going to be given the Taj Mahal, much less the equivalent of what two minimum wage jobs can pay for in terms of rent, lest people who actually work for a living and support themselves with no problems will want to protest the assistance those beneath them in status are getting.

"They should appreciate me forcing them to suffer"
lol

People who can both afford it, want to buy one, and can commit to taking care of a house. That's not going to be everyone. Also property in general is an investment, many people view buying their first home as an investment for their future which is perfectly understandable.

Kilobugya wrote:

Saiwania wrote:
The landlord has to either spend more money or do more work than the tenant has to in maintaining the property's value. The owner has costs that the renter doesn't have.

The landlord wouldn't buy and rent the house if he didn't make more money than the expenses. All those costs are factored into the price of the rent, and then some is added so the landlord is acting a parasite, as a reverse Robin Hood, taking money from those poorer than he is without providing labor, just because he happened to have more money at start.

This entirely depends on how they have acquired their properties and how they are running them. A lot of small landlords are not making huge profits since the money they get goes into paying off the mortgage. Also who cares if they aren't performing labour?

Kowani wrote:

Nilokeras wrote:
It did however perform the function the Thatcher government intended, which was to turn otherwise working class renters into petit-bourgeois investment owners, with their house as a investment vehicle and source of rent. A similar process went on in the suburbs of America, and created a class of people whose priorities went from fighting for better wages and lower rent to slashing property taxes and setting up Homeowners Association gestapo agencies to ensure that nothing would ever effect the climbing prices of their houses. This also provided the cover governments needed to slash social spending in a lot of cases, as these new property owners were insulated by their house prices from the impacts of austerity on their livelihood or pensions.

This is why I called it enclosure on page one: like the enclosure of the agricultural commons created private wealth at the expense of the commons, housing went through a similar process of enclosure through the privatization of social housing and the conversion of large swathes of rural America into suburbs as a release valve on the social pressures building in the cities.

while i don't know enough about the british situation to comment, i'd add that the racialization of the construction of american suburbia was a key point in allowing for later social service slashing and ghettoization
hence adding an additional element to housing policy-an insulator of class politics by giving whites a stake in maintaining the policies even when the austerity politics eventually came home to roost

Oh 100% - all that cheap land and suburban housing was very deliberately placed out of the reach of most non-white people, thanks to things like redlining that placed restrictions on who could get the 'startup' capital necessary to get that cheap suburban housing.

Housing is honestly the one thing that drags me closest to unironic Maoism considering just how many of the morbid symptoms in today's society, from racist paramilitary police forces to QAnon, began as a result of this process of property enclosure and the creation of this white landowner class in the suburbs.

Anyone

Immortan Khan wrote: A lot of small landlords are not making huge profits since the money they get goes into paying off the mortgage.

Which is also one of the reasons why property as investment traps people into small-time petit bourgeois landlordism.

Immortan Khan wrote:Also who cares if they aren't performing labour?

Because rent-seeking behaviour is a distorting economic force that drags down productivity and heightens inequality writ large.

Squatters rights. You can just roll up into an area and if you live there for long enough it's yours.

Who wants one?

It's those.

So, I've done some research, and I've learned that you can buy houses when you own all the streets in a city. And then you can buy up to four houses per street.

The Blaatschapen wrote:So, I've done some research, and I've learned that you can buy houses when you own all the streets in a city. And then you can buy up to four houses per street.

Damn, Monopoly streets are small.