Should housing be nationalized?

[Johill]

For the USA, since its a terrible country with a flawed governmental, legal, medical, taxation and overall system, housing should not be nationalized, but people below a certain income should have a limit on how much rent they can be charged, with government support helping them pay, as well as being protected from economic, sexual, social and any kind of extortion since its only logical to bleed your resources dry, from the perspective of a landlord.

[Life empire]

are you being serius? this sounds like communism and that never ends well so I thing this idea is probably quite a bad idea

[Ethel mermania]

You pay property tax, which is based on the valuation of the property to the locality. There is no additional tax for owning multiple properties.

I've been doing some looking up for my country.

Here you do pay more property tax on a second property. Apparently you also pay taxes if it's left vacant for more than a year, which I guess is to incentivize you either using it or renting it out.

Who do you pay property tax too?

Here i pay federal income tax
State income tax
Property taxes go to the town

[-Astoria-]

are you being serius? this sounds like communism and that never ends well so I thing this idea is probably quite a bad idea

And there goes all of the available spaces on my bingo card.

[The Hazar Amisnery]

are you being serius? this sounds like communism and that never ends well so I thing this idea is probably quite a bad idea

Technically its socialism and it will probably benefit those who can barely afford housing

[Engadine Mcdonalds 1997]

are you being serius? this sounds like communism and that never ends well so I thing this idea is probably quite a bad idea

Cobumism bad and fails, that's why we use the cia to make them fail, because they always fail anyways. What? Massive poverty reductions in China? The fact that the only time when Russia wasn't a joke it was under communism? People didn't have to resort to prostitution to put food on the table? FAKE NEWS

[Washington Resistance Army]

If by nationalized you mean seized and then given to the tenants directly than by sure, otherwise the tenants should just take over themselves and tell the landleach to fuckoff.

More or less this.

[Kubra]

You don't know what nationalization is.

That is exactly what nationalization is. Transfer of ownership from private individuals to the government.
Nationalization of all housing would mean his property ownership rights in his property would be taken from home and transferred to the government.

Subsidized =\= nationalized.

but what it does not mean is a sudden imposition of a value of rent of previous equivalent.

[Kubra]

Pretty much everyone in the thread has said that if you already live in the house, it shouldn't be taken. Have you not been reading the thread?

Also, there are more living spaces in the US than there are people, so...

Nationalization isn't an all or nothing system, it has its own rules and laws in place depending on the situation.

The OP implies complete nationalization and so did some other posters.
From the OP “it's time for capitalism to no longer have any role whatsoever in the housing market”.
That obviously implies total nationalization of the property market. Thus everyone who owns their house would lose ownership to the government.

Yes you could only nationalize certain vacant properties, but that is not mentioned by the OP nor is it in the title. “Should certain abandoned properties be nationalized” might get quite a different response than the current title.

But the thing is we already did that. Baltimore City for example owns thousands of abandoned properties.
And in some cases they can be bought for a dollar.

There is a lot of housing but a lot was abandoned in the 70s to 90s. Properties abandoned 30 to 50 years ago are not exactly move in ready. And much of it is in places people do not want to live.
Detroit lost over 60% of its population since 1970, it lost nearly a million people,
There is enough land and tons of housing (again much of it unsafe or unlivable) for a million people to be given housing, much of it already owned by the city government.

No nationalization there is required, the issue is the rehabilitation and distribution more than ownership and more importantly finding people who actually want to live there.

Bad trade policies and defense cuts amongst other reasons caused a lot of the problems, destroying local economies and causing much of the population to leave while leaving plenty of housing behind.

Rebuild the weapons factories in Detroit and then maybe you would get some people to come back, and actually want that housing that is available there.
Reopening closer military bases, rebuilding our manufacturing base would bring jobs to the areas with some of the greatest amounts of excess housing.

Much of the issue is the housing issue is the symptom more than anything.

I know you know this: missiles are not edible, and are a terrible way macroeconomically of propping up economies.

[Cereskia 2]

Not a western guy, but maybe Yes?

[Esternial]

I've been doing some looking up for my country.

Here you do pay more property tax on a second property. Apparently you also pay taxes if it's left vacant for more than a year, which I guess is to incentivize you either using it or renting it out.

Who do you pay property tax too?

Here i pay federal income tax
State income tax
Property taxes go to the town

Property taxes are regional, income tax is federal. There is no regional income tax.

[Ethel mermania]

Who do you pay property tax too?

Here i pay federal income tax
State income tax
Property taxes go to the town

Property taxes are regional, income tax is federal. There is no regional income tax.

How does the second home tax work?

[Esternial]

Property taxes are regional, income tax is federal. There is no regional income tax.

How does the second home tax work?

It's the property tax for that house +40%

[Ethel mermania]

How does the second home tax work?

It's the property tax for that house +40%

My property taxes are about 10k a year, that would be a substantial hit. Who gets the 40%

[Shekelesh]

Nationalization eliminates the private ownership of whatever is nationalized. Otherwise, it's private!

Okay so that was my bad, I bungled my reply. In my defense I was tired after a long day of work and about to go to bed.

Yes, you wouldn't own your house as it would be nationalized but I fail to see why you think you'd have to pay rent for it. Taxes aren't equivalent to rent, and if you think they are then frankly I don't know what to tell you. You seem to be defaulting on the idea that taxation is a burden, which is only true if you're living below the poverty line; but if you're living below the poverty line odds are you aren't paying taxes to begin with because you couldn't after it. It's easy to argue "muh private property" when you have the privileged status of actually owning some, but most of us aren't that fortunate. My mother is in her 60s and has worked since she was 16. She has never owned a home. The American Dream is a lie and, frankly, I don't really care if a handful of privileged people will be slightly inconvenienced. If that's what it takes to bring about widespread systemic change to benefit the vast majority of Americans then so be it.

65% of Americans own their own home. Further if you go "I can't own a home therefore no one should own a home" that's a bruh moment

[Esternial]

It's the property tax for that house +40%

My property taxes are about 10k a year, that would be a substantial hit. Who gets the 40%

That would go to the region as well, although I found out that this tax is divided between the region, the province and the municipality.

I don't know how well it works, it feels to me that if you own a second property and you're renting it out you just calculate this increased tax into the rent you're asking from your tenant.

[Ifreann]

Housing should be decommodified. A house should no longer be a commodity which can be bought and sold or rented out, but should be provided for free to all people on the basis of need, with the costs being socialised. Management of housing stock could, I suppose, be done by a national government. So in that sense, yes.

[Ethel mermania]

My property taxes are about 10k a year, that would be a substantial hit. Who gets the 40%

That would go to the region as well, although I found out that this tax is divided between the region, the province and the municipality.

I don't know how well it works, it feels to me that if you own a second property and you're renting it out you just calculate this increased tax into the rent you're asking from your tenant.

I would guess rental properties are taxes differently than residential. I would guess the extra tax just applies to second and third homes.

In nyc what happens is folks from abroad buy apts and don't live in them full time. What thr city is talking about is a "pied a Terre " tax, to try and lower the amount of unoccupied housing


But that is a different conversation

[Novus America]

That is exactly what nationalization is. Transfer of ownership from private individuals to the government.
Nationalization of all housing would mean his property ownership rights in his property would be taken from home and transferred to the government.

Subsidized =\= nationalized.

but what it does not mean is a sudden imposition of a value of rent of previous equivalent.

True, it does not necessarily mean imposition of rent but it also could include the imposition of rent or the equivalent. Governments can and do often impose rent on use of properties they own. You no longer have any say in the matter beyond your single vote in whatever government owns it.
Plus you can no longer necessarily change or upgrade it as you see fit.

If the government owns the house you once owned you are still likely worse off, you can no longer use the equity in your house as a store of wealth, cannot use it to back other loans, cannot reverse mortgage it in retirement, cannot sell the house to finance purchase of another.

Wiping out the majority of net worth of majority of Americans is not going to go over well. Hence you could not get this passed though, given 65% own their own houses.

Owning a house is important, so the solution is to ensure more own houses, not less.

Distributism of some sort is the answer, not widespread nationalization (taking abandoned properties by eminent domain could be used but again many local governments already own a significant portion of abandoned properties in their jurisdiction, you just need a better system to rehabilitate and distribute the properties they already own).

[Novus America]

The OP implies complete nationalization and so did some other posters.
From the OP “it's time for capitalism to no longer have any role whatsoever in the housing market”.
That obviously implies total nationalization of the property market. Thus everyone who owns their house would lose ownership to the government.

Yes you could only nationalize certain vacant properties, but that is not mentioned by the OP nor is it in the title. “Should certain abandoned properties be nationalized” might get quite a different response than the current title.

But the thing is we already did that. Baltimore City for example owns thousands of abandoned properties.
And in some cases they can be bought for a dollar.

There is a lot of housing but a lot was abandoned in the 70s to 90s. Properties abandoned 30 to 50 years ago are not exactly move in ready. And much of it is in places people do not want to live.
Detroit lost over 60% of its population since 1970, it lost nearly a million people,
There is enough land and tons of housing (again much of it unsafe or unlivable) for a million people to be given housing, much of it already owned by the city government.

No nationalization there is required, the issue is the rehabilitation and distribution more than ownership and more importantly finding people who actually want to live there.

Bad trade policies and defense cuts amongst other reasons caused a lot of the problems, destroying local economies and causing much of the population to leave while leaving plenty of housing behind.

Rebuild the weapons factories in Detroit and then maybe you would get some people to come back, and actually want that housing that is available there.
Reopening closer military bases, rebuilding our manufacturing base would bring jobs to the areas with some of the greatest amounts of excess housing.

Much of the issue is the housing issue is the symptom more than anything.

I know you know this: missiles are not edible, and are a terrible way macroeconomically of propping up economies.

Neither are Christmas decorations and most of the plastic crap we import.
We are a net exporter of food. 30 to 40% of our food supply is actually wasted.

We are a net importer of useless crap we cannot eat. We have reached a point beyond which our spending is driven by necessities. The guns or butter thing is no longer a choice when you have so damn much butter you are throwing large amounts away. In theory we could create a government owned contractor operated plant manufacturing Christmas decorations to decorate government buildings instead, but that seems silly when the government could make more use of the missiles. Also we can export the missiles and make money doing that.

Our exported Christmas decorations unless sold at a massive loss would not be competitive. Whereas we could actually make money on the missiles.

At the missiles would be made here and contribute to our national security unlike the Christmas decorations imported from the PRC that do not.

Yes military Keynesianism is essentially a form of welfare in a sense as the government is paying people to make something they do no use on a day to day basis, but it only makes sense for the government to pay for something the government actually has a good use for.

And it can be an effective way of distributing money to areas in need while you still get something out of it you can make use of.

I mean sure you can also pay people to paint murals, build statues, pick up trash as well. Same principle really.
But we actually need the missiles more in a world going fast to 1930s style shit. The money the New Deal spent on art projects would have been better spent on guns in retrospect. Paintings and sculptures are not edible either.

Anyways I would not make it the primary focus of our economy, 5% of GDP on defense is sustainable, I would probably keep it at that, I have no problem spending more money on infrastructure improvements and other things as well. I am not saying go full Soviet were you are spending so much (25 to 33% by some estimates) it becomes a problem.
Just a return to the low end of our Cold War stance, which worked (we spent 7.5% on defense in the 50s and yet still built shit tons of houses and massively improved living standards). Our Cold War average was about 5 to 10%.

[Vistulange]

I know you know this: missiles are not edible, and are a terrible way macroeconomically of propping up economies.

Neither are Christmas decorations and most of the plastic crap we import.
We are a net exporter of food. 30 to 40% of our food supply is actually wasted.

We are a net importer of useless crap we cannot eat. We have reached a point beyond which our spending is driven by necessities. The guns or butter thing is no longer a choice when you have so damn much butter you are throwing large amounts away. In theory we could create a government owned contractor operated plant manufacturing Christmas decorations to decorate government buildings instead, but that seems silly when the government could make more use of the missiles. Also we can export the missiles and make money doing that.

Our exported Christmas decorations unless sold at a massive loss would not be competitive. Whereas we could actually make money on the missiles.

At the missiles would be made here and contribute to our national security unlike the Christmas decorations imported from the PRC that do not.

Yes military Keynesianism is essentially a form of welfare in a sense as the government is paying people to make something they do no use on a day to day basis, but it only makes sense for the government to pay for something the government actually has a good use for.

And it can be an effective way of distributing money to areas in need while you still get something out of it you can make use of.

I mean sure you can also pay people to paint murals, build statues, pick up trash as well. Same principle really.
But we actually need the missiles more in a world going fast to 1930s style shit. The money the New Deal spent on art projects would have been better spent on guns in retrospect.

Anyways I would not make it the primary focus of our economy, 5% of GDP on defense is sustainable, I would probably keep it at that, I have no problem spending more money on infrastructure improvements and other things as well.

I'm fairly certain Kubra didn't mean "edible" in the literal sense, Novus, but you do you.

[Elwher]

Given that the Constitution makes outright confiscation of property illegal with adequate compensation, in order to do this the government would have to buy the existing housing stock at market prices.

If we were the nationalize all housing, we would be talking about spending well over 30 trillion dollars upfront. If we are talking about rental properties only, it is something like 10 trillion in upfront costs. Now, as the owners of all that property, the government is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of it, and I cannot find any estimate of how much is currently being spent by landlords in this area.

Exactly where is all this money going to come from, that's my first question; even before asking if it is a good idea.

[The New California Republic]

Given that the Constitution makes outright confiscation of property illegal with adequate compensation, in order to do this the government would have to buy the existing housing stock at market prices.

The kind of extensive system change that would be a prerequisite for what is described in the OP even being remotely achievable comes with an implicit assumption that the Constitution will have had modifications, so the argument that the Constitution says that market prices (or any price for that matter...) would need to be paid doesn't necessarily hold true.

[Novus America]

Neither are Christmas decorations and most of the plastic crap we import.
We are a net exporter of food. 30 to 40% of our food supply is actually wasted.

We are a net importer of useless crap we cannot eat. We have reached a point beyond which our spending is driven by necessities. The guns or butter thing is no longer a choice when you have so damn much butter you are throwing large amounts away. In theory we could create a government owned contractor operated plant manufacturing Christmas decorations to decorate government buildings instead, but that seems silly when the government could make more use of the missiles. Also we can export the missiles and make money doing that.

Our exported Christmas decorations unless sold at a massive loss would not be competitive. Whereas we could actually make money on the missiles.

At the missiles would be made here and contribute to our national security unlike the Christmas decorations imported from the PRC that do not.

Yes military Keynesianism is essentially a form of welfare in a sense as the government is paying people to make something they do no use on a day to day basis, but it only makes sense for the government to pay for something the government actually has a good use for.

And it can be an effective way of distributing money to areas in need while you still get something out of it you can make use of.

I mean sure you can also pay people to paint murals, build statues, pick up trash as well. Same principle really.
But we actually need the missiles more in a world going fast to 1930s style shit. The money the New Deal spent on art projects would have been better spent on guns in retrospect.

Anyways I would not make it the primary focus of our economy, 5% of GDP on defense is sustainable, I would probably keep it at that, I have no problem spending more money on infrastructure improvements and other things as well.

I'm fairly certain Kubra didn't mean "edible" in the literal sense, Novus, but you do you.

Presumably he meant in terms of day to day necessities you consume. It just so happens food is literally edible and a necessity we produce far more than we need of. So it actually works in both the literal and figurative sense…

The fact that Christmas decorations are not literally edible is not really the point (although it is literally true) the point is importing them is not necessary for our material well being, and thus they only achieve sending our money to our adversaries when we import them from our adversaries.

Tariffing the useless and unnecessary crap we import to fund government spending which creates jobs in areas with lots of housing but not enough jobs is a viable way of helping address the problem without actually detracting from necessities.

Unlike the Soviets who literally had food shortages (amongst shortages of other necessities).

[Kaczynskisatva]

https://ne-np.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks/videos/what-its-like-to-rent-from-a-corporate-landlord/1110337736128701/

(Yes, I know it's TYT, doesn't make it any less true. Also, can't find the original video anymore so I had to settle for a reupload.)

So the problems with the wealthy screwing over renters in the USA are getting worse and worse. Ana advocates for stopping private equity firms from buying up housing. I'd go further than that and say that if these are the results capitalism produces, it's time for capitalism to no longer have any role whatsoever in the housing market. It's time for housing to be nationalized. No more of this "muh economic freedumz" crap. They didn't accept that during coronavirus lockdowns, nor should they have. Time for society to take the lesson it learned from that and apply it here as well.

"Should public housing projects be expanded" and "should consumer housing finance be subsidized" are two serious political questions that could have been written in place of this OP, which is not serious.