The business of buying and selling houses on the flip isn't particularly bad (though it's often predatory and rent seekish) but hoarding property to either rent or just squat to take advantage of the appreciation said hoarding does to drive up prices is evil. Especially when you consider how the entire perverse and unsustainable economic model of endlessly and perpetually rising property values against inflation causes substantive suffering while governments will bend over to preserve it since the landlords are the wealthy interests they want to appease to stay in power.
There are much less amoral, much more productive, and much less predatory ways to grow wealth. Whenever anyone looks at residential property as an infinite profit machine it is a failure of the society to produce productive & positive investment options for that wealth.
Localities with an abundance of cheap housing tend to have significantly higher unemployment rates[1],
[1] https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/employment-rese...
I see no reason why humanity must crowd trample each other in tiny metropolitan areas when there are so many affordable -- and likely more beautiful -- places to live in.
Have basic infrastructure in place, internet excluded, and the problem is solved.
I am also seriously not okay with the implication that the cities support all other areas. That's extremely questionable.
Lastly, don't forget there have been studies proving fat is bad and sugar is good. Never discount the vested interests that know how to convince people. Apparently you have been influenced by a study.
Not saying you shouldn't believe anything, but maintain a healthy skepticism, please.
I live in the only true big city in my country and truthfully, people are in general happier everywhere else in the country. At least they say so and sound like it.
It kind of makes sense. If 10% of the surface area needs 90% of the resources, they are going to be easier to provide than for the remaining 90% of the area (mainly because spreading things like doctors, hospitals and supermarkets around to serve a few hundred people is not easy).
This is an incredibly disingenuous argument. You use "must" as if the opposing side is the one forcing people to live a certain way, but it's actually your side that pushes for strong regulations limiting population density even when people do want to live in a big city.
Nobody's suggesting banning living in rural areas or small towns. But regulations as they currently exist work to push people from living in big metros where the good jobs are. That's not the market, that's incumbents using government power to dictate lifestyles for their neighbors and potential immigrants.
As a resident of a country that only has one big city -- the capital -- I see this all the time: people just have no future elsewhere and come here even though they sacrifice quite a lot and the overall gain might not outpace all the negatives.
Not sure what's the way out, to be honest.
And I don't think big cities have to be bad to live in. Vienna gets extremely high livability marks despite being the one big city Austria has. I currently live in Munich, and though our yard here is very small compared to the US standard, having a couple of parks within a block and a half (+ other nearby green space) makes up for it, even with a kid.
Sofia isn't anything special but it has quite beautiful neighborhoods which are of course quite expensive to live in.
Back yard? You only have that if you live in villages with like 2000 people. Our capital is so crowded that the real estate agents feel really proud to advertise 68m2 apartments with two small rooms and a tiny kitchen, it's that bad. Good views? Forget about it.
(I am considering moving out of Bulgaria to Vienna/Austria exactly by the way; but I'm for the moment too scared to do it.)
Having your own backyard is definitely a luxury in Munich, we have one because we're kind of at the outskirts and Google pays well (and as I said, it's quite small), but it's very common here at least for regular people to live in small apartment buildings (like 8-12 units) with a decent sized shared backyard. Especially if they're in a suburb of Munich, which still lets them access the job market there of course.
As opposed to? People trying to force a change to the lifestyle of people already there in favor of their neighbors and potential newcomer? I mean, if you build a skyscrapper across the street, it will change people's lifestyle quite a bit...
It's a pick your poison situation, and it doesn't have to be. Singapore and Vienna are good examples of public housing programs, Tokyo is a good example of the market providing reasonable rent relative to how desirable/big/rich the area is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q8pf-Ad0w0
Not sure how his actions are evil or rent-seeking in any way.
Using it as an investment doesn't deprive others from using it. Using it as an investment means renting the property out to earn investment income on it.
And investing leads to that scarce resource becoming less scarce, through construction and expansion of housing supply.
Capital leads to abundance. Combating capital investments in housing leads to more housing scarcity. That's exactly what zoning restrictions and rent control do, and why some places have housing scarcity.
Vacant property is being wasted. Not too much of that, though.
Morally speaking, a housing market has much in common with a traffic jam or a crowded bus. Everyone takes up space, though some more than others. If you're living somewhere that housing is scarce, you're a small part of the problem, according to the space you take up. The only way to not be part of the problem is to move away.
It doesn't make sense to pick on some of the people in a crowd for making it crowded, assuming they're all taking a similar amount of space.
Housing as an investment does not benefit society.
There simply isn't enough housing within the economic zone that jobs exist in; this needs to be fixed.
If any other basic need rose so much above inflation no one would consider it a positive for society.
production - rent = wages + interest
when productivity grows but wages do not, that means the marginal contribution of any new worker is being entirely eaten by various forms of rent within the economy. Those who collect rent have no incentive to do anything but perpetuate their rent collection and most likely if they were to re invest their gains would probably reinvest them in either acquiring more rent or protecting their existing rent... which is why the government should be funded off of monopoly/pigovian taxes like the land value tax, or removing intellectual property deductions from the corp income tax, as opposed to income or consumption taxes - a philosophy known as georgism.
An example of rent-seeking would be if I were a steel producer and I ask the government to impose a tariff on imported steel.
C.f. also NIMBYism.
2. You have literally just described the stock market.
2. The stock market is exactly people trying to get rich without adding any value to the world.
2. I'm not going to get bogged down refuting bad analogies here.
Renting property is not rent-seeking. Wielding the power of local government to prevent new housing from being built is rent-seeking.
(I swear, the Kantian Categorical Imperative should be taught in high school just for its entertainment value.)
Land ownership = people give you rights for exclusive use. So you pay them for the privilege
Property tax = another form of income or labor tax. Somebody put effort and energy into the building, proportion of which is taken away