It's not gold or silver or stocks and bonds.
People need houses to live in. Other investments don't have practical value. If people want to protect their assets, do it outside real estate.
I'm sure very few owners of multiples houses let them empty and not rent them out so that people can live in them.
Houses are expensive, even outside their speculative value, in terms of raw materials, workmanship etc. So expensive that few people can afford to buy houses with cash.
If someone is paying that cash to build a house, then offering it for an affordable rent so that other people can live in them, they are providing a valuable service.
There are lots of vacant homes. Foreign buyers are pushing their wealth to the west to protect it from their own governments.
So yes, another strategy to lower housing costs is to reign in foreign ownership.
If your family sits down for dinner and one person gobbles up all the food before anyone else eats, were they within their rights? Will the rest of the family ever invite that person to dinner again?
No. We implement these controls on consumption in all areas of life. "Limit 2" when there's a coupon, for example. "All you can eat" restaurants don't allow take home and sometimes charge you for what you do not actually eat.
We must limit the wealthy's ability to consume all the goods so there are goods left over for people who need to live in them.
How does this not make sense? Why do you think it's better that someone owns 2 houses leaving 1 without a home, than two families owning 2 homes (one each).
Isn't that a better world?
If lesser-paid people would just leave the area, leaving that area without service workers (or having to pay ridiculous wages for them, driving prices way up for the wealthy homeowners there), the problem will solve itself.
Basically the service industry just ... evaporates. I've seen it happen in areas with a lot of foreign ownership.
How exactly is this a problem?
Too bad for the restaurant owner, but he can re-open in a place where he can hire staff more easily.
Why does the Bay Area need restaurants? If the wealthy homeowners there don't want any lowly restaurant staff living around them, then why should they have any restaurants?
Products and services can't be human rights.
When mobs of zombies start shuffling out of the Pacific and swarming coastal cities, you call the National Guard and impose martial law, "government overreach" be damned. And when things reach this level of dysfunction in the housing market, it is appropriate to start rationally examining practices we've always taken for granted in the past like unfettered real estate investment.
It's no different than a bully on the playground taking the ball from a weaker kid. They both have a right to play with that ball, right? The bullying force just comes from a bank account -- that's all.
No, we shouldn't allow financial bullies to run rampant either.
I don't think it's my right to own all that. I don't need it. Someone else does. Unfortunately, they can't afford it and I can. Doesn't make it right.
It's also your right to give that property away if you like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_property
Article 23 of the declaration states: “Every Person has the right to own such private property as meets the essential needs of decent living and helps to maintain the dignity of the individual and of the home.[10]”
-- This is not the case with real estate in America. It isn't dignified.
If anything, I think if the state government is going to do anything, it should help service workers relocate to more affordable places and find good work there. Let the Bay Area real estate market collapse.
I'm simply advocating that all the service workers relocate to other cities. I live in the DC area; there's tons of restaurants and other businesses here where service people work, and while housing is relatively expensive, we don't seem to have the problems with it for lower-paid people that the Bay Area has.
https://sf.curbed.com/2019/3/21/18276227/vacancy-rate-san-jo...
So, yes -- it does.
If there were 10x as many homes for sale as are currently for sale, what do you think that'd do to the price of homes in the area?
Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/14/the-bay-area-has-more...
I don't think high vacancy rates are the problem, I think they are a symptom.
Most of the people in this thread are only looking at the bay area from the past dozen years or so. In 2002, the picture was much different. In 1999, it was the opposite of 2002.
When you've lived in an area for decades, you can pick and choose where and when you buy. If you just moved there for a job, you're stuck without that time diversification and leverage ladder used by the folks who have lived there for a long time and accumulated many properties.
So your plan is to outlaw ..... renting??
Why?
I personally own many pieces of real property. This law would affect me too. I'm actually one of the wealthy who think what we are allowing to happen is wrong.
In reality, half of the population will not want to (or be able to) own two properties (and many will not even be able to own one), so you end up with a nominal amount of home ownership, a very tiny rental market, and a bunch of people who both can't afford homes and have nowhere to rent because of the aforementioned very tiny rental market.