Comment by ipnon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ipnon | Hacker News Reader

>Average home tenure is 8 - 10 years, most of the time when people sell a home they are turning around immediately and buying one. Suppose I buy a $100,000 house and it grows 5% per annum in value for 10 years. I sell for $162,889. I turn around and want to buy the house I could not afford initially that started at $200,000; well that costs $325,779. Suppose I collude with other voters and get a 10% annual increase in value through zoning. Okay, my house is now worth $259,374, but the house I want to buy is $518,748. To whit, it costs me $96,485 more to upgrade my house.

>Even with the leverage that comes from getting all the value increases for only a fraction of the initial cost, it is a pretty rare market where the average homeowner will be better off by raising home values.

>Frankly the only time this sort of argument makes any sense is if people are planning on moving to far less expensive areas (e.g. retiring to the country) or if they plan to never purchase a home again.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/03/ho...

You are missing the impact of debt here (mortgages)

In your same example:

I have $10k, and buy that $100k house with a $90k mortgage. For simplicity let's forget mortgage repayments

After 10 years I sell for $163000, leaving me $73k for my next down payment

I can now "afford" a $700000 house assuming banks are willing to lend 90% LTV

Debt is a huge facilitator of price increases. Easy debt due to usury has been known to destroy societies. It's not for no reason that it's prohibited in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

I think it’s more accurate to say that many historic Islam, Christian, and Judaic societies prohibited charging interest.

How so? It's literally prohibited in the texts.[1][2]

[1] https://quran.com/2/278-279

[2] https://sunnah.com/muslim/22/132

Most modern-day Christians and many Jews are not textual literalists.

Just because some people refused to follow their texts, doesn't change the facts that it is prohibited in them. Jews still refuse to lend each other money with interest.

You originally said:

> It's not for no reason that it's prohibited in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

And it isn't (in most Christianity, and I think at least some Judaism). That's all.

Again, just because those Christians and Jews refused to follow their texts, doesn't mean that it isn't prohibited. The Quran documents and confirms this fact: https://quran.com/4/160-162

I think you'll find it easier to talk to people of other faiths if you stop asserting your religious dogma somehow binds them; it doesn't.

We spoke to them and they admit it. Furthermore, we're not asserting "religious dogma" by simply reading their books and calling them out on not following them.

Retiring to the country, or massively downsizing their homes, is exactly what most of my peers are planning. That, or stay put, in which case home value is largely irrelevant.

Assuming that the collective sum of human actions will approach a rational, profit-maximizing one, rather than be biased in some systemic, human way (thinking about how legislation will impact your current net worth vs. how it will impact the prices of houses you want to buy in 10 years)

Moreover, that assumes that the restrictions you put in place will impact everywhere that people want to move. It seems to me like it's more of a commons problem - people want to add restrictive zoning where they currently live because it benefits their net worth but they are harmed when others do it in places they might want to move.

I wish I could own a home, that I put equity into, and have a reasonable assurance of getting that equity back out, without having it be a highly speculative, leveraged investment. Alternatively, I wish renting was affordable in any place worth living. Instead I'm all in on another home purchase right now, which if the market doesn't totally tank I should be able to turn into a 300% ROI in the next few years. That's great if it all works out, but I'm comfortably upper-middle class in a desirable area, what the hell is everyone else supposed to do?

probably lower their standards regarding what constitutes "a place worth living". I'm renting a very nice studio for $1450 right now. 3BR rowhouses on my block are $1800-2000.

> Suppose I buy a $100,000 house and it grows 5% per annum in value for 10 years.

Suppose it doesn't. It's been years since we able to count on decades of unbroken, steady home value inflation.

South Puget Sound. Prices have gone up since 2008. The last five years, at least, have been double digit percentages. 2020? 19.1%. I have friends who bought in 2014 at $250,000 now selling their homes for $600,000+.

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