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Comment by cebert | Hacker News Reader

I feel terrible for the middle class. Even as me being higher income tech individual (six figures) with a spouse who is a teacher in the Midwest, it would be hard for us to buy a comparable or larger house today in the same area if we hadn’t purchased it in 2012.

If you are an investor, an argument can be made that we are in a period of true negative interest rates on homes see: https://www.financialsamurai.com/negative-real-mortgage-rate... ). This further incentives real estate prices to climb.

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At least you have a house. I think less people should buy their own house and stay with family unless they can buy cash. Mortgage/debt culture is partly to blame. I think all western countries should ban buying a home for investment reasons. Not unless they have 0 homeless rate for people that don't have mental illness keeping them homeless.

Why not take the last step and go full on commie? The countries should ban home ownership unless there is 0 homeless people, same food production, cars, iPhones, healthcare and more, all taken care by your favorite glorious monopoly.

No, home ownership is fine just not for investment. I agre with the other stuff, hoarding things can get illegal very fast already. Remember when people were hoarding toilet paper and the fbi was raiding them? That's exactly what I am saying. Scalping is already illegal, just not enforced for housing.

Nice flame-bait with the "commie" stuff though

Can the glorious monopoly invest in homes or they get an exception?

What monopoly? Obviously no exceptions. Homes are to live in. If you want to invest buy stocks or derivatives that don't tie up precious land and property while you wait to cash in. What part of this is outlandish or unreasonable?

Government is the glorious monopoly, no other monopoly is glorious. What if government wants to invest in housing? Ban it too? How about if they label it as low cost?

Yes ban it. Government shouldn't be investing in anything, that's a conflict of interest because then they will pass laws or enforce laws in a way that benefits their investment.

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