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Comment by gmt2027 | Hacker News Reader

gmt2027

US investors are not doing this out of generosity. European elites built up their wealth with land holdings and real estate over centuries. In most cases, the value of these assets are unknown. There is little benefit to be gained from disposing of that wealth to speculate on the latest fad and facing taxes.

The Duke of Westminster for example was the youngest billionaire in the UK with an estimated net worth of £10bn at 35. His family's land includes 100s of acres of the most valuable real estate in London. Their ancestor was granted these lands by William the Conqueror in 1066.

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>US investors are not doing this out of generosity.

Of course, neither are European investors, but that's not the point. The point is a dinamic jobs market where the money goes on ideas and businesses, insted of assets, pushes all wages up and benefits the middle class.

Investors living off land and other such rentseeking endeavors destroys the middle class as it's just feudalism with extra steps.

>There is little benefit to be gained from disposing of that wealth to speculate on the latest fad and facing taxes.

Of course, but this is the fault of our tax system which incentivizes land hoarding and rent seeking by those already afluent, at the expense of the have-nots looking to buy in.

"Rent-seeking" is generally a perjorative term.

I let out a family house. The rent is the greater part of my pension. I used to live there, until I was divorced (it was too big for one person). It's been clear to me for decades that freehold land was a better investment (here) than investing in a conventional pension; and I lived through the outright theft by Robert Maxwell of the whole of his staff's occupational pension fund. So I paid off my mortgage as quickly as I could.

Regarding the chores, that someone mentioned upthread: I have a long-term tenant, a family. Their kids go to school around the corner. They mow the lawn. They always pay the rent by bank transfer. I hire tradesmen to deal with the gas, plumbing and electricals. I visit twice a year to check that everything's OK. These aren't really problems.

And rental housing is scarce where I live. It's a university town with several important hospitals, and surrounded by a no-development green belt. I'm providing a social benefit.

I'm not sure when this kind of "rent-seeking" turns into the kind of rent-seeking of which people disapprove.

>I'm not sure when this kind of "rent-seeking" turns into the kind of rent-seeking of which people disapprove.

Where I live there are individuals owning entire apartment buildings, >10 houses, in fact, 80% of the entire country's wealth is owned by the top 300 richest individuals.

Single individuals renting out their spare home, doesn't even register on the radar compared to what the rentseeking of the truly wealthy looks like.

Rent seeking is a term coined by economists. It has absolutely nothing to do with what you are doing as a landlord (providing housing for money).

An example of rent seeking would be if you lobbied the local council to restrict new building or additional rental units in the area leading to artificially higher rents. It has nothing, directly, to do with receiving income for renting a housing unit

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