All resources are scarce including life saving medical tech. Do you force redistribution on all resources and assets?
Kind of reminds me if the old joke:
A guy asks a gal if she'll sleep with him for $10M. She, says yes. He asks what about for $100 and she is offended: "what kind of woman do you think I am!?" To which he replies, "we've already determined that, now we are just haggling over the price."
You obviously don't seize obscure collectibles because there's limited public interest in such a collection. But that too has limits at the "logical absurdity" extreme: you might seize a historical artifact or painting from a private collector because it was looted from a museum 90 years ago before re-entering the private market after a few decades.
And, yeah, you might seize an abandoned property to prevent the community it's in from decaying.
I feel that if you can show something is abandoned, it can be up for grabs, including my personal property.
Now to define "abandoned."
In my home town, a potentially lucrative piece of real estate was fenced and not maintained because the owner was pissed at the city. The only reason they held it was because "fuck you city." I could see an argument as saying that it is abandoned and should be forced to be used. I can also see that as free speech because the owner was making a statement about local ordinances. Is it abandoned or an active political statement?
Aside from the obvious goal of keeping out trespassers, I'd be willing to bet the fence was added based on legal advice. In a few years there will probably need to be some further "improvement". Perhaps as simple as replacing the fence.
We're going to do that on a case by case basis depending on reasonable things like the user's need for it, other people's need for it, what the neighbours think of it etc.
With courts and whatnot.
And there's nothing you can do about it.
"Your home has to have people in it" is, 100%, a valid policy goal. And in extremis, paradigms like adverse possession exist to ensure this.
Yes, people need and should be housed. No, that doesn't mean they need _my_ house. Build up public housing resources. If the govt wants to buy my property at market rate and give it away, and I agree to sell, go for it.
Otherwise, I hear you have a good retirement fund that you spent years building. I didn't didn't do that, so just give me half of what you saved and we will call it fair.
Where do you live during that time?
> why should that mean I don't keep my paid for property?
Because someone may want to live somewhere but land is too expensive because everyone is hoarding it?
> At what threshold do you tell someone: fuck you and your property, we are taking it because we want it.
"residential housing not being used as a residence for more than N years"?
> Where do you live during that time?
Antarctic Research Station followed by a backpacking trip through Europe.
>> why should that mean I don't keep my paid for property?
> Because someone may want to live somewhere but land is too expensive because everyone is hoarding it?
Food gets expensive; let the hungry take, literally, from your kitchen? Not everyone can live in downtown, some must go to the sticks. West Virginia has some land at $1000 an acre. What is the right density in the city? How small should homes be? How many to a room?
>> At what threshold do you tell someone: fuck you and your property, we are taking it because we want it.
> "residential housing not being used as a residence for more than N years"?
Prove I didn't stop by for a few days N-1 years ago.
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Affordable housing is a real need, and local governments and city planners should work to make that so. You don't get to take my family's nth-generation home because my area is popular and we don't use it in a way you approve.
And please don't give this BS about generations. Just ask yourself: would you sell your grandgrandpa's home if you knew tomorrow its price was not up but got halved, day after day? There's the answer about your true motivations.
> Prove I didn't stop by for a few days N-1 years ago.
Stopping by != using as residence. I stop by local Mcd occasionally, don't mean I live there.
I'm vehemently not a communist but this sort of entitlement is cancer on humanity. Land is zero sum and a commons. These things are never not regulated in a healthy society. Even in US owning estate never means you are free to do anything you want with it, even if you live in it. Not hoarding it is only another one of those rules, sadly not supported by law enough.
Would I sell my grandpa's house? Depends on if I want to move in later, or help my kids move in when they are out of the house in N years. Just because you might abandon a family cabin/estate/ranch/remote-land knowing the price will drop doesn't mean others will.
And how long must one inhabit a property per what unit of duration to maintain ownership? 1 month a year? 6+ months a decade?
In my case, I'm talking 10 acres off some highway in Montana. I'll sell it if or when it is necessary. I'm working out of state, so I have two homes.
You want some real estate? Work your ass off, save money, invest in yourself. Might have to move. Might have to change your lifestyle. I couldn't afford California so I had to leave. Poor people emigrate still and provide better lives for their kids. Not everyone gets to live in their favorite city. Sucks.
Sell your iPhone and buy an acre in West Virginia.
Look, there are inequities and basic needs can be hard in many areas to secure. That is all of human history. We keep working at it. The solution is not to force me to sell my 10 acres in Montana.
To pick your first example: keeping your old home while you work abroad for a year seems not unreasonable. But demanding that you place it on the market as a rental (or sell it) if you're gone for 4-10 (!) seems likewise like a very reasonable regulation to me.
My situation is exactly that, I left my apartment first time for 3 years. Got fired and had to return. This time it’s six years already, haven’t been “home” even once since then. I don’t have anyone to help me manage the rental. Not selling the apartment right now because I’m waiting for citizenship in a different country. Which might not work out, thus I’ll need a place to return to. Yes, my situation is anecdotal, can’t disagree. But forcing me to rent out with more taxes doesn’t sound fair as well. Especially that in many places it’s the government who created all that bureaucracy which prevents people to build new houses inflating prices and all that.