Why would anyone invest in development in a country with such laws?
Lots of empty houses + no employment + no money for rent = lets take this house and live in since no one lives there and we don't have a house currently.
Basically, if you buy property, make sure to close it and install a security system. If okupas appear, do the "legal fasttrack" and get them out within 48 hours and it won't be an issue.
Doesn't that make you not want to buy property in the first place? I'd rather buy it someplace where it can't be stolen.
If it was a common problem, then yes. But it's relatively uncommon, and to be honest, I'd rather have the existing system in place where people can legally occupy unused buildings, because there is a lot of them around here. And lots of property owners just keep them empty for years until their "investment" gives them the returns they want, which to me is a bigger problem than okupas.
I think when an entire industry rises, and then continues to exist, for the sole purposes of defending against (or undoing) the problem, it can no longer be said to be uncommon.
You mean that one legally gray company/organization that gets rid of squatters? Could hardly count as an "entire industry".
And yes, it is still uncommon. Or what would you call it? "Common"? Most places are legally rented.
And also, if you’re gonna buy property please do so to actually live there yourself or to house a business that you own and actually operate.
Don’t buy houses to rent them out.
Don’t buy houses because you think that letting it sit unused for a few years will let you sell it for more in the future.
Don’t buy houses to “renovate” (read: do unnecessary “improvements” that make the value appear higher) just to turn around and sell it.
In general I wish housing was not seen as an “investment”.
There’s plenty of people still that cannot afford to buy a house. Because other people are using housing as a way to gain more money for themselves.
Update:
> And also, if you’re gonna buy property please do so to actually live there yourself or to house a business that you own and actually operate.
This means that I can't rent. But as a person who lives somewhere, or a person who operates a business, I'd rather rent than own — I don't want to have all the headache of owning the property, and I don't want to be committed to one place so much, I want to be able to move easily when my circumstances change. Even if I had enough money to buy a house, I would put that money into a bank or investment fund that buys thousands of different homes and rents it out so I'm not that exposed to risks of owning any single piece of property.
Well, but imagine that houses cost a fraction of their current price. That’s the point. A home shouldn’t have to be this ginormous investment that you have to slave and save for many years to put down a small part of the total price for and be stuck paying back a mortgage to some bank for the rest of your working life.
Everyone should have the opportunity to own some kind of home, from early age and without going into debt for it.
And for the risk of the remaining low value of homes in that world, that can be covered with insurance.
And then you are still able to save up money and invest those remaining money into actually productive businesses, to diversify risk and earn a bit from your money and so on.
That's not how your proposed measures would work in reality. You would just make market less effective and create a lot of problems who want to participate in it.
It would be much harder to find a place to rent, and it would be without any contracts or legal protections, as most landlords would look as if they're actually living in the apartments. A cottage industry of people who serve as fictive "owners" of the apartments will spring up for others who want to invest in real estate. A lot of government officials will be hired to "ensure" that you're buying a house or an apartment for yourself. They will take bribes to look the other way, and they will have a huge backlog of apartments to check.
Apartments and houses that are listed for sale officially (not on the emergent black market) may have their list prices come down, but it would be very hard to get access to them and actually buy one. Probably further government regulation will ensure that some queue system is in place so that people who "need it the most" (bribed the official in charge) would get preferential treatment, and as a result it would take years to actually buy one. Commercial investment in real estate will plummet, so the government will take over. Residential construction will soon balloon in cost and go down in quality.
Your ideas are not new. They, or variations of them, have been tried, a lot. Interventions in the free markets always have a lot of unintended consequences of second and third order, and as more regulations are patched on top in the attempts to fix them, the situation just becomes worse and worse.
Landlords are a convenient scrapegoat — but if you actually dive into how the market works, you have to acknowledge that they provide a very important financial service. Nobody on the real estate has any kind of monopolistic influence (except the government), and nobody is able to artificially inflate the prices. The world is entering a stage of ultra-urbanisation, where small and ordinary towns die down and the biggest centers grow more and more important — so real estate in them balloons, because there's more and more demand for it. If you are just looking for a place to live, there's a lot of it around the world. For example, a very nice 2-bedroom apartment in Nha Trang in a new building costs around $300 a month — it has an underground parking and all the infrastructure of a modern city around it. Especially in the age of remote work, "high costs" of real estate are not about people living on the street — it's about people not being able to live where they used to live before.
You can blame Airbnbs and hotels — but it all comes down to the fact that of other people on the market are ready to pay more than you do and have the cash for it, there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to outbid you. If somebody used to rent an apartment in the neighbourhood for 20 years but now can't afford it — it may be sad for this person, but it's not a reason why someone else who wants and can pay more for renting the same place shouldn't be able to do so. I guess you're an American? Guess what — more and more people come to your country from all around the world, and they (we) just outcompete you.
If you live in the home yourself, someone can't squat in it. If you rent it out, someone can't squat in it. If you install any kind of security system, you'll know someone is trying to squat in time to actually do something about it. Got a long-term investment you're planning to renovate? Rent it out as "anti-squat": way cheaper price, but you provide essentially zero services and can kick them out at any time, so essentially a live-in security guard.