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Comment by smcleod | Hacker News Reader

Migrants aren't the issue. People owning more than one house to make profit off renting out properties is a huge portion of the problem. The for-profit housing sector in Australia (and New Zealand) is absolutely disgusting and I don't think it'll change as the people with the power are also the people with the houses. Don't even get me started on the rigged and frankly corrupt banking sector.

No human being should be able to make recurring profit from the need to put a basic roof over your head.

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Should a human be able to make a recurring profit from providing you with water, electricity or food?

I agree with you in principle, but I don't see a path out.

I don't believe so for the basic fundamentals required to live (water, electricity, _basic_ food requirements if under a certain income bracket likewise with basic internet).

People have done it at city scales.

See Singapore. Govt is the biggest landlord there (but the reason they did it was not because they cared about human rights or anything, but as a part of "infra" development to draw in foreign investment and MNCs and their employees to set up shop in Singapore). It has worked out quite well on both fronts.

Vienna, Austria is also constantly used as an example - https://www.visitingvienna.com/culture/social-housing/

Put simply this is wrong. Migration is the issue. We are building less houses than people coming here! This is forcing up house prices, even though with interest rates going up house prices should fall.

> No human being should be able to make recurring profit from the need to put a basic roof over your head.

I know a significant number of people who prefer renting because of the onerousness of ownership.

Who is going to rent to them if they can't profit from it?

This comment does take quite a number of steps to reach a conclusions.

Parent said that nobody should be able to profit, this will not eliminate the rental market. You can still own housing and rent it out and take a rent that covers your cost (including the work you need to do in order to rent it out).

This is already well established. Public housing also does not run on prayers and good intentions - and yet they manage to pay salary to contractors and run the administrative burden.

The only cost there is associated with public housing is the opportunity cost which is indeed something the parent commenter argues should never be a concern in areas regarding core human needs - like shelter.

So if someone inherits a fully paid off house, they are only allowed to rent it for a fraction of the rent allowed for the mortgaged, identical property next door? If a landlord wins the lottery, are they forced to lower the rent if they pay down their mortgage?

Public housing runs because the people administrating it have no disincentives to making poor decisions because ultimately it’s the tax payer who pays.

All this guarantees is a two-tier system. Owners and basic rental properties available.

> So if someone inherits a fully paid off house, they are only allowed to rent it for a fraction of the rent allowed for the mortgaged, identical property next door?

Idk, what do you think is fair? In most rent controlled systems there is a per sqm pre-allowed rent. If you take out a mortgage that you can not service a mortgage with this rent-level, then you are at fault. On the contrary, if you don't have a mortgage, then you can pay yourself a higher salary for maintaining your rental unit.

However, if you "win the lottery" and get a house for free, don't you have the moral obligation to not maximize your rental income? You really don't need all this money (this discussion, btw, also goes into the nature of inheritance tax, where one could argue that a fair society should tax you in a way that forces you to take out a mortgage on the house you inherit - after all, you did not work for it)

The core of this is to what extend housing should be a part of a free market.

IMHO, there is plenty of opportunity right now - just move a out of the big cities and you get housing thrown at you. I do see an insistence on wanting to live in a few select cities followed by complaints that it is expensive.

> In most rent controlled systems there is a per sqm pre-allowed rent.

Those markets are frequently characterised by poorly maintained rental stock.

>Don’t you have a moral obligation

No.

> In most rent controlled systems there is a per sqm pre-allowed rent.

Those markets are frequently characterised by poorly maintained rental stock.

>Don’t you have a moral obligation

No.

> Those markets are frequently characterised by poorly maintained rental stock.

Sure, you get what you pay for.

> No.

That is fair. You definitely represent the profit obsessed sentiments that put money ahead of people. I hope you go bankrupt in a crash of a bubble with nothing but your own greed to thank.

> Parent said that nobody should be able to profit, this will not eliminate the rental market. You can still own housing and rent it out and take a rent that covers your cost (including the work you need to do in order to rent it out).

Why would anyone put in the time and capital to own and maintain housing, if they knew they were limited to charging only their costs? What's in it for the owners? Who would build or finance a dense, multiunit housing if it was impossible to profit?

> Public housing also does not run on prayers and good intentions - and yet they manage to pay salary to contractors and run the administrative burden.

My understanding is that public housing gets budget from government and not solely from rents. I don't see how that establishes that at cost rental is viable, unless you're suggesting that all rentals be public housing?

> Why would anyone put in the time and capital to own and maintain housing, if they knew they were limited to charging only their costs? What's in it for the owners? Who would build or finance a dense, multiunit housing if it was impossible to profit?

The intention is indeed to make it less favorable to rent out housing. That should not come as a shock. If such legislation was put in effect, we would likely see more people owning their own units and lower housing prices.

And it is not a foreign idea. The Anglo world (Australia and the US in particular) are really good at making legislation that makes it favorable for foreign entities to by up REITs and earn some buck of the fact that Australians and Americans can hardly pay their rent.

But try looking at the Austrian housing market and compare it.

> My understanding is that public housing gets budget from government and not solely from rents.

I think the governments pay for land - which again is highly inflated because of the current legislation. This is what I talked about re. opportunity cost.

> If such legislation was put in effect, we would likely see more people owning their own units and lower housing prices.

I get that that sounds nice, but won't it also make it much harder to move? Rental housing is valuable for owners because there's potential profit, but it's valuable for renters because there's flexibility. If you've got to sell your house and buy another everytime you move, that makes it harder to move to get a better job. If you've got to wait for a public housing opening, that makes it nearly impossible. If peole can't move for a better job, employers have a narrower scope of competition, which adds to downward pressure on wages and benefits.

If your position is that mobility is the general problem, then by all means, hold on to this stance.

I think the the dominant sentiment is that it is currently too hard to get long term shelter.

Also, these thing are not binary. It is not whether it is possible to rent or not. it is what fraction of the housing stock are under what regime - something we should adjust with needs.

> Why would anyone put in the time and capital to own and maintain housing, if they knew they were limited to charging only their costs?

Exactly, build a house for yourself then bugger off. People who cant afford it would get govt housing. If you want a big house with lots of rooms then you would be in the first category.

> Parent said that nobody should be able to profit, this will not eliminate the rental market.

It certainly will. Why would anyone sit in a rental property that makes no money rather than just put it in a savings account? Even with how bad the return on investment is for savings accounts, it's miles better than 0. Sure a private entity can still rent technically but they wouldn't. Let's not consider what's legal, let's consider what people would actually do.

That leaves one entity who will be willing to rent, the government. Nevermind the incredibly poor reputation that government housing has, how will they set prices? What effect will that have on private home ownership in general? What effect will that have on personal my mobility? I would have great concerns that you'd be stuck where you were born doing the same job your parents did because nobody would ever leave their guaranteed housing in high opportunity areas.

And what of commercial real estate?

And then we circle back to public housing. A thing that already exists and nobody wants to be in. Once the rental market is destroyed and the housing market follows because individual house sellers can't compete with the government funded and subsidized rental market, nearly everyone will live in public housing where a faceless beaurocrat is responsible for the maintenance of thousands of properties that they really don't care about. Low income neighborhoods will have underfunded repair services with ling wait times and shoddy workmanship while the nice neighborhoods will enjoy prompt service by qualified technicians.

I get that the current situation isn't great but it'd be nice to come up with a better solution than destroying the whole housing market in favor of what would inevitably lead to Soviet style housing projects[1].

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchevka

You’ve never heard of public housing?

Sure, but imagine how that would have to work. What percentage of housing is publicly owned? Can I buy publicly owned housing? For what price? If I want to sell my house, how much can I sell it for?

How do they price housing? If there an area if the country that's a great place to live but it's all full if renters and owners, how do I move there if I get a job there? Look at how hard it is for people to get into rent controlled places in NYC.

If I'm born into an are with very little employment opportunity, it seems like my chances for upward mobility are extremely hampered.

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