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Comment by vorg | Hacker News Reader

If this was tried in Australia, the average residential rent would suddenly go up, and the landlords would end up with all that money.

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Real estate is basically a sponge. Any surplus wealth in an economy is soaked up by unlimited real estate inflation. You can see this with the tech wealth in the Bay -- all those high salaries just inflate real estate.

This happens when you have an asset class that is absolutely backstopped. Governments have made it clear that the entire economy will be sacrificed to prevent real estate from ever falling significantly in value. Here in the USA at least it's political -- home owners vote, and home owners often have most or all of their savings in their home.

We have seen this in the UK, when my parents bought their house the bank would only consider my dads salary in assessing how large their mortgage could be. When I bought my house it was three times my salary and 1.5 times my wifes. Now it is five time joint income. No prizes for guessing what has happened to house prices over that period.

Rent is already quite high in capital cities, generally based on what high income earners can afford. I think a basic income is more likely to match an average wage so shouldn't result in higher rent. If anything it should take some pressure off housing in the capital cities if one doesn't have to live there so they can gain some mediocre form of work. Though this might result in higher rent in regional areas, as people discover that the basic income would allow them to live comfortably there. The government in turn would have to ensure there is affordable quality housing available close to employment.

By what mechanism? Increased disposable income would indeed raise demand, and therefore increase the prices of most goods by some degree, but it's not necessarily true that this will be absorbed wholesale by rentiers.

I live in US and you don't even need to try. My apt. rent went up by 15% this year. Greedy MFs. And people and media focus on gas prices +/- cents. And this OP plan will never ever happen here.

It's a terrible broken system here in Australia. Being originally from Europe, the fact the you buy a house (or many houses for that matter) and the rent them out is completely beyond me. It's a system where e.g. 50% (or less!) of the population can own 100% of the property market.

But I get it, as long as the politicians have their hands in the property market as well, it will be, and remain, a broken system until eternity.

And Europe doesn't have landlords?

I don't know about Europe in general. Here in Switzerland the majority of landlords are pension funds, which are constrained investment companies with a social obligation. As such, they normally own upwards of 1000 apartments/houses at a time. They price their properties according to market but they cannot adjust beyond certain thresholds because the risk ratio would exceed what they're allowed to have.

Where I'm from (The Netherlands) they have corporations, not individual people from whom you rent. I think this was created somewhere after world war 2. In the old inner cities there might still be a "landlord" or two left of buildings that are in private hands but everything else is pretty much owned by a co-ops, they can own entire suburbs.

Rent is devised through a point system and therefore everyone who lives in similar housing pays the same rent (more or less, I think it also has to do with how long you've been living there).

Over here in Australia the rent is based on pretty much two things; a) the mortgage of the landlord and b) what they can get away with. Not to mention the 6 month "inspections" you'll submitted to, you know, just because.

Renting in Australia seems to have a lot of emotion involved in it. If something is broken in the house it can take ages to get fixed. Not all landlord are created equal and it's very difficult to police hundred of thousands of individuals, so they get away with it. Real-estate agents are pretty much glorified banks and there mostly the serve the landlords, I mean, it's more difficult to get a landlord on your books than it is to find a tenant. I.e. path of least resistance.

Disclaimer; I haven't lived in the Netherlands for over 10 years so they might have f'd up the system just as well. In that scenario, it "was" a pretty good system.

Yeah, Europe isn't the Netherlands. In Germany, at least, there are corporate landlords, both for-profit and cooperative, but everywhere I've lived has been a building with five to ten apartments owned by one old rich person (sometimes managed by a property-management company, which tends to work out better since they're more professional and you don't have to deal with the possibly unpleasant/scammy landlord).

Pretty sure the situation is the same in much of Europe. Used to be different in the UK but these days the housing market is now all but in the hands of buy-to-let rent seekers. I read recently a startling figure from one of the large estate agents in the UK - 60% of house purchases are cash purchases, no mortgage involved!

Oh and yes - UK politicians too really do have their hands in the property market. Over a third of them report rental income on the register of member's interests.

In NYC, 50% of all households are rental units, making up about a quarter of the rental units in the entire state. And on top of that, about a quarter of households in the state are rentals. What this data doesn't show, though is how many landlords there are...

Source: http://nmhc.org/Content.aspx?id=4708

> the fact the you buy a house (or many houses for that matter) and the rent them out is completely beyond me.

That is a very strange statement to make. I live in Germany and I am pretty sure I am paying my landlord every month some money. If fact, she owns my whole building of 6 apartments. Many of my colleagues are in the same situation as me.

What was your experience when you were living in Europe? did you live with your folks until you are ready to buy your own place?

I think the norm in Europe has been to rent for some time and as such tenants have more rights. Until recently, if you were renting in Australia you were in the minority and the rights of landlords seems to be skewed above tenants. Leases are usually a year and rarely any longer which can lead to instability for some tenants. Not to mention that tenants often aren't even allowed to hang pictures on their walls.

This opinion piece goes into some detail of the differences: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-11/bagwell-australian-a-n...

I grew up in Melbourne, Victoria, so I can appreciate the differences between the European vs the Australian renting situation.

The one thing that I like about German style is that you almost "own" the place you are living in. Eg, it is expected that you would give the place a coat of paint every 7 years, the kitchen is for you to fit out, (yes, you have to provide your own kitchen), repairs that cost less than 400€ are your responsibility, the rental agreement does not have an end date etc.

The conditions for renting here are so good that I have family friends that have rented all their lives. However the low interest rate in Germany makes it more financially attractive to purchase a place.

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