Housing policy megathread

[DGuller]

I think one other area where even basic economic theory fails is when it comes to sources of happens that result from collective behaviors.  For example, if I'm a child growing up in a neighborhood, I think it would be very good for me if all my playmates stay in my neighborhood for the duration of my childhood.  However, maybe my friend's family wants to move for their own self-interested reasons, how is my benefit going to enter into their calculations?

Where rent control comes in is that it forces decrease of people's mobility.  Maybe there are a lot of positives to mobility, but I think the cost of uprooting personal relationships, especially for younger people who have no say in the decisions to move, is real and substantial. 

My dad still keeps in touch with many of his friends from school 60 years later, but that is much more likely to happen when you spend entire childhood with the same people together.  In his case the reason for lack of mobility was communism, and not the slightly less overbearing rent control, but the dynamic is the same.

[Josquius]

I think one other area where even basic economic theory fails is when it comes to sources of happens that result from collective behaviors.  For example, if I'm a child growing up in a neighborhood, I think it would be very good for me if all my playmates stay in my neighborhood for the duration of my childhood.  However, maybe my friend's family wants to move for their own self-interested reasons, how is my benefit going to enter into their calculations?

Where rent control comes in is that it forces decrease of people's mobility.  Maybe there are a lot of positives to mobility, but I think the cost of uprooting personal relationships, especially for younger people who have no say in the decisions to move, is real and substantial. 

My dad still keeps in touch with many of his friends from school 60 years later, but that is much more likely to happen when you spend entire childhood with the same people together.  In his case the reason for lack of mobility was communism, and not the slightly less overbearing rent control, but the dynamic is the same.

Yes, mobility has its good and bad points.
On the one hand yes, a kid born in a nothing-town but who has the ability and the interest to make something of himself should be able to move to the city where he can do that.
People should be free and encouraged to get out of their comfort zone and see the world a bit.

On the other hand a kid born in a thriving city or a picturesque rural area might want to stay just where they are.
Interfering in the market to allow small villages to remain viable communities with the young who want to stay there being able to do so, and not just having all the housing snapped up by wealthy second home buyers, strikes me as a big positive. It carries deeper issues when you come to areas like Ceredigion where the incomers will broadly monolingual English speakers displacing the Welsh community.

The key, the ideal to shoot for, overall should be choice. Allowing people to be mobile whilst at the same time balancing the rights of those "indigenous" to a place who want to remain there.
This also connects to other issues as noted in CC's article about Cork with the far right being eager to try and profit from locals being displaced by "immigrants", even if those immigrants are most often from the same country.

It all comes back to building really. Efficient, dense building of basic but perfectly acceptable housing. Even in little picturesque villages for whom the entire point is that they aren't built up there should be a lot more 3 story blocks of flats to allow local kids the opportunity of actually continuing to live there (with priority given to those with local links of course as in current social housing in such places).
This is something the UK really fails at.
In the big cities of course the scale should be drastically bigger and a lot more mixed up than we do at current.

[Valmy]

So I'm not entirely oppose to hanging landlords.

[HVC]

So I'm not entirely oppose to hanging landlords.

Well ensure a quick drop, as a mercy

[Barrister]

So just on the topic of landlords...

I have vaguely considered trying to build a backyard housing as a means of some retirement income in a few years.  We have a "pie shaped" lot which means the backyard is really quite large, and we would have access to the LRT once construction is finished in 4 years (probably more than that) so it might be enticing.  I'm thinking a 2-story, 2-3 suite building.  As I understand the updated zoning in Edmonton that would all be allowable.  There'd be no real parking available - but that's why the new transit might make it enticing.

Downside of course is we'd lose our backyard, and at two stories in our south-facing backyard you'd lose a lot of sunlight.

Not sure if it would be profitable enough to make it worthwhile though, since you'd have to take out a mortgage to build the darn thing and in retirement you'd me more interested in income, not building equity.

I can also say that if I thought we'd be subject to a rigorous rent control scheme there's no way I'd consider it.

[garbon]

I think one other area where even basic economic theory fails is when it comes to sources of happens that result from collective behaviors.  For example, if I'm a child growing up in a neighborhood, I think it would be very good for me if all my playmates stay in my neighborhood for the duration of my childhood.  However, maybe my friend's family wants to move for their own self-interested reasons, how is my benefit going to enter into their calculations?

Where rent control comes in is that it forces decrease of people's mobility.  Maybe there are a lot of positives to mobility, but I think the cost of uprooting personal relationships, especially for younger people who have no say in the decisions to move, is real and substantial. 

My dad still keeps in touch with many of his friends from school 60 years later, but that is much more likely to happen when you spend entire childhood with the same people together.  In his case the reason for lack of mobility was communism, and not the slightly less overbearing rent control, but the dynamic is the same.

On the flipside, I'm not sure why childhood friendships should be prioritized. As a highly mobile person I found my tribe as it were in other places. Prioritizing childhood relationships feels like it might just entrenched world views rather than expand them.

[The Brain]

Rent control is horrible. If you need a place to live in Stockholm you have to buy it or wait decades in line to rent.

And if there was no rent control then things would be great for high earners moving into the city. They'd have little trouble just slapping down their crowns and getting a place.
But for the regular working class locals whose landlord sees all this foreign money on the table and the opportunity to quadruple rents?.... Yeah. They're out on the street.

The enormously inefficient housing market that rent control causes costs society a lot. Your idea that the haves (in this case those who sit on artifically advantageous rent contracts) are much more important to protect than the have nots (those who don't have enough money to buy and don't have decades of queue time) seems unattractive to me.

Finland is an example of a comparative country that reformed the housing market, and the positive effects this brought.

Finland is not a good example of the housing market. If you are okay with living out in the countryside, you can, but prepare to have no job and nothing interesting to do. If you want to live in one of the few bigger cities... good luck.

I have read that rental apartments are available in Helsinki "off the shelf". https://www.vuokraovi.com/?locale=en seems to support this, but I might not understand it correctly.

Sure, you can rent from private landlords, if you want to pay crazy prices for tiny single-room apartments.

I don't see crazy prices, but regardless that situation is infinitely better than rental contracts being simply unavailable.

In Stockholm organizations have problems recruiting people because there's no place for them to live. Buying a place isn't an option for many, and even if you have the money lying around taking that kind of risk when you don't know how long you're gonna stay is often unattractive. This is harmful to society and everyone in it.

Stockholm has a  bad housing situation. This is known.
Blaming this on rent control however seems a massive reach as much as folk of a certain ideology are keen to always do so.
Surely far more of a reason is the plummeting home building numbers and increased demand for some parts of Sweden like Stockholm whilst others have declined,

From what I gather the controlled system was in place decades and things worked fine as the government actually built housing.
It's alongside the move to a more free market system from the 90s on that things have become a mess. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but the relationship seems to be the opposite of what you imply.

There is a connection between price control and supply not meeting demand.

[Grey Fox]

Good news out of the UK Housing policy.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/buy-to-let/selling-35-rental-homes-labour-not-only-one/

For him, the decision to downsize has been four years in the making. First it was the introduction of Section 24, which abolished mortgage tax relief, then high interest rates, and now the Renters' Rights Bill – dubbed the biggest overhaul of rental law in over 30 years.

     Babies, all the way down.

[Tamas]

 

[Josquius]

Yes. Good to see but a drop in the ocean alas. Prices are rising faster than ever.

]

There is a connection between price control and supply not meeting demand.

And the million homes program?

[The Brain]

Yes. Good to see but a drop in the ocean alas. Prices are rising faster than ever.

]

There is a connection between price control and supply not meeting demand.

And the million homes program?

The state is free to build homes and rent them out cheaply if it wants to. No need for rent control.

[Tonitrus]

Do you want Brutalism?  Because that's how you get Brutalism.

[Sheilbh]

Do you want Brutalism?  Because that's how you get Brutalism.

[Josquius]

Yes. Good to see but a drop in the ocean alas. Prices are rising faster than ever.

]

There is a connection between price control and supply not meeting demand.

And the million homes program?

The state is free to build homes and rent them out cheaply if it wants to. No need for rent control.

That's a form of rent control.

[Sheilbh]

No it's not.