NetQuarterLatte t1_itl2kgo wrote
Fake-progressives are not interested in housing as a fundamental human right. They are only pretending that they care.
What they actually want about "housing" is using it as a wedge to perpetuate two classes: tenants versus landlords. They profit on the tension and the division. So it's not a problem they actually want to solve. They actually desire to make the problem worse, and have been effectively enacting laws to that purpose.
To truly solve housing, renters should have a path towards home ownership, so that tenants never have to deal with a landlord again, and can boost wealth accumulation over time:
- Getting a mortgage should easier (stop requiring insane credit scores)
- Making the downpayment should be easier (requiring a lot less than 20%, for example)
- Transaction fees should be cheaper (broker fees/property transfer taxes/etc should all be reduced)
Edit: The homeownership rate in NYC is at 53%, which is lower than then 65% national average. Boosting homeownership rates is a very effective way to decrease wealth inequality.
supremeMilo t1_itl9lql wrote
I am a progressive and I think having a roof over your head is a fundamental right, but not paying your lease and squatting and taking advantage of pro tenant laws is not a fundamental human right.
NetQuarterLatte t1_itlannx wrote
I'm with you.
A society in which people enter and honor their agreements in good faith can be a much more progressive society.
The fake-progressives have it completely backwards.
Misommar1246 t1_itl6jho wrote
I don’t know, we kind of fucked up when we made it easier for tenants to get home ownership and it all came crashing down in 2008.
NetQuarterLatte t1_itl8ep1 wrote
>I don’t know, we kind of fucked up when we made it easier for tenants to get home ownership and it all came crashing down in 2008.
Home ownership in NYC didn't even get close to 60% leading to 2008. High home ownership rate was absolutely not the issue with 2008.
Chart with home ownership rate per year: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/homeownership-rates-new-york
Misommar1246 t1_itl8rg1 wrote
Ownership itself wasn’t the problem, relaxing the conditions such as credit score requirements were though. It caused a lot of people who realistically couldn’t afford homes to sign up for one.
NetQuarterLatte t1_itlab0j wrote
>Ownership itself wasn’t the problem, relaxing the conditions such as credit score requirements were though. It caused a lot of people who realistically couldn’t afford homes to sign up for one.
Even in the peak of the great financial crisis, NYC had less than 29,000 delinquent mortgages/foreclosures.
That shouldn't be the reason why people need to be handcuffed into a lease agreement with their landlord.
tuberosum t1_itlrlb8 wrote
The fault lies entirely in the banks and rating agencies that sold those mortgages as parts of CDOs that had been rated AAA when, in fact they definitely weren't.
The fact that the banks could make more money selling those CDOs than the profits from the actual mortgages led to banks being far more willing to issue loans to people who couldn't demonstrate a sufficient ability to pay. Who cares, after all, it's not the mortgage that'll make money for the bank!
And with banks playing fast and loose with mortgages, it allowed an influx of a lot of money into the market which ended up bringing up the prices of housing stock. Since, if money is cheap and available to the buyers, the sellers would have to be fools not to increase their prices.
And when the bank's irresponsibility finally caught up to them, the whole system fell like a house of cards.
How this would have played out in a normal world without commercial banks being investment banks as well: bank would issue mortgages, and since they rely on the return of those mortgages to finance their profits, they make sure that those receiving the mortgages have the ability to pay. Some foreclosures still happen since shit happens, but the banking system in it's entirety chugs along as per usual.
LittleWind_ OP t1_itl75ep wrote
I don’t disagree that owning a home should be an easier option, but a lower down payment necessarily means a riskier loan for banks and higher monthly payments for the borrower. Banks will use a higher standard for lending in that case, including use of credit score, not a lower one.
A bigger issue is that we have a shortage of housing stock. Corporate owners have no incentive to sell to renters because they have a captured customer base, and NIMBYism (in varied forms) has ensured that the shortage won’t be alleviated any time soon.
If we view housing as a human right (I know many don’t), it necessarily has to be affordable and that will create a dichotomy between landlords, who are in it for profit, and tenants.
NetQuarterLatte t1_itl8z39 wrote
>A bigger issue is that we have a shortage of housing stock. Corporate owners have no incentive to sell to renters because they have a captured customer base, and NIMBYism (in varied forms) has ensured that the shortage won’t be alleviated any time soon.
Absolutely.
NIMBY needs to end.
And the politicians who pretend to be "pro-tenant", but who are actually NIMBY, need to be exposed.
lll_lll_lll t1_itlnk0a wrote
If housing is a human right, this begs the question: where, and how nice? Is it a human right to live in my exact favorite neighborhood in the world? Do I get a 2 bedroom if I want extra space? Will someone help furnish it?
Who pays for it all?
KaiDaiz t1_itl76yv wrote
Should raise the millionaire tax to start at 2M properties and make it easier to refinance without tax for loans under 2M. 1M properties are actually avg units in most markets here.
NetQuarterLatte t1_itl7ve9 wrote
>Should raise the millionaire tax to start at 2M properties and make it easier to refinance without tax for loans under 2M. 1M properties are actually avg units in most markets here.
I think we should make the following:
If you don't own any home, and you're currently renting in NYC (primary residency), then eliminate or greatly reduce those taxes.
If you already own multiple properties (maybe with some exception for families who are upgrading into a bigger home and may temporarily "own" two homes in the same year) or are buying via an LCC, you don't get any tax discount. Or even pay some extra.
ripstep1 t1_itl744b wrote
If buying becomes easier than prices will simply rise.
Also last time mortgage standards dropped people were complaining about lower Manhattan.
Dolos2279 t1_itl7a5x wrote
>Getting a mortgage should easier (stop requiring insane credit scores)
>Making the downpayment should be easier
Didn't end so well last time these types of requirements were eliminated. Owning an apartment or house has far more costs associated than just the monthly payment and you need to be pretty financially stable to cover these costs. For example, I had to pay 15k out of pocket earlier this year for repairs on my apartment building as part of a loss assessment.
NetQuarterLatte t1_itl9d5j wrote
>Didn't end so well last time these types of requirements were eliminated.
Not in NYC. NYC's home ownership didn't even get close to the 60% leading to 2008.
The real world excesses in 2008 were greedy landlords who were leveraging mortgages and buying multiple properties, funded by rents.
CactusBoyScout t1_itlidga wrote
Wouldn’t making it easier to buy a home just result in higher purchasing prices as more people compete over the same number of available units?
lll_lll_lll t1_itlnaea wrote
Yes, this is exactly why college is so expensive right now. Guaranteed federal loans without any default option was supposed to make the barrier to entry easier, but instead just added a zero onto the cost.
NetQuarterLatte t1_itlsr3i wrote
>Yes, this is exactly why college is so expensive right now. Guaranteed federal loans without any default option was supposed to make the barrier to entry easier, but instead just added a zero onto the cost.
College has became more expensive because it's a cartel of trophy diplomas.
Unlike housing, the physical limitation of a classroom size should practically not exist anymore.
With the multiplicative benefits of technology, the same lecturer could be teaching a class of thousands of students.
But instead of costs going down, it has actually went up.
Classes that require physical presence (such as labs) can scale a lot too. They mostly sit empty, whereas they could have lab sessions every waking hour of the week, with of gains of scale reducing the costs of education.
The rising costs of textbooks is another blatant broken market problem. Printing textbooks should be as cheap as ever now.
lll_lll_lll t1_itmj6b2 wrote
You are describing things that should have a downward pressure on price, all else being equal. This makes no sense as an explanation to rising costs.
Do you not accept the idea that universal access to loans has increased demand?
NetQuarterLatte t1_itlklwm wrote
>Wouldn’t making it easier to buy a home just result in higher purchasing prices as more people compete over the same number of available units?
If a tenant moves away from a lease into their recently acquired unit, no.
Because the change in supply will be basically neutral.
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