America’s housing crisis continues to worsen, renters are struggling more than homeowners, report says
America’s housing crisis continues to worsen | CNN Business
Why is the for profit house building industry involved in solving the problem they had a hand in making?
Reform the CPA and just build ourselves. Or use the army core of engineers. They are getting paid either way.
Non-profit / below market housing is crucial. Without it, the people who actually keep cities functioning and interesting, service workers, artists, etc get pushed out.
I have a career that enables me to pay a lot of money for housing but I don't want to live in a neighbourhood that only consists of people like me, cause I'm boring as fuck. I also don't want to be part of the reason those people get displaced.
More social housing now!
The solution is to build more housing where people want to live.
Don't get suckered into their blame game. This just results in everybody pointing fingers while the prices continue to soar.
Prices only go up because there's competition to buy them.
Raise property taxes 500% for property that is not registered as the owners primary residence.
That should do it
The solution is making it illegal to own more than a few properties
This problem does not have a single solution. Get rid of landlords and you're still left with a large group of people fighting over a limited supply. Better zoning laws, removal of parking minimums, better transit + micro-mobility infrastructure, and more below market not-for-profit housing.
It's not a simple problem, even if the motives that created the problem are.
that will make it easier for people to buy, and even harder to rent. Ie. that will worsen the problem.
EDIT: it's apparent that Lemmy users don't understand why someone would actively want to rent, and think everyone wants to buy. This makes the entire topic very difficult to discuss.
"More supply will increase demand"
Hmmm
What do you think drives the price of rentals? Not being able to afford to buy keeps people stuck in rental living where they can be price gouged. If the price of houses drops due to an oversupply, more renters will buy, which reduces demand for rentals, which will drive down the price of rent making it more affordable to rent.
Build. Social. Housing.
Its not a difficult concept. The “market” is not going to build anything that lowers the price. The market is not going to build anything fast enough. The market is absolutely not going to give a flying fuck about building to create communities.
Not in my back yard! Think of all the poor and homeless. Crime rate always goes up around them! This is a nice neighborhood!
That's stupid, we already tried social housing and it didn't work. The market is the one and only thing that can reverse the situation, and it has done so before too, we just need to put in place the right incentives
The meritocratic, capitalist way, would be to to put a property tax on it and to increase that tax, until
Let's go people!
My piece of total shit landlord just took 4 months to fix my bathroom then raised rent an absurd amount. I’m enraged.
This is something I'm currently struggling with. I rent a house and the roof is leaking in two different rooms. Problem is that last time I had the landlord do any repairs he increased my rent by $300 a month. I know that having a leaky roof is damaging his property, but it's only a minor inconvenience for me at the moment.
I'm not about to spend an extra $6,000+ a year just to preserve his property when I can keep it from bothering me with a tack, some string, and a pitcher for the water to go into.
I mean he had to pay for the repairs somehow /s
What are you going to do about it?
We don't need tax credits.
We need Private equity out of the housing market.
We need better safeguards for tenants.
Financial moves like tax credits and incentives always end up benefitting the haves.
We actually need Mom and Pop landlords abolished. They own 80% of rentals.
Imo owning a second property to rent out for some side cash is fine. It's a problem when your only occupation is "landlord"
That's idiotic. There's nothing wrong with owning rentals or being a landlord. It only becomes an issue when massive corporations with endless amount of money buy so much inventory that they start affecting the market
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R47332.pdf
Wow. 70% as of 2022.
How would people here feel about a tax that increases in rate per-property owned? People and organizations can still own as many properties as they want, but at some point they're going to be taxed so much it'll be impossible to profit off of them.
Until we actually remove republicans and republican lites from the legislature I highly doubt we'll see any progressive tax reforms, like actually taxing the rich. You could probably find more support for expanding house buying programs. Stuff like lowering the down payment requirements, and or give a large grant for a portion of the house value if it is high and it could be clawed back at sale.
The problem right now is one of supply and demand, not because corporations are buying up too many properties. It's the other way around where corporations are buying up properties, because due to not increasing supply, and demand continue rising, it's a good investment.
We need more high density housing all over the place. I live in a nice little town right outside a large US city. We have a train right into the city, and a nice little downtown area that could certainly use more business. They have been trying to put up apartment buildings, but the NIMBY-ism is through the roof. It's like every little attempt to add more housing, people start whining to high heavens how it is killing our "small town" feel. I mean, I get it, I moved here for a reason, but something has got to give.
I can only imagine what's happening in more rural areas where everyone wants their big lots and single homes.
So I don't really oppose increasing taxes per home, but I don't think it's really going to solve the issue of increasing home prices as that's not the root of the issue.
Personally, I'd prefer a monthly fine for unfilled housing, that is based on the rate you are charging for it. Landlord wants to jack your rent up 20%? If you leave, they pay a fine, based on that amount until they fill the unit. The fines go to subsidizing housing costs, so there is a self-balancing system. Right now, with property values increasing at insane rates, owners don't really need to rent to break even, which leaves them free to price gouge their tenants. There is little pressure pushing rates back down, and there is all the freedom in the world to jack them up as high as you want.
How would people here feel about a tax that increases in rate per-property owned?
That's functionally how the homestead exemption works already
they’re going to be taxed so much it’ll be impossible to profit off of them.
I would simply start a PAC with all my extra money and bribe/coerce politicians into reducing the tax rates.
That’s functionally how the homestead exemption works already
Unless I'm mistaken, that's just a small tax break you get on the taxes on your primary residence. After that, it makes no difference the number of properties you own, their taxes stay the same.
I'm not sure. Realizing I had no idea how much wealth the truly wealthy possess has been a reoccurring theme from the past few years. I think I'd rather see some hard limitations on who can own what.
It's already like that where I live. It's called the homestead exemption -- property taxes are cut in half if it's your primary residence
I've never understood the need for a downpayment to purchase. If you can make the monthly payments that's all that should matter.
In theory I guess it protects against the costs of dealing with defaults or having people walk away from underwater mortgages. But on the other hand, all of that stuff could be insured against.
But on the other hand, all of that stuff could be insured against.
Thats exactly what PMI (Private mortgage insurance) covers. However if the insurance company doesn't think you're a good risk, then you might not be able to get that either. I have never looked at what criteria they use to grant or deny PMI. I've also never known anyone personally denied PMI.
The downpayment requirements are much looser now then they used to be. Pretty much anyone in the US can get as low as 3 to 3.5% down, which means the down payment can easily be less than all the other home buying expenses (closing cost, inspection, title insurance, loan origination, moving, transfer taxes, ...). You also typically have a month before you need to make your first principle repayment, which helps offset the down payment.
Veterans, active service members, and people buying in qualified rural areas can get 0 down mortgages.
Depending on where you live, there might be further assistance available. Around here, the county offers (means tested) down-payment assistance loans that cover 100% the minimum down payment, and has an interest rate that is at least 2% lower than that of the main loan. They also wave all transfer taxes for all first time buyers.
It's risk mitigation for the banks. You don't have to put 20% down, but generally you'll have to pay an additional insurance (PMI) if you don't.
Of course they are, landlords are buying the house for what you would and doubling the mortgage payment as your rent. It should be illegal for people/corporations to rent out more than one single family home.
Residential units are generally considered 4 units or less. Over 80% of landlords are just normal people who spend their hard earned money on properties like this. Mom and pop landowners are incentivized to rent out their units as quickly as possible. Corporations, on the other hand? They can buy up entire neighborhoods and rent a single unit out for years just to manipulate market prices in their favor.
When they say "the housing crisis", is that what the poors call the record profit boon?
That's just the ruling class acting blind, disguising as a neutral news source
Why don’t they just buy homes? Are they stupid?
That or they just didn’t think it was an appropriate joke.
It's so bad, I would happily accept the mega cities from judge dredd being built.
They'd still sit empty.
Pretty much. Some weird perverse incentive would make it worth keeping them empty.
A partial solution is to remove nimby laws that prevent accessory dwelling units, duplexes, and medium and high density housing. Then you use the tax laws to heavily punish corporate ownership of low and medium density housing, and make it progressively more expensive for mom and pop landlords after a reasonable number of properties.
Hopefully this would lower the cost for single family housing, while increasing supply and variety of rentals. But somehow you'd have to prevent end stage capitalist collusion from fixing prices so competition could actually work to drive down prices.
Do you like HOA's because this is how you get more HOA's -- if the laws won't protect the desired community development, people will work together to create it and the result is something less efficient and less open.
This is why libertarianism is nonsense. People will quickly recreate all the old rules when they relearn the lessons that lead to the creation of those old rules.
Ban corporations/private companies from holding empty residential housing. Problem solved. Not complicated. Our system fucking sucks and is designed to protect land owners which is why we're in this situation. This is fucking up our entire society, slowly bringing us down, we're losing to China. This change needs to happen soon otherwise we're going to see the working class get milked hard enough that our real economy will collapse.
Ban corporations/private companies from holding empty residential housing. Problem solved. Not complicated
Who passes this law? Who signs it? My municipal and state governments are infested with real estate agents landlords, attorneys, and bankers, all of whom profit from artificially scarce housing.
Who passes this law? Who signs it?
Exactly. Exactly.
Our system fucking sucks and is designed to protect land owners which is why we’re in this situation.
I really don't see any change happening without.... drastic inturruption.
Build more housing. That's what you need to prioritize.
We have significantly more vacant units (around 15M) than homeless people (around 600k-1.5M by various estimates).
New dense energy efficient units connected to social services and green energy infrastructure would be great for everyone. But the idea that we just don't have residential space to house people is totally wrong.
If I could, I would pass a law saying that no corporation could own more than two dwelling structures. That still allows them to own things up to apartment high-rises. But only two.
they'd just make nesting doll structured holding companies with all profits going to the top but any losses being contained within each branch
actually this sounds like a great idea BRB gotta register some LLCs in Delaware
my rental office rose my rend $200 and I couldn't afford deposit on a new place. am fucked.
Just a shot in the dark, but are there any apparent problems with capping the rent at like half the mortgage? Or like 80%? Then there would be financial incentive to keep the tenant happy, to keep working, and keep the property in working order.
Of course, this does not take into account properties without mortgage, or properties where the housing was paid in part with liquid cash.
That will disproportionately punish small time landlords and incentivize megacorp landlords, which is probably not what you want
Yeah, any more alterations to the idea and it would be gull of wsge cases and confusing shit. Agreed
It also doesn’t take into account rising property taxes, business tax, rising maintenance costs. I’m not arguing in favor of these dirty landlord companies that jack up the rent at every opportunity, however you’d have to control interest rates and the ridiculous home prices if you want to keep rents reasonable based on a percentage of mortgage costs.
What frustrates me is there doesn't seem to be anyone in a position to promote change to this problem that is really talking about it. They may pay it lip service but nothing beyond that.
Have them throw a can of soup at a painting to raise awareness
Soup for my family...
What's that from?
It's the new thing privileged people are doing. Throwing soup at paintings in art gallerias in Europe. They target ones that are behind glass, "just a prank bro". Anyway it's all a ploy so they can "raise" awareness about the Whales, Tibet, or Firefly being cancelled or whatever cause de celebre is hot this week.
Actually solving issues is difficult and slow. Throwing stuff is easy and makes you feel good about yourself. And in the end, only the feelings of the children of privilege matter.
There's always talk about tax breaks for home owners...
Never talks of raising taxes on landlords and empty units tho.
That's what would fix it. Tax them out of the housing market slowly and.prices will go down as they get out of the business.
At the very least, they should raise real estate taxes on empty units. This will penalize people for owning several vacation homes, as well as incentivize landlords to lower rates in order to fill the unit.
Difficult to enforce, but send a few people to jail for real estate tax fraud and the rest will fall in line.
Wouldn’t a tax hike only get passed through to the renter?
That's why you set it exponentially based on units owned by parent company, maybe break it down as a tax paid by shareholders for huge corporations landlords.
They could try to pass it on to consumers, but smaller landlords wouldn't have to pay it.
Making the biggest get out of the game first
Canada passed this law in 2022 addressing that:
Underused Housing Tax
Or you know, just build more houses?
We've got 15 million vacant homes in the US.
Yeah, the first time I learned about our current vice president, she was trying to allegedly give renters similar tax breaks in California.
I don't know what happened to that, but I was an immediate fan. Seeing as it never happened, smeh... Not sure what to think. But it's a very popular idea amongst those of us who can't afford to buy (most people in California.)
Because governments want housing prices to stay sky high. The canadian prime minister openly said he doesn't want housing prices to drop because too many people are using their houses as a retirement strategy. That's why there are so many government programs that support buying a house but none that support renting.