• Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Of course there’s the best option which is an non-occupancy tax that goes up exponentially for each additional property you’re sitting on for speculation.

    That right there would be a hard counter to wallstreet hoovering in the housing market.

    • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s like you’re not even considering the feelings of the millionaires and billionaires with 72 houses each and I for one just won’t stand for it.

      • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I can’t wait for the “rational” peoples argument against taxing the rich. Will it be something like a slippery slope fallacy? Maybe it will be “it’s unfair to thoses that only just recently got rich.” I’m thinking though they will go with, “it’s not going to make a meaningful difference” then try and sell us trickle down in some new way.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “Kill 3 kids and bulldoze the neighboring nature reserve (it won’t give us more chairs, but it’ll feel good)”

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      its called a nature reserve because its a piece of nature thats reserved to be used as a golf course in the future

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    2 months ago

    Neither choice is great. One is evil.

    That 25k quickly becomes “oh, everyone had 25k more so we can charge 25k more”.

    Don’t give rich house builders tax breaks, they’re the ones causing the problem by deliberately not building enough. You’re the fucking government. Build houses yourselves. Rent them through social housing programs.

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        2 months ago

        Yeah, that too.

        The precious “free markets” have had their crack at it, and have shown that they’re not to be trusted to either own or build them. Prices have soared and that’s 100% intentional on their part.

        • Shard@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It was never a free market because of antiquated zoning laws. At very least free market would have driven more dense residential construction because they would have made more return on their buck. We need to allow and even promote medium rise residential zoning in more home scarcity is an issue.

          Land owners be damned, the needs of the many outweigh the greed of the few.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      25k is for first time home buyers, not everyone. You can’t have separate prices for first time buyers and the rest of the public, and a seller won’t know how you are financed until after the house is listed anyways.

      This absolutely will help, because if you’d just ask anyone trying to get a home, the down payment is the hardest part to satisfy.

      The only way a house cartel can form like this is for those that own the homes. The builders don’t own the homes, corporations do. Those corporations collude and price fix to create a cartel. Focus on that.

      • ECB@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        The UK had a similar scheme for first time buyers and it’s often cited by economists as one of the biggest things fueling their housing crisis.

    • HasturInYellow@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The builders have made the 16 million empty homes in this country because they were just selling them to corporations. It’s not that they are not hiding enough, it’s that the rich have engulfed the entire pipe with their gluttonous mouths and there is nothing left for the rest of us.

      When will we finally slay the beasts that are killing us?

    • MrMcGasion@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I’ve started to come around on the 25k down payment assistance. It definitely has it’s problems, and there will absolutely be those who gouge because of it. But because it’s specifically down-payment assistance it will still help first time buyers get mortgages on houses they can afford the regular payments on, but don’t have the extra to set aside for a 10% down payment because rent is taking everything they could be setting aside for a down payment. And it’s limited to first time home buyers, with 2 years of on-time rent payments, and says “up to” 25k. Wouldn’t surprise me if it ends up being limited to 10% of the purchase price (which gets you more favorable loan terms).

    • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s not that they aren’t building enough. It’s that they are building big luxury homes because there is a bigger profit margin than making affordable homes.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Most builders are already fully booked for work. The one’s that could work faster generally aren’t the ones you want building your house.

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    thinking that homeless illegal immigrants are the root cause of home shortage where a single corporation or a billionaire buys thousands of flats to rent them to people for exorbitant prices.

    in one way it works because if you kick out many homeless people out of the country, you can say that in one year you cut homelessness by half.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Thats currently already done with jail. The main problem is homeless people don’t pay their jail bills. In my state 15 years ago it was 30$ per day you had to pay to be incarcerated in jail, not prison.

      • FundMECFSResearch
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        2 months ago

        Okay america is sounding more and more like a joke. You have to pay to be in a processing facility? When you have no choice. And you’ll be incarcerated there during trial so before you are proven guilty of anything.

        • Optional@lemmy.worldOP
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          2 months ago

          Fun fact! The Constitutional amendment that outlawed slavery also legalized slavery!

          Yeah! And until right now, this very minute, as you’re reading this, some Americans didn’t know that.

  • TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Quick reminder: The Nazi German government emptied out Eastern European towns and villages taken by the Wehrmacht during various campaigns, most notably Operation Barbarossa, for resettlement of “pure” Germans to those occupied lands (called Lebensraum)… this started almost literally once these occupied towns and villages were far enough from the front lines. Also, the whole point of the US Government’s genocidal forced march of native tribes, often referred to as the Tail of Tears, was to clear said native tribes out so the Southern aristocracy could seize the land for plantations worked by chattel slaves… whole swaths of what is today Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi were settled by whites as a result.

    Many a “populist” (read: Fascist or proto-Fascist) operate their politics in this manner. Promise either cheap land (or, at the very least, housing) to the workers and others by committing what is, on it’s face, a genocide. There’s more modern examples (two in particular, going on right this minute for all the world to see), but I don’t want to get the ban-hammer so I won’t name them directly (I forgot to check the instance in which I am commenting before doing so, but not taking my chances).

    • daddy32@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Additionally, “Mass deportation” is a fucking genocide, I don’t know how this can even be said loudly. Guess people never learn…

  • Gaspar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    Donald John Trump comes from a family of real estate speculators.

    Akira Toriyama once said he based the character of Freeza on Japanese real estate speculators, who he called “the worst kind of people.” (Source)

    Am I saying Trump is Freeza? No, Freeza is several orders of magnitude more competent on his worst day than Trump was when he peaked in 1951. But I think it’s important to underline, for the people in the back, what level of cartoonish evil we’re dealing with, because for some reason people will read stuff like this and it won’t sink in. Maybe DBZ will help.

    I don’t know. I’m tired, y’all.

  • Marthirial@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    So the mass deportation would be of lawful alien residents, because undocumented residents cannot buy houses unless it is straight up cash, and even then would have a hard time getting insurance or utilities, you know, without a SSN, credit history or IDs. Unless they use a stolen SSN, which is very difficult and rare.

    • microphone900@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Nope! Everyone knows undocumented immigrants are buying ALL the houses, they’re taking ALL the jobs, and getting ALL the public benefits (except for the benefits welfare queens get), they’re bringing in and doing ALL the drugs, they’re committing ALL the crime, and they’re voting in ALL elections. It’s true, I saw it on the TV. They’re busy, I don’t know how they have the time to do all of that.

      You know, it seems kind of ridiculous when typing it all out like that. Were the TV people lying to me? Can’t be; now excuse me, I’m going to tell my employees to keep working after clocking out and use the savings to buy several blocks of housing and rent them out at high rates. Their poor time management is not my problem.

  • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I hate any financial assistance that doesn’t address the root cause, because all it is at that point is more tax and wealth transfer to the rich.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      2 months ago

      That’s the feature of these issues, there is no incentive for people “fixing” them to end the grift.

  • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    If they really wanted to change regulations they’d push changing zoning regulations in cities to allow building anything other than detached single family housing. That would be totally reasonable and help alongside tax incentives. But I have a feeling that’s not what’s meant by changing regulations…

    • WolfLink@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      They said “making federal land available”. I take that as they want to sell off land in places like national parks to be developed.

      Which, needless to say, is an awful idea.

    • somethingp@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I thinks that’s one of those state’s rights things where federal government can’t just tell a town how to zone it’s own land unless they’re taking it away from the town like for a national Park or something.

      • terry_jerry@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        It’s actually an instance of super small government. Those regulations are dictated by city’s and counties not by states

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      The american dream isnt raising a family in an apartment, and a lot of people were raised on that dream.

      We need to change the perception of condensed housing I think before there is support for that.

      • bob_lemon@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        The best way to change perception of mixed use residential areas is having people live there.

        The bigger issue is that these buildings don’t work by themselves. The biggest issue with suburbia is car dependency, which can only be countered by walkable cities and public transport (both of which require higher population densities)

      • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Before you can start to change public perception it needs to be legal to build densely. Parking minimums and a variety of other commercial building code regulations make this much more expensive in the US, all while the people nearby in single family homes fight any new builds due to their poor perception of condos and apartments. Just removing the stigma is only one part of the equation.

      • capital@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        My perception of dense housing is smelling cigarettes and weed and hearing fighting, dogs barking, loud exhaust, and loud bass for hours on end.

        I think we change the perception by enforcing rules to keep people from disturbing others peace at home. Make it a reality that dense housing isn’t a worse experience. That isn’t currently the case.

        I’d be much more apt to go back to dense housing if I was confident that my complaints would be heard and actioned up to and including evicting the offenders (after many complaints and no corrective actions taken). But I have never heard of such a place.

  • Commiunism@lemmy.wtf
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    2 months ago

    I’m curious how many houses/apartments are unused in the US, acting as a speculative asset and if building more is even necessary.

    • Transient Punk@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Building more is necessary if the available housing is not located where appropriate employment is located. Thus, the gross number of available homes isn’t a good metric to use for determining the actual need for new construction.

    • Lyrl@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      If enough more houses are built that prices stop increasing faster than inflation, housing will no longer be valuable as a speculative asset. Building more houses BOTH makes housing immediately available, and changes the market forces in a way that pushes out investors squatting on un-lived-in units.

  • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The worst idea is ever giving down payment assistance. Government subsidizing actual builders, sure, but free money to property owners just increases the price to meet supply and demand and goes right into their pocket. It actually increases home prices. Extremely stupid.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Don’t know that it would be sufficient, but it’s not free money to all property owners, just those that haven’t yet been able to get to home ownership, but have been renting consistently for a couple of years.

      So if in a normal market, a new homebuyer has a budget that’s about $15k less than some speculative asshat looking for an investment rather than a home, then this tips the scales in favor of that would-be new homebuyer.

      There needs to be some sort of tipping the scale in favor of people seeking to own their own primary residence versus those that already have their primary residence and ideally disincentivize those looking to acquire property they have no interest in using themselves.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        When I say free money to the owners, I mean the primary effect on the market is only to increase the price, giving more money to sellers and more equity to owners. Without a significant increase in supply, it won’t help much and giving 25k for single family homes would be counterproductive​ in general in my opinion. You want to fuck speculators and parasitic landlords, you do it by increasing supply. That can include a focused effort on high density and mixed use housing that the 25k doesn’t help with.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Note that the proposed incentive only goes into play after a set level of housing stock is constructed. So significant new stock with advantage to people seeking first primary residence.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Nah, using tax dollars to increase property values in a housing crisis is counterproductive as fuck. It increases rents for everyone else as well. Better off attacking it from the supply side with a massive subsidized housing effort and just tanking the market. But that’s politically toxic.

        • DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Federal housing policy has always been about inflating housing asset values. The Harris “plan” is just more of the same. Anyone who thinks either party actually wants to lower housing prices is delusional.

    • buzz86us@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I’m all for it of they include vacant land… I wouldn’t mind having acreage, and getting one of them unfinished Amazon houses.

  • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    I have one “weird” and “radical” proposal: public housing to rent. Not to but. At affordable price. That would lower the price of every house, flat, …

    • 24_at_the_withers@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Because being poor, uneducated, and unloved with a chip on your shoulder makes you a likely Republican voter. I would bet the whole farm that unwanted children are far more likely to grow up to vote Republican, and I think that’s one of the primary reasons they fight against abortion, and any other policies that increase education and security for children.