this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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Privatizing the right to have shelter is pretty scummy to be a thing to exist.
What if I build a house on a piece of land I own and want to rent it out?
The second construction is completed I'm all of a sudden a scumbag for privatizing someone else's right to shelter? Even though it's a house I built on my land? Doesn't make much sense to me.
Why would you build a house and not live in it?
As I stated in the very first sentence: to rent it out.
I suppose your response will be "but renting it out is bad! We should make that illegal because you're extracting wealth from the tenant!"
Then I will say to you "fine, I suppose I will not build that house at all"
This is how you get a take a housing shortage in the US and make it far, far worse.
Well you've just got it all figured out eh?
I don't think sarcastic comments like this help the opposing argument very much.
You're moving the goal posts here. Did you buy the land for the purpose of building property? Bad. Did you convert arable land into housing? Bad. Was it a rocky bad piece of land that you invested in to build something more out of it? Good. Housing policy isn't binary but in most cases the current personal private multiownership model doesn't help anyone. My perspective is no one should be allowed to own more than one house, and if so anything beyond the first house should be heavily taxed.
Buying land for the purpose of building property is bad? I think any policy that discourages development of additional housing is probably not going to be great for house prices. Or if you're handing out houses in a lottery system, it won't be great for housing supply at least.
I'll give you an example; my country has food insecurity, rich people take arable farmland and build suburbs on that land instead of infilling the city downtown which has single detached homes less than a kilometre from the centre of the city. Do you think that this is a good thing they're buying this farmland for suburbs, or a bad thing?
So they would still have a landlord it would be the government instead and people would be pissed when the government increases rent or throws people out because they're destroying the place or not paying their rent...
I'd much prefer to have social housing than slumlords that want to make a profit on the rented space while also keeping the value of the building.
So, how does the government decide who gets beachfront property and who lives behind the power plant?
The same way that it works now? The unit is for rent, you take an appointment and the first person that qualifies get it.
This is not the gotcha you think it is. What so different than the current system?
If nothing is different, why bother changing?
Because the government wouldn't be trying to bleed every penny out of tenants just because they can.
That's some alternative reality, you're talking about. My government does try, and succeeds in bleeding every last penny that I earn.
Those are called taxes. We need those.
Unless they are not used for the betterment of society and are not thrown into the black hole of beurocracy.