I was looking at housing prices in a small city in Scotland and you can BUY a 1 bedroom apartment for £40,000 ($50,000). And it's in walking distance to anything you would need on a daily basis. And the city has functional public transportation both within the city and regionally.
I live in a smaller city in :amerikkka: where there are like 10 bus routes that do nothing for me because I work in the next county over. I am forced to own a car to do anything. I rent a room in a house for $750/month and the cheapest apartment in town is $1000/month. A house down the street just sold for $500k (two years ago they were going for $350k). Moving closer to work would put me in an area where everything is $1400+/month and still no way to get to work other than driving unless I want to ride my bike in a gutter while cars go by at 50mph.
So, what's stopping me from buying a flat in Scotland other than immigration being a fuck?
Honestly, I'm looking at taking the plunge out of the US too. The paradigm here in the US is that housing is a speculative asset first and an actual house second. So if homes = :stonks-up:, then what motive is there to fix the housing problem (for the people in control)? Quite literally, the problem is (according to those at the top) is that property values are too good.
I feel like I am playing a Monopoly game that has already been won.
At the very least, why can't we solve the housing crisis for petty and selfish capitalist reasons such as:
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Homelessness is an eyesore, if it's legal for some places to ban cars that aren't fancy enough for their community, then we should provide a house to everyone without stuffing those homeless people in another eyesore: a prison. Furthermore, it's a disaster for both PR and tourism. San Francisco for example has a bad reputation for homelessness and that's hurting it's reputation and cash flow from tourists.
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A well-oiled worker is a productive worker, this shit pays for itself in the long run.
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Homeless people are less likely to have jobs and then pump that money back into the economy. Economists time and time again say that income inequality is bad, and imagine how awesome America would be if we got serious about that "all men are created equal" shit?
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The Goddamn American dream? Social mobility is supposed to be our thing. Why should the boomers play it on easy mode while their children have to do it on nightmare mode?
Oh right....capitalist contradictions and short term focus and all that fun shit.
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then what motive is there to fix the housing problem (for the people in control)?
That's the issue. It's not even that there isn't a motive to fix the housing problem, but fixing the problem would be disastrous for speculators if it brings pricing down
I always bring that up when reactionaries shit on California.
Bro, they are doing EVERYTHING you say is a good thing. Give main street the middle finger and all of the US should be "muh investment" and nothing more. This IS the "more private sector" that they wanted.
Yeah it is. Fucking depressing and only getting worse. Been looking for an apartment and there's also lots of these co-habitation/micro living grift listing. Usually charging about the same as a studio apartment to stick you in what amounts to a walking closet. Worst thing is seeing influencers on social/digital media pushing this shit as 'trendy' living.
There's an unimaginable amount of money being thrown around to get people used to the idea of living in squalor and being happy about it. And then there's the other end where upwardly mobile people tear each other to shreds to put in offers 50% over asking on a decrepit shack, only for it to sucked up by some private equity firm.
So all I need to do is get married within 180 days? Anyone in Scotland want to get married and commit some light immigration fraud?
I love being called a fed. It implies that I have a stable job and I have a reason to wake up in the morning, even for a bad reason :D
Canada has the worst debt to income ratio in the developed world, shit sucks. My partner and I have basically committed to co-owning a plex with some trusted friends with all of us contributing into the mortgage because owning a home that isn't sucking you dry on condo fees is a pipe dream. We'll form our own community enclave and if we have unused units in the building rent them out at maintenance cost to family who can't live independently or need a leg up. Partner has a cousin in prison who's going to need a place to stay when they're out.
I guess the median can be staying the same while the upper percentiles get richer and buy more second homes and investment homes.
if you owned an apartment, wouldn't you need to pay maintenance/ fees to whatever sort of organization owned the building?
