• hamid 🏴@vegantheoryclub.org
    ·
    1 day ago

    Good thing the democrats are running on a platform of giving out 25k towards "down payment assistance" that will function to drive up the cost of homes and down payments and function as a giant give away to landlords who are the only ones who will ever get that cash.

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 days ago

    i wouldn't say brewing so much as has boiled over and exploded all over the kitchen 15 years ago, dried, and now the entire place is sticky and smells like a sewage pipe backed up.

    the phenomenon of "people can't live where they work" has metastasized and spread to hundreds if not thousands of small communities, where the provisioning of labor for essential services in a location does not pay enough for the people providing that labor to reside in that community. so there's a cascading effect of people who live in City A being served by people who live in Town B (with less functional services), who receive services from people in Town C with each town being more destitute and broke with worse services. and I don't even mean like just hospitality people which has been a problem for much longer, I mean like nurses, city workers, teachers, various professionals. All these people providing essential work to a place are commuting from outside the boundary, where there is worse infrastructure/services just so they can find affordable housing and attempt to build some kind of equity after a decade of working. all so they can feel like that equity provides them agency in how they might retire, because unless you "own" your residence, your ability to persists in a place is at the whims of someone else.

  • TheDoctor [they/them]
    ·
    1 day ago

    That’s a lot of vacant homes. How many people are unsheltered? That might help fill them.

    • CarbonScored [any]
      ·
      19 hours ago

      There has always been many-fold the number of homeless people compared to empty homes in America. It hovers around 10 empty homes / person who needs a home.

      Most efficient system apparently cool-zone

    • coeliacmccarthy [he/him]
      ·
      1 day ago

      america would burn every vacant home to the ground before giving them to the homeless

      a visible dehumanized example of what can happen to you if you don't please your boss is the beating heart of the american organism

      • peeonyou [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        much like the fast food business does with their food waste

        when i worked at burger king we were told to throw out any pre-made burgers that had sat under the heating lamp for more than 10 minutes

        those burgers went into a box that was then taken out to a locked dumpster every 3 hours

        there was a LOT of waste

        sometimes people would try to get into that dumpster and every single time a manager would be on them immediately, always threatening to call the cops

      • Pentacat [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        America won’t burn the homes. Don’t be ridiculous. They’ll open them up to IOF soldiers so they can rotate out of the holocaust for a little R&R.

        It’s a two-birds-one-stone solution, because the IOF can brutally kill any squatters to feel at ease and at home during their visits.

  • D61 [any]
    ·
    2 days ago

    Huh... who could have predicted that falling wages and increasing home rental prices would mean that lots of rental units would be sitting vacant for longer and longer periods of time?

    Its funny, in the laugh to keep from crying in despair kind of way, that landlords as a group are inclined to keep posting higher rental prices for their units because no individual wants to be the first to "lose" money by reducing their rates to get somebody in the units.

    Is the appearance of having something that could at some future date produce "x" amount of revenue more important that actually generating revenue?

    Perfectly efficient economic system we've got right here. skeleton-motorcycle

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]
      ·
      2 days ago

      landlords as a group are inclined to keep posting higher rental prices for their units because no individual wants to be the first to "lose" money by reducing their rates to get somebody in the units.

      I was thinking about this the other day and how funny it would be if someone just destroyed the entire market overnight by cutting their losses and cashing out. Like maybe they have $10 billion invested into vacant homes, but decide it's better to lose $5 billion now vs. waiting another decade to try and get the full $10 billion. So they sell everything off at way, way below market rates. It's not a small amount either, so another investor can't just swoop in and get the $10 billion by buying this person out.

      From there, it dominoes out of control where people are buying $500k homes for $200~300k. Competitors can't keep up with how fast the homes are sold to individual families, yet they see their current investments now at risk of losing serious amounts of money.

      This would never happen because landlords wouldn't be landlords if they had the foresight to pull it off, but I can dream of China doing it to torpedo North America's housing market.

      • invo_rt [he/him]
        ·
        2 days ago

        but I can dream of China doing it to torpedo North America's housing market.

        xi-button

        • Dingus_Khan [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          1 day ago

          Imagine the chud rage if China actually started buying US real estate en masse the way they already think is happening

          • coolusername@lemmy.ml
            ·
            edit-2
            18 hours ago

            Chinese (individuals) have been buying US housing before the recent bubble in prices, because they were seen as a good investment, and they were proven correct. Media says it's all corrupt "SEESEEPEE" officials trying to hide their money.

      • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
        ·
        1 day ago

        A lot of it depends upon how much it costs to hang on to a stagnant asset. If you're not renting out a house, you're still paying property tax on it.

        Cities can use this to a desired outcome by raising property taxes, in equal percentage points to an "Owner-Occupied" exemption. This is assuming that there aren't tax loopholes being exploited, or that those loopholes are closed.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      1 day ago

      Is the appearance of having something that could at some future date produce “x” amount of revenue more important that actually generating revenue?

      That's not all, the future potential revenue can be even more important than their own lives, ask kulaks.

  • Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 days ago

    Don't worry everyone. All the green space in my neighborhood was just bought up by single developer who plans on building 1 room homes on 50ft lots and selling them for starting at $350k.

    • Infamousblt [any]
      ·
      2 days ago

      Sounds like the school in my neighborhood that was bought so that it could be turned into luxury studios. 2500/mo for 650 sq ft and you can visit the coffee shop in the old gymnasium! This is totally normal and sustainable

  • DragonBallZinn [he/him]
    ·
    2 days ago

    Maybe? Brewing? It's been here since like 2008.

    Just tax land values and do the opposite of what wall street wants, problem solved.

    • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      1 day ago

      do the opposite of what wall street wants, problem solved.

      It doesn't actually matter what the economic problem is, this is nearly always the solution.