this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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People require to land to live on, it is a basic necessity, and basic necessities absolutely should not be considered an investment.
What should people invest in then? How is land ownership handled? Etc etc etc
Literally any other type of business.
People should still be able to own land for their own personal use. Land used to extract wealth on the other hand should be more tightly controlled. We should ideally implement georgism to free up the land that the rich own and to increase land use efficiency. After that ownership should look pretty much identical.
You've just eliminated perhaps the safest, most attainable method for the average person to achieve passive income.
Other than living on it, why would someone want to own land?
If the "safest most attainable way" to get wealth requires others to be homeless or unable to afford a basic necessity then it isn't not worth it.
And it arguably isn't the most attainable way, because so many people are being priced out of owning a home because of the current system's failures.
To use it for a business or enjoyment. I'm not sure where you are going with this.
The average person is not a landlord
This is wealth extraction
So you're okay with some rich person owning acreage as long as it's for their own enjoyment but not for a normal dude who has an investment property and is holding out for a renter that will adequately cover his costs and generate some profit?
Yup. I'm ok with some kinds, just not the kind that fucks over the creation/distribution of basic necessities.
Yeah that's bullshit too and shouldn't be allowed. Even for personal use/enjoyment there should be a hard limit.
That's bullshit too.
Like what? There are infinite ways to make money with land that are more useless and exploitative to society than renting a house.
I'm glad you changed your mind.
Why?! What's so morally reprehensible about someone working hard and being fiscally responsible to provide a service that people actually need as opposed to an ice cream shop or whatever? Do you realize someone has to actually build/maintain/renovate houses? Usually at great financial risk to themselves? The primary reason most houses exist is because someone took a personal risk in the hopes of coming out ahead from where they were originally. They can only charge what the market will bear after all.
Anything not needed for human survival.
This is just a whataboutism fallacy.
Landlords do no more to provide housing than ticket scalpers do to provide concert tickets.
Landlords don't work hard. Owning is not a job that provides for society.
I sure am aware. And I'm always aware that the people who do those things aren't landlords. They're construction workers and maintenance workers.
The landlords take no such risk because the demand for housing is so high that any vacancies can be filled as quick as they like.
Funny how "what the market can bare" equates to entire generations being priced out of owning a home.
A thriving business selling stuff people don't need for them to buy with excess capital they no longer have.
No you're just ignoring a hole in your argument. I could profitably buy a plot of land and use it to store pig feces which happens in North Carolina.
This analogy doesn't track. They aren't selling something the person could otherwise afford or even want to buy.
Massive overgeneralization. I know contractors that built houses and eventually built one and rented it out for additional income. This means they worked to make the money to buy the land and the materials and invested their own time in building it which saved them a ton on labor costs. Somebody moved into it and lived there (e.g. value). Somebody should report them to the secret police!
Again. Sometimes that's the case. Sometimes it's a dude taking care of everything himself on the weekend.
You've never had to clean up a house destroyed by drug addicts. Believe me they can do a ton of damage. There's plenty of risk. No one in this thread understands that though.
I wonder if the macroeconomic factors could play into that? You know? Stagnating wages, a falling dollar, endless wars, cronyism, endless immigration, enriching Blackrock during the 2008 bank crisis so that it can single handedly buy more single-family homes than any other entity in American history. Nope it's Jim from work that rents a condo.
That's not true because housing is not the only form of wealth.
And did I say I approve of that? No. That's why it is a whataboutism fallacy. The topic is housing. Pointing out other horrible ways to use land doesn't change the fact that the current housing situation is bullshit.
More people could afford to own their house if not for landlords hoarding the supply.
Those cases are rare.
https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/landlord-statistics
This is again a rare case.
It's all of the above. Landlords are a part of the problem, and I never once said they are the sole problem.
When what you're selling is a limited resource necessary for survival, "what the market will bear" easily becomes "all the money you make". Otherwise you end up homeless and won't be making any money.
And? Should we be trying to help people earn income for doing dick all?
Yeah because they just plucked the property off of a tree... people often work years and years to get enough for a property investment and it can take 30 years to pay it off. Throughout all that time they are responsible for maintenance, insurance and a litany of other things to keep it from falling into disrepair.
It can take 30 years for the tenants to pay it off. Landlords aren't paying for that out of the goodness of their hearts. It's instead ultimately the tenants.
They hire people to do that, they don't do it themselves.
This is why you don't get it. I spent my childhood cutting grass and repairing shit at a property owned by an elderly family member on a fixed income. We didn't have money to hire someone to do it and tons of people are in the same boat. We did it for free because it was the best thing for everyone involved including tenants who often stayed for years because it was a nice place to live. No one got rich off of that property believe me.
You getting exploited for free labor by your landlord grandparents only further proves my point that landlords don't actually do any work.
They managed it as long as they could. Have you ever had a family before? You're supposed to help each other. It's what people have done for all of time.
You've missed my point.
What do you think "passive" means in the term "passive income"? I don't care if it becomes harder to earn "passive income", especially if it's coming from people just doing what is necessary to survive.