The problem isn't people owning an extra house for a nest egg. It's companies owning hundreds of them.
If housing is an investment ("a nest egg") then the people and policies that support it as an investment will stand directly opposed to people and policies that want housing to be affordable and a right.
Housing cannot be an investment vehicle akin to stocks in a society that meaningfully values housing for everyone as an objective to strive for.
Real estate as an investment, retirement provision or object of speculation is precisely the problem. Every home that gets bought as an investment in an inflated housing market directly contributes to the problem, by cutting people out of the opportunity of ownership and making them dependent on paying rent.
I'm far less concerned about individuals buying an extra house they can rent out. I'm more concerned with hedge funds buying up cities with cash offers that normal people can't compete with.
I personally wouldn't own multiple homes for many reasons, but for people trying to eject out of the corporate grind, I get it.
Are you denying another family a house they would've otherwise been able to buy? Then yes.
Not necessarily. We were a young family that had to move quite a bit for my job. We made due with apartments, but we preferred renting a house. We were in no position to buy, and we knew we were only in the area short term, so we appreciated house rentals.
Honest people with a second or third home for rent aren't doing any harm.
I like what Mike Lynch (famous leader of one of UKs biggest union) said during his Novara media interview.. I'll paraphrase from memory. "Back in the day, your retirement was secured with your job. You'd get a pension from your employer when you get to retirement age. Then Thatcher and Reagan happen.. Now days, there's no security, benefits or high salaries anymore. So people do whatever they need to do to secure their retirement. And if it's buying another property, so be it."
Quick edit: before anyone gets angry. Neither myself or him want this to continue. It's shit and we should fight to bring back dignity to people's careers. But until that's sorted, I think it's ethical to care for your own and your family's survival.
Thanks for this. I've been having an internal debate myself over the ethical implications given the state of so many struggling with housing. I'm maybe 5 years out from paying off my home and have considered buying another home at that point for income as I get older. When I say income, the only reason I'm considering buying a house are exactly the reasons you listed; career instability, retirement income instability, but also medical care costs that are impossible to project in the future other than "astronomical".
When I'm thinking of a second home income it's so I can pay for a future hospital visit for me or my partner, not lie on a beach in the tropics. It's maybe something for my child so they don't have to start from zero or experience housing insecurity. It's a relatively very privileged position compared to many in the US, but I'm not looking to gouge some poor renter, just be able to have basics in old age. Basics, however, now require relatively large amount of privilege thanks to conservatives stripping them away for 50 years.
I'm still undecided, but I appreciate the nuanced take.
We have a second house (a trailer, really) and rent it to my mom for way under market rate. 100% of the rent goes to paying off the debt from rehabilitating the trailer and paying off her utilities. It's not like we're out here just raking in the dough, we're just trying to keep my mom from being homeless. I know for damn sure we've got to do it, because the state is way happier spending its money bashing homeless people instead of preventing homeless people.
I own a 2nd property but bought it for my son to live in. I figured that if I was going to be providing that much financial assistance that I'd rather buy a condo than pay rent.
There's a lot to unpack here. My two cents are:
- progressively higher property taxes for every additional one (probably with an upper limit)
- restrictions and heavy taxes on short term rentals
- any house that's not a permanent short term rental (with associated taxation) and has not been the object of a long term rental for some reasonable amount of time, gets forcibly put on the rental market at a government fixed rate
- heavy fines for and seizure of properties intentionally left unoccupied to artificially inflate rents
progressively higher property taxes for every additional one (probably with an upper limit)
I agree in principle but I think we should clarify whether that additional house is intended for short term rental, lomg term rental, or an additional "vacation" house. I think all 3 should have different taxation schemes.
I'd imagine those would be separate taxes. One is a property tax because you own that property, and then if you earn money from it via short or long term rentals you pay taxes on that.
I mean someone who owns 4 houses just so he can visit them throughout the year should be paying a higher rate of property tax than someone who owns 4 houses but rents out 3 of them to long term tenants. Probably more in property tax than the landlord pays in property + rental income tax.
I see what you mean, that makes sense.
You could probably sell it as an incentive thing. Rent your property, pay less property tax on it.
But I'd say the tax on rent should still be there, and be proportional to it. Since the property tax would also be dependent on the value of the property, what you say could still be true.
I think such questions are hard to answer in general. I would say a person living in one (small to normal sized) flat and owning + renting another isn't worse than one person 'occupying' just one but bigger livingspace. If an old lady lives alone in a big house where there are sufficient rooms for 6 people+ she's taking away as much property from the market as the small-scale landlord. Sure that's not optimal for society but I also wouldn't necessarily consider that unethical.
If there is a housing crisis in an area, one can argue that short time rentals are evil but also short term rentals are important to some extent. If everything becomes an AirBnb that's obviously bad but I think there's also a healthy amount of that. If a city or region has a lot of tourists or business travellers, they need to live somewhere and traditional hotels don't work for everyone.
From my perspective, there must be a healthy balance of personal livingspaces to buy, for long term rent, for short term rent and commercial buildings. Regulating that healthy ratio should be a task for politicians. Unfortunately, I have to admit that government regulation is not exactly working fine in most parts of the world.
With our european housing market, that old lady or man might not even be able to move to a smaller size, even if they wanted to. Or, they might have a ton of kids and grand kids sleep overs, or kids that need to move back (happens a lot in our country) because they cannot find a place to live, so i generally try to be careful not to assume things when i don't know details. It's something that is basically the fault of our politicians, who could see this problem coming decades ago, but decided not to act. It's not always the fault of people that are stuck in a house that became too big and can't move because there just is no smaller appartment available, but the people who voted for politicians who let buildings be bought up by greedy investors. Edit to clarify my agreeing with your points
We have this nightmare in the UK. I'm very fortunate to have a small house just about paying mortgage on a tiny wage, but not really big enough to rent a room. I feel bad for people in their 40s (even couples) who can't afford a starter home because all the properties are locked up in a rental market.
I think owning anything more than your primary home as a residential unit is unethical.
I don't consider it unethical. For example if my father dies and I inherit his house where I grew up, he grew up, his father grew up and his grandfather built. That house has a lot of sentimental value in it. I have settled down very far from there. What am I supposed to do? Throw away the family legacy or uproot my entire life?
I think as long as I don't rent it out it's acceptable to own it. It's just extra cost for me to keep something of sentimental value in the family. I'd even be okay with paying extra tax on it considering I think every house you own that you don't live in should be taxed extra.
Ah yes, your family legacy of a house no one lives in is more important than a human beings ability to have shelter
Damn. Moral systems gonna depend on the economy too?
It really is the new deity!
A lot places are making zoning laws against short term rentals, or making the permits prohibitively expensive. Where I live, there is an often repeated narrative about a "housing shortage" but the reality is the population is going down every year and apartment complexes and housing developments are spreading like rashes. Corporations are buying them up in order to control the market.
A family renting out their mom's house that they inherited after she died because they already bought a house and don't want to live in hers? Are they assholes for not just selling the place (likely to a corp) and investing that money in other ways? No.. I don't think so..?
I believe business should be limited in ownership of single family homes for sure.
Where? In areas with tight housing markets, maybe. In places with houses in abundance, I don't think so.
I have a second home but I inherited it. It would need 100s of ks in renos to rent out. It wouldn’t bring me much money to sell it - would probably need to sell for land value only.
But - it’s a place of refuge for my family member in an emotionally abusive relationship, a friend struggling with her marriage, a crash space if anyone I love is in a rough spot. It’s brought my family together and it’s where we gather.
I don’t think this is wrong because I am using it for net positive purposes in the long term, and someone otherwise probably couldn’t use it - it would be a tear-down.
I don't think so. People need homes, but not all people can buy homes. If you can afford to maintain the property to a reasonable level without completely gouging your tenants, I think you're providing a valuable service to your fellow citizens.
We don't get along, but my landlord is an old lady who bought 2-3 blocks of apartments after her husband left her a bunch of oil money. She keeps up the grounds (for the most part) and my rent has been pegged to inflation since I moved in. If people like her didn't exist, people like me would be stuck renting from a big property company.
Yes
It depends.
I think 1 home per adult is fine, for instance.
I also think some places are designed to be short term rentals and have a heavy tourist local economy.
I personally would like to tie some extra taxes to people that own more than one home.
I’m thinking of buying a property near a lakeside town. Ideally it would be a townhouse or have 2-3 separate houses or cabins on the property; one for me and my SO to live in 2/3rds of year, the others for rentals or guests.
Does that make me an asshole?
Tax multihome owners on an exponential curve.
Curve gets relaxed as the housed proportion of the population nears 100%.
Every restaurant and store that fails fails because of rent. Owning a property you're not living out of or doing business in should be illegal.
There are three aspects of the economy. Labour, capital, and landowner. Of the three only landowner contributes nothing.
Idk, I think the restaurant Don Pancho owned failed because of the roach infestation my comadre reported.
Whenever this comes up I find people are incapable of grasping the scale of the issue.
Owning a second home isn't unethical. I think a rental market in an economy is healthy. This can be provided by individuals or companies.
The issue is supply and demand. The houses cost that much because people will pay it. Why? Well there isn't enough for everyone. If renting was banned housing numbers would drop. It would short term help some people buy a house but more people would be out on their arse than magically in a house they own. The issue is then increased in the next generation. Banning renting is not the answer.
Why is there a supply and demand issue? Because people with wealth want to keep it that way. If someone lives in a house and intends to say in it until they die it doesn't matter if their house is would 0 or value of an entire country. People buying and selling for a profit in the future is the issue not renting. That profit is only their with supply and demand issues getting worse so no new houses can be built. This means zoning laws, no higher density when a city gets 100x more people and no building on greenery meaning the city can't go up or out (going up is much, much better). No new cities are built. Then for demand issues population must go up at all costs, so immigration is a must. These same people have businesses usually so this is good because it can also keep wages down by getting people in from the third world and keeping house prices high and wages low.
Then there is the issue of debt and intergenerational transfer of wealth from the young to the old. Which really fucks with an economy and society at large when you think about it.
The solutions are this. The world and countries are finite, population would ideally go down. There is demand for high density buildings. Build it, knock down entire areas and rebuild. Build a new city, build more public transport to nearby towns that can be commutable. Just build! The young start off in debt and give money to corporations or the older generations that have no debt and everything they need for life. The youth need things so give it to them. Even low government loans or even better money. You need 20% deposit get a cash transfer from the government at say 25 worth 20% of an average house national wide. That will sort out the problem.
There is so so much money held up in mortgages and rent that if houses prices collapsed a lot more people would have a lot more discretionary income to spend and that would grow the economy.
To be honest, the mix of it is, I understand the concept of your hardwork going to essentially a pension for yourself. Which is what historically reliable invests typically amount too, but I also see removing access to liviable land and the houses on them as unethical in a world where people don't have housing.
I would prefer more modest investments like loans to cooperatives, government bonds, and mural funds over it and instead choose to take the surplus value to create things like community land trusts or housing coops to make where you live more safe and sustainable.
There is also the choice to invest in micro generation of energy, community or personal gardens, home effeciciny, and making your home handicap friendly (which is a huge help as we age). Of course paying off debts can also be a great place to invest in to lower your liability.
Just my plans and thoughts.
I think the question should be: Are artificial barriers against increasing density of residential areas and other limitations on new housing ethical. The answer is no.
I'm always astonished when I read another news about housing getting even more expensive.
Block apartments, are mass produced goods. In the free market economy they have no right to appreciate in value, for the same reason your average car doesn't - as building houses gets more profitable, the construction industry should ramp up.
Imo, the ethical limit is 3.
- To live in
- For additional income from rental, retirement security etc.
- A country or seaside house for weekend/summer getaway
There's no real reason to own more property than that. If you have extra money to invest put it in actual business. Into new housing construction for example you get quite a return on that, and it doesn't make you unethical.
Edit: This also applies to companies. Actually companies shouldn't own any housing at all. Selling at a profit that's acceptable. Owning it as an 'investment' - absolutely not.
If we are just putting our own ethical limit, for me it's 2.
-
Main residence, a traditional home like house, townhome, condo, whatever, but with full service like garbage hydro ect as is standard for the area.
-
Land, sort of what you are saying a country home, but it has to be zoned as such, not just another home in someone else's neighbourhood. So purpose built seasonal homes, or off-grid properties with an outhouse. Not somewhere most people would be comfortable living as their primary residence year round.
After that taxes should be extreme. And companies should not be able to purchase the main residence type homes. At all. Must be a person purchasing.
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