• Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It’s also how they turn to technology to make it harder to really feel like you’re actually renting. Instead of keys, you have a door with a code, but you don’t control it, so if you’re even five minutes late with rent, they’ll change the code and lock you out. Just like with places like Google, it’s about removing humans and having a lot of this shit automated, despite how dehumanzing the automation is to the people who have to use such services. When you’re being fucked over and can’t even find a human to talk to, it’s dehumanizing.

        • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          At least that’s how it is in blue states and cities.

          I see you have never lived in a blue area with a Sheriff that refused to enforce things they don’t like. I lived through a COVID denying Sheriff getting so many cops killed from COVID that they had to shut down the local jail because too many cops and inmates were dying because bad ventilation and general refusal of the cops to take any type of masking or social distancing seriously.

          I mean, nationwide, COVID became the number one killer of cops during the pandemic.

          I mean fuck, right now in most major cities in Washington (Seattle/Tacoma) you have had cops admitting that they were refusing to respond to calls as a political act. Literally trying to make people afraid by not showing up.

          But sure, you can totally rely on the cops in these situations to show up and help. Especially in a reasonable amount of time. /s

        • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          It’s an evil industry.

          People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. -Adam Smith

    • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What’s ruining the real estate market is the fact it’s literally illegal to build enough housing on the vast majority of urban land (same situation in Canada, too). Add in insane parking minimum laws, setback requirements, lot size minimums, etc., and what you get is artificial government-mandated ultra low-density sprawl.

      It’s the ultimate form of regulatory capture to protect the “investments” of speculators and homeowners. Typically under the guise of “protecting property values” or “protecting neighborhood character”. Just consider: who benefits most from artificially restricting new competition than the owners of existing housing? Restrict new supply so that you can see the value of what you already possess go to the moon… all at the expense of the rest of society, of course.

      If you have 9 homes for every 10 households, price will go up until one of those households is priced out of the market. If we built more and made there be 10 homes for every 9 households, landlords – corporate or not – would be stripped of their market power to raise rent.

      The evidence backs this up. Any new housing, even “luxury” or market-rate, improves affordability:

      New buildings decrease rents in nearby units by about 6% relative to units slightly farther away or near sites developed later, and they increase in-migration from low-income areas. We show that new buildings absorb many high-income households and increase the local housing stock substantially.

      And more flexible zoning helps contain rising rents:

      But what happens to rents after new homes are built? Studies show that adding new housing supply slows rent growth—both nearby and regionally—by reducing competition among tenants for each available home and thereby lowering displacement pressures. This finding from the four jurisdictions examined supports the argument that updating zoning to allow more housing can improve affordability.

      In all four places studied, the vast majority of new housing has been market rate, meaning rents are based on factors such as demand and prevailing construction and operating costs. Most rental homes do not receive government subsidies, though when available, subsidies allow rents to be set lower for households that earn only a certain portion of the area median income. Policymakers have debated whether allowing more market-rate—meaning unsubsidized—housing improves overall affordability in a market. The evidence indicates that adding more housing of any kind helps slow rent growth. And the Pew analysis of these four places is consistent with that finding. (See Table 1.)

      In addition, we can tax land:

      Land value taxes are generally favored by economists as they do not cause economic inefficiency, and reduce inequality.[2] A land value tax is a progressive tax, in that the tax burden falls on land owners, because land ownership is correlated with wealth and income.[3][4] The land value tax has been referred to as “the perfect tax” and the economic efficiency of a land value tax has been accepted since the eighteenth century.[1][5][6]

      It’s a progressive, essentially impossible to evade tax that incentivizes densification and development while disincentivizing real estate speculation. Oh, and it can’t be passed on tenants, both in theory and in practice.

      And even a milquetoast LVT – such as in the Australian Capital Territory – can have positive impacts:

      It reveals that much of the anticipated future tax obligations appear to have been already capitalised into lower land prices. Additionally, the tax transition may have also deterred speculative buyers from the housing market, adding even further to the recent pattern of low and stable property prices in the Territory. Because of the price effect of the land tax, a typical new home buyer in the Territory will save between $1,000 and $2,200 per year on mortgage repayments.

      !yimby@lemmy.world

      !justtaxland@lemmy.world

        • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes, there is price fixing. You know how that works? By artificially restricting competition through regulatory capture, aka restrictive zoning.

          All the evidence point to zoning reform and actually legally allowing things like missing middle housing to be effective ways to control rising rents. If you clicked on one of the above links, you’d see this table:

          Also recall from the same report:

          In all four places studied, the vast majority of new housing has been market rate, meaning rents are based on factors such as demand and prevailing construction and operating costs.

          https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2023/04/17/more-flexible-zoning-helps-contain-rising-rents

          You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

          I have found that the people calling for just changing the zoning laws usually have a bulldozer right behind their shoulder waiting to be sent.

          Well you didn’t even read the second half of my comment where I also called for taxing land.

          PS Trickle down housing doesn’t work. The end.

          Ah, yes, the old trick of calling everything you don’t like “trickle down”. Should the solution to the toilet paper shortages of 2020 have been to lock down new supply and wage a moral crusade against toilet paper scalpers? Or just actually get supply back to normal to avoid the whole situation in the first place?

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s a good point. I could probably just buy a house if all the corporations weren’t buying up properties and inflating prices.