We should prevent people from buying more than 1, maybe 2 homes

It only makes sense that allowing rich people to out-bid poor people, for 2nd, 3rd, or multiple homes for "rental properties" deprives the poor of the ability to buy a house for themselves, and forces them to mis-allocate their meager capital into the hands of the rich via RENT which...

As all who read Adam Smith should know...

Adam Smith called Rent "idiocy" and the people who live off Rent he basically (in fine 18th century English) called them lazy rooster suckers. (his words not mine).

And so crashes the real estate market...

Do Republicans hate the free market?

Why do you like artificially inflated housing prices created by wrongful investment (rental land-lords straight out of Feudalism) and absurdly long Mortgages that only the wealthy can qualify for (30 year mortgages for instance).

If you had to buy houses in cash only, and could only buy one house, like the Republicans used to require of people regarding land purchases...then the price of houses wouldn't be artificially HIGH.

Why do you hate capitalism? John Castle is trying hard to make people think his DL is a lefty. Clearly, he is actually brain damaged enough to think his politics is why he was banned.

Can you explain the sense in rental property?

Why do you hate people actually owning something they pay for?

But the poor are allowed to buy and sell houses just like the rich. In fact, one of the reasons the United States became rich is exactly because we allowed a free market in property and real estate. Poor folks would go out onto the frontier and develop a farm. After a few years of building it they'd turn around and sell it, pocketing the profits and starting over again. In their wake were people buying those farms, improving them, and flipping them. The same thing happened in the cities. This allowed the poor to become real estate speculators, legal property holders, and allowed them to use those properties as collateral on loans to start businesses. Our property system was the result of the genius of the poor and working class, who made the rules to benefit themselves.

It was completely different than the property systems in Europe that were set up by the rich aristocrats for the rich aristocrats. In many countries to this day it can take 20 to 40 years to get the deed to a house your family has lived in for three generations. Those same people can fly to Miami and buy a house the day they land.

Don't give us this crap. The poor cannot AFFORD to buy and sell houses.

This is the same garbage Republicans say about "gays being allowed to marry the opposite sex". Well no duh.

The US did not allow free market in property and real estate.

The US is insanely wealthy because it effectively colonized over 10 million acres of farm land with about 1 family per 160 acres.

Know how it accomplished that? By a government policy that PREVENTED government land sales to CORPORATIONS and required the OWNER to LIVE on the land.

Effectively creating a 1 person, 1 house rule.

Who implemented this policy? The Republicans, so I am only basically arguing for the EXACT same policy republicans used to support. Sounds pretty communist, that's because it is.

The Republicans didn't even exist back when we were hacking our way past the Appalachians. They didn't build our property system, and of course corporations bought land all the time. Heck, the Founding Fathers were into real estate speculation. George Washington lost his shirt at it. Ever since the Pilgrims landed, everybody could own as many houses as they wanted. Rich people just didn't come here, which is why our legal and property systems are based on the common law systems used by poor people in England, not the pretentious and lordly property systems used by the aristocrats over there, where they king doled out land to nobles. The common law systems we brought became the basis of Colonial law, which became the basis of US law. Essentially, we use the rules of the free market, which were the rules of the black market in Europe. The reason that we don't have black markets like you find in the Third World is that our black market is legalized.

The Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto, who is possibly the greatest economist in history, wrote several books on how the third world black market system works, especially regarding property, and concluded that the key to American wealth was a series of laws passed in Frankfort Kentucky, where all the elected officials were also pioneers, as were their constituents. They passed a law that allowed anyone to claim land, regardless of all outstanding claims from land grants by the US government, the King of England, or the King of Spain. It was struck down by the Supreme Court. Frankfort passed the law again. It was struck down again. It was passed again, and it stuck, and other states copied it. That allowed anyone to become a land holder, something that was quite difficult to accomplish in Europe. It allowed ordinary people to speculate, invest, flip property, develop rental properties, or do anything else they desired.

Ah, the Terrible Writer™ returns, with a new persona. How... quaint.

Easily. Increased total demand increases price thus spurring the creation of additional supply. It also makes supply available to those who do not have the means to purchase on their own. All in all great for the economy and for society at large.

You apparently know nothing about the Haynes-Webster Debate which later culminated in Lincoln's land policies which then later were implemented in the 1870s-1920s.

Wrong. Why is it the US median wage is flat but the price of homes has increased dramatically since 1970s? Answer...30 year mortgages and rental properties.

"Dammit, I'm working three minimum wage jobs, just barely making ends meet, and I just got outbid on this place by some rich guy who wants it as a third home. Coulda been mine. There oughta be a law."

....the fuck is this ghey ass bullshit?

I'm pretty sure people rented prior to 1870. In fact, I'm pretty sure people did absolutely everything we currently do with property before then, except for stupid things like trading in insurance options on tranches of bundled mortgages. This just in: You can read any novel written in America since white folks first waded onshore and the one thing you won't have wrap your mind around is their concept of real estate and home ownership, because it is the same one we have now, minus some fancy frills about mortgage deductions or home owners associations. You build it, you buy it, you own it. You own it, you can sell it (except to blacks during the DNC's heyday).

It is a fact that more developers build homes thus increasing supply when prices go up. Landlords buying homes increases demand and thus price spurring greater building. That is good for the economy just like landlords have to rent the rental house to someone thus allowing people who cannot afford to buy a home to at least get use of it.

Do you realize that your grasp of cause and effect and obvious economics will one day make you a Republican or some sort of version of one? It's a red pill, blue pill thing. You wake up and look and a bunch of weird faces who agree with your worldview.

It's actually pretty expensive to build a house. No developer is going to do it if he can't sell for cost plus profit. Not all renters have the resources to buy at the price required to support construction. So if we forbid landlords from buying, those houses won't be built. That's a recipe for higher prices as demand for older housing stock pressures a limited supply. If you want to build housing that can be purchased by people with lesser means, you need to subsidize the construction cost. This can be done through charitable efforts (ie Habitat for Humanity) or by redistributive government programs. But I don't think it's possible or even desirable to eliminate all rental properties.

It's spelled, "gay".

Without commenting on the legitimacy of post #12's true applicability to the US housing situation, because I Am Not An Economist, I think it should go without saying -- and I think I made a similar point in the Finland thread just the other day -- that if the seller can tap the buyer's cash on hand plus what the buyer can expect to earn over the next three decades, the price will tend to be higher than if the seller can only tap the buyer's cash on hand.

Gay = ass pirates

Ghey = ass hat, or asshattery such as this.

Kthnxz

Which makes homes affordable when they otherwise wouldn't be, so that's a good thing. Why are mortgages bound to banks better than rent, IDNeon?

Adam Smith.

There are plenty of reasons one might prefer to rent than buy, even if he could afford to buy.

IIRC it was Ted Turner who in an article said "No one needs more than 300 million dollars".

He seriously laid it out what you could get for 100 million dollars. A mansion. a summer home, a winter home, a nice boat, a helicopter and a private jet. He said you could all that for 100 million and then pay for it with the return on investment from the remaining 200 million.

I agree with that.

Yeah but that was in 1980 dollars. 300 million doesn't get what it used to. Today you need a cool billion.

Actually IIRC this was back around 2000.

I refuse to live on less than $500 million, and my tastes are far less extravagant than Ted Turner's. I have almost no interest in winning the America's Cup, for example. Although I wouldn't turn down the chance to own a baseball team.

At the risk of appearing that I'm taking this thread seriously, there are advantages to renting over buying. I'm only posting in this thread because I've heard the "renting is stupid" argument before.

Buying costs less in the long run, it's an investment, and at the end, the buyer owns something. However, they are also responsible for that property. If one rents, the landlord is responsible.

I've never owned my own home, but I've lived in both rented homes and those owned by someone I live with. I generally prefer the rented housing. Usually, I'm not responsible for landscaping, and I'm never responsible for property upkeep unless I damage something. Something breaks in an owned house, I have to fix it myself, or find someone to fix it for me, which costs me time and/or money. If I'm renting and something breaks, I just call the landlord, and it becomes his problem. When I was a teenager, my mom owned a trailer. At one point the water heater broke, she couldn't afford to replace it, so I had to take cold showers for several months. Taking cold showers is right after "getting my dick caught in my zipper" on my list of things I hate. Also, it was winter. Several years later, my mom was renting a slightly smaller trailer. The water heater broke there too. Two days later, management sent a guy to put in a new one, and it cost her nothing. Her rent was also lower than the mortgage payment at the other trailer.

With mobile homes in general, buying is a bad idea. Well, if it's a "handyman's special" that costs $100 it's probably not a bad investment, but new ones are expensive, their resale value is practically non-existent, and one still has to rent or buy land to put it on on top of the mortgage.

If one can afford the time, money, and effort it takes to maintain property, buying is better. If not, then renting is better.