Why isn't housing a right?
Are landlord's necessary?
Why do we need capital to house people?
I grew up at a conservative family, at least economically / politically speaking. My parents weren't that politically involved, they just voted for what felt right and "safe" come every 4 years. Part of that unfortunately was that was also classic thoughts about housing and who gets to own it (yeah, you guessed it, the people who worked hard to be able to afford one).
I'm now 30, and although I was raised conservative... I had a recent deeper reflection about the industry of real estate. I said the landlords are a necessary evil, the classic housing vs. supply argument. Housing needs capital to be built. Housing needs a good, "decent"? return on capital in order for more to be built. Large landlords are good because they have greater efficiences at operating assets so on a larger scale they can provide housing cheaper. The more landlords the better (competition is good for the market and consumers).
But wait, why are we constrained to capitalism, or at least this aspect of capitalism to provide housing? I believe in the market fundamentals and positive of capitalism - but why does housing have to be an asset class at all? We are thinking way to small box here.
Land owners - that whole phrase just doesn't even sound right
Cool, don’t entirely disagree with you in an ethical way. But who’s going to pay for it, the government? If so, where are they pulling the capital to build, manage, redevelop assets. If no one is paying rent, how do they maintain buildings? If it’s a right, I’m guessing no tax so how do you make up for property taxes?Genuinely curious to hear your thoughts process for the questions above.
Sorry for typos, typing on phone.
Why hasn't our current system solved this problem yet? I'm not saying I'm smart enough to know a better way
That’s a cop out answer. Don’t flake out now that you asked the question. How would you solve the problem of capital? That’s the problem. Who’s paying for it?
You haven’t studied Adam smith enough
Housing, education, medical care, etc., require someone else putting their time and money into servicing you. Why are you entitled to another person's effort? You have a right to free speech, to vote, and to live as you please because that only concerns you and your personal needs. But you don't have a right to a teacher spending hours to teach your kids, or a team of construction workers working to build you a home. These things have to be paid for.
People should stop using the abstract notion of "rights" to refer to goods and services. Everything should be considered in pragmatic terms, i.e., who will pay for this good/service, and how much will an individual gain from accessing it? We agree that having a well-educated populace is good for social and economic health, so taxpayers pay for it not because it is a "right" but because it is good for society. Unemployment benefits and subsidized housing exist due to our societal standard that no one should suffer too harshly in hard times, so taxpayers take it upon themselves to ease the burden. This is an entitlement, not a god-given right.
"Rights" concern your inner goals. They shouldn't obligate others to spend their time or money for your sake.
Money / the dollar can be still a tool used to trade services and buy goods, I don't disagree
I think it is clear market dynamics aren’t working for this and that the market can’t fix it. World governments need to step in and some companies and billionaires will be the losers. Captilism doesn’t address where the initial resources are coming from in the first place, and whether it was right to who owned them at first
We tried this. Public housing exists. At least in the United States, it was an abject failure, because the incentives aren't aligned for either party. Governments are really bad at being landlords. Politicians are really bad at making difficult decisions. Tenants who get very little in the way of services (because they pay extremely little in rent) are really bad at maintaining their apartments, or paying rent in the first place.
Frankly, the entire question is lazy and stupid. You have every right to go live where you want. You can set up a shack in the woods and no one will really care. What the current debate around housing really encompasses is whether there is a right to live in modern housing with modern amenities in places that people want to live. It's all well and good to say everyone deserves a house, but what you really mean to say is a house with with modern appliances that is hooked up to the grid. A house with modern plumbing and running water. A house near good jobs, near supermarkets, near entertainment. See how quickly we go from "housing is a right!" to "getting everything I want at a price I can afford is a right!"?
On the contrary, market dynamics can 100% fix it. Look at Japan, they have a market economy and fairly unregulated housing market and they have no shortage of affordable housing. The reason is they have very permissable zoning codes, cheap construction that necessitates rebuilding every 30 years, and a declining populaiton, which helps. But housing is not seen as an investment, but as consumption, there is an abundance of housing near transit because developers are allowed to build it, and building is a lot cheaper because they aren't trying to make it last 200 years.
You don’t actually believe this and I have a very simple question that demonstrates this
So ask it. What are you waiting for?
You literally do - that's what public schools are. State constitutions guarantee the right to a free public education.
It's a different kind of right. They are a result of the social contract, they are not natural rights, i.e. unalienable and independent of government/society. Different societies have determined different rights for their populace, those exist on top of any ontological defense of natural rights.
Nice
At some point we're going to quit our jobs, go chop down some trees, and build ourselves a fucking log cabin. This shit is ridiculous and not slowing down.
That flippant remark perfectly demonstrates the situation. If you're not going to pay someone else for their resources and labor, you will pay with your own resources and labor. There are no solutions, only trade offs.
In some countries like Spain, it is a constitutional right.
Why are you in the most capitalistic real estate forum to bring this question?
And what everyone else said- who will pay for it, maintain it, and develop if there isn't an incentive? What happens to local budgets? - Maybe at base level there should be more affordable housing as a safety net and governments should make developing these easier. But I'm not a philosopher, economist or a politician. I don't think we'll figure it out.
Positive versus negative rights. You have the right for people not to physically harm you. You do not have the right for anyone to provide something for you. At the limit, it requires working without pay, or slavery.
If you want to make housing a "right", a much easier and simpler solution is an expansion of LIHTC / housing voucher programs. A wholesale reconstitution of the commercial real estate industry (at least multifamily) would have about a trillion knock on effects that you and I can't predict. I would say our system works pretty well. It's by no means perfect, but I feel like sometimes this "let's burn the system down" voice comes from people fed up with 2-3 housing markets in our country (I'm not going to defend NYC/LA/SF). I think capitalism usually does a pretty good job filling the housing need over the long arc of time. You can have weird pockets like 2021-2023, but even then, look, in many markets you saw historical supply and rents actually fell in 2024 and 2025.
Hard to understate how substantial of a change transitioning private ownership of housing over to public ownership would be. It's not a few billionaires losing some $, it's banks, private investors, endowments, pension plans, municipalities, shareholders of REITs, people employed by private companies that build, own, manage, service and invest in real estate, etc. etc. etc. It's just not feasible at this point.
Also - as someone who has walked through government owned housing...be very careful what you wish for.
WSO isn't letting me edit but meant "overstate" not "understate".
The only true solution is to remove government involvement. The government has no de facto shareholders so it is impossible for them to correctly allocate capital.
Lol. Look, my teenaged friend. You've recently read a book in which the phrase "allocate capital" appeared and all your little buddies were impressed when you said that in conversation. But that doesn't mean you are ready to sit down with the adults and have meaningful conversation.
Government is not a business. The job of government is not to "correctly allocate capital". Your entire premise is flawed, which is unsurprising given the manifest lack of thought you gave to it before burdening us all with it.
WSO users, and especially the conservative ones, always seem to forget that the world actually existed before Ronald Reagan became POTUS. I mean, it's a failing of conservatives in general, who as a group tend to ignore unpleasant truths in the pursuit of aggrandizing themselves at the expense of others, but it's particularly bad on WSO.
Every bit of government involvement in any aspect of life exists because the people demanded it. Governments got involved in the housing market because the private sector was unable or unwilling to provide safe, clean housing that an appropriate mass of people deemed acceptable. This isn't to say that government is good at building homes, or managing them, or efficiently allocating capital, or anything else. Merely that we've tried the alternative, of having no government involvement, and it was objectively worse.
There is no "true solution". There are only a series of more or less bad ones, because once a policy exists, there are stakeholders who stand to lose from a change. When you grow up, you'll learn that. Or maybe not, in which case, the Republican Party is always recruiting new bigots!
No one has a right to someone else’s labor. Houses require other people’s labor. You don’t have a right to that.
If I have a right to housing, who do I have that from? Are you required to build me a house? Am I required to build you a house? “It’s government’s responsibility.” Okay… government is made up of people. Again, let me know which one has the requirement to build someone else a house.
Why stop at making housing a right? Food, water, and arguably healthcare are greater needs that should be made a public good.
Many here have already cited the fiscal feasibility of providing free housing, but another way to look at it is freedom. At a certain point, the more reliant we become on the government and more goods/services the government provides, the more freedom we lose. Want to buy a $10mm mansion? Well too bad, the government owns housing and all construction contracts now, so the largest shelther they can provide you is a 1500 SF 3 bedroom apartment. Want to eat filet mignon or sushi? Nope, government's only providing cheerios. There would be no more purpose to working anymore because whether you work extra hard or do nothing, you are provided the same goods and services. This is why communism doesn't work.
I agree with your point in a broad sense, but I think this is a little reductive. I mean, right now, government does provide housing and we still have options. You can have government backstops for these things, or safety nets, and not lose all choice. Set floors, not ceilings.
Yes I agree. What i'm referring to is the most extreme form of government ownership of housing. Right now we have a mix of public and private housing, so either OP is unaware about public housing or he wants to see a lot more of it. I'm illustrating to OP what happens if the government owns all means of production and ownership
You first
I don’t know about housing necessarily, but healthcare and education should be free.
Why should they be free? Why don't you list food and water? Kind of contradictory to advocate for free healthcare and especially education, but then not advocate for even more basic needs like food and water
There is no such thing as "free". If you want to get something without paying for it, any honest person will also state who they think should pay.
I think I should get a new Rolex every year for free, too.
Our solution to housing is to build more $500k 400 sf boxes for people to live in.
The problem is we don’t spend enough time answering the question of what is dignity and is it better to build eco friendly, Ada compliant boxes with there own shower for $500k/door or is there a version of housing that provides dignity to homeless outside of this solution. Couple that with restrictions on zoning and you never solve the problem.
As to your question of why isn’t it a right - because in our current system there is not way to build enough housing.
I believe South Africa has housing as a right - maybe do some research on how they provide this.
$500k? that is very expensive
so yeah, I get it, anytime I hear someone stating "I own 18 houses" I can't stop thinking they are a parasite to society. So I wouldn't necessarily say that housing should be a right, but I would definitely cap the amount of houses someone owns because more than 2/3 is already exploitative to those first home buyers.
In some European jurisdictions you also have additional taxes if you are buying a 2nd/3rd house, but when I get a 10% return from housing demand and it costs me only 2% in additional taxes, that won't stop speculators
If a developer builds 500 units and keeps all 500 units and rents them out. Is the developer a parasite?
developers no, but the biggerpocket investors sort that think they are hot shit for leveraging their portfolios and buy more and more homes/Blackstone RE who buys those houses yes
young europeans can't afford to buy their first home, and BX just raised a 10bn European RE fund. and that's just BX, a single fund
so you tell me
I think about this from a motivational angle - humans, like all other animals, are inherently lazy. If we don't have to do anything, most of us won't. When the social safety net rises too high, productivity / workforce participation falls. The ongoing battle for Western society has been finding the balance between a productive / ambitious populace and a humane social safety net (free food / housing / medical care).
You have great points, but motivation doesn't soley have to be about money. Strong societies with strong healthcare and social nets like Scandinavia .. doctors still exist. There was no shortage of doctors in the USSR or Cuba. Also think about artists, musicians, etc. today - their motivation isnt money.
I think the resistance to work or as you call it being lazy, its people feeling like their time is being commodified... i think there is inherent resistance to that. Also quick side note... in capitalism many don't work hard either especially if you inherent wealth
There are a surplus of those individuals in those places because motivation wasn't a factor. It was merely about tested talents. It didn't make a damn bit of difference if you wanted to be a painter if you tested well enough to be a doctor.
Do you have any evidence for this claim, any evidence at all?
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the definition of what a human right is. Housing, healthcare, and even food are not "rights" by definition. The right to speech is a human right because it's mine, because I exist. Even a law that prohibits my speech can't actually stop me from speaking, even someone without the ability to speak audibly has "free speech". All the things previously mentioned are not; even if you build your own house, grow your own food, and provide yourself with medicine, you are putting in your time and effort to get those things; they are not yours because you exist. In the US, we distribute these resources through a market economy system.
The same reason slavery is against the law.
Taking aside the supply side for a moment, how do you want to determine who gets to live in which house without having a market?
Or do you want a single landlord (the state) build/maintain housing but then keep operating a rental market for that?
Put progressive (i.e., per person living there, you subtract 100k from the property value) property taxes on all residential buildings you will see all the people who use 1 bedroom but live in a 2 3 4 5+ house quickly sell and nuke the market. We have enough housing it's just certain people have a market incentive to horde it. Not only remove that incentive but replace it with a large punishment, and I guarantee you in a month the housing crisis is solved. That being said, a national zoning code with 5 story mixed used being the lowest density would also help a ton. Implement both, and COL will be destroyed.
In the short-term you might see something like that. Over the medium- and long-term a cottage industry of tax consultants would spring up that will help you modify/classify your house to avoid these taxes when you buy a house and we'll be bank in a similar situation as we are today.
Absolutely hate this idea. My grandparents had quite a large home because they had 8 kids. They stayed in the home for 50+ years- it was a large gathering place for our large family (dozens of grandkids) on Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the 4th, etc. We had bachelor/bachelorette parties there, baptism receptions, friends and family visiting from out of town would stay there.
Your idea is that they get taxed to all hell because someone else has a right to their things? They bought the home, paid their taxes, produced many tax-paying children and grandchildren.. and somehow the government/other people have the right to tax them down to all hell so they'll leave their home?
Maybe you give tax incentives to leave- low/no capital gains tax if you are 60+ years old and downsize or something, idk. Make it a 5-year incentive window starts after you start collecting social security and closes 5 years later, so you are incentivized to take advantage of it. But penalizing people like my grandparents for being a pillar of their neighborhood/community for 50 years is how you destroy society
I have several questions for you.
In my home town which is about 3k people rent prices are closer to towns with 500k. This is largely because of how many old people who have a 2 3 4 5 bed and only use one of it. Almost all of them have family that live in town. Rent prices would crash if they simply moved in with each other. COL would plummet family bonds would be tighter and the town overall better off.
Good comments in here about how housing can't be a "right". Some other things to add to the mix:
-Any kind of pro-housing incentives would need to be accompanied by iron-clad and enforced laws on who is eligible. If we made housing a right but also handed this right to anyone willing to wander into the country...
-I think there is room to try to prevent large-scale speculation in the housing market. Maybe something like progressive taxes on how many homes you own- allow for small scale landlords to have 10 homes or something, but discourage huge investment managers from owning hundreds or thousands across the country
-I think there is room for interesting incentive ideas- capital gains tax relief for seniors if they downsize in the first few years after collecting social security, home loans for married couples where a portion is forgiven for each kid they have, etc. Encourage what you want more of.
-In my city there are plenty of affordable homes..... in the high crime areas. Getting rid of disparate impact, allowing stop-and-frisk and actually prosecuting and jailing criminals would be huge strides to making these neighborhoods and the ones nearby livable again. People like to gripe about zoning laws but don't want to do anything about the fact that large swaths of urban land are zoned as "warzone"
I don't understand why so many people think the solution to the housing crisis is to bend over backwards and pass all sorts of complicated legislation such as affordable housing, rent control/stabilization, tax structures etc... when the simplest and most common sense solution will solve it..build more housing
I mean fundamentally, there is only one thing going on here, demand far exceeds supply. In other words, there are more people who need housing than there are units of housing. In other words, there's not enough housing.
If you have 100 people or families that need housing and there is only 1 unit of housing..how does rent control/stabilization, affordable housing, taxes, etc... solve the problem? It doesn't. There is only one solution. Build more housing. Is that so terrible? Is it really that terrible to allow developers to build more housing for people and families to live in? I never understand why people's first instinct when it comes to the subject of the housing crisis is to suggest more legislation instead of simply building more housing.
If housing is a right, then it should be extended to whoever "wanders into the country". Your ancestors just "wandered in" after all.
Why? Who does this help? Again, it's so easy to demonize "huge investment managers" but at the end of the day more people own second homes than there are homes owned by large funds. More to the point, people buying homes in order to rent them out aren't reducing the available supply of housing. They don't distort the market. You know who does? Someone who owns a second home. It's just that you, OP, and every other "housing advocate" really wants to own a second home, so you've all contorted yourself into justifying that as ok.
This is so silly. Large swathes of urban land are not "war zones". Get off Fox and go live in the real world. People don't want to live in poor neighborhoods for much the same reason poor people don't want to live in those neighborhoods. Bad schools, fewer services, less attractive amenities, etc. Often that includes less policing, since the police are generally useless for anything except racially profiling minorities, but it's not just crime.
The solution to the housing crisis is simple - build more. Stop allowing local interest groups to make decisions about what gets built. That's it. That is the solution. Literally don't need to do one single other thing. Get rid of NIMBYism, and the problem disappears
Correct, which is why it can't be a right. And yes, my ancestors wandered in and built or bought their own homes and farms.
Truthfully I do not know much on the stats behind this. I could see in theory that if an investment manager buys a large number of homes in a given city and puts them up for rent, they are simultaneously 1) reducing the number of homes available for purchase and driving up the prices, and 2) able to control rent prices through having a kind of monopoly. Housing costs go up. It sounds like you're saying this doesn't happen in practice- good.
South Chicago? North and East St. Louis? Compton? Staggering crime and murder rates- to me that qualifies as a war zone. Look at North St. Louis or pockets of south Chicago- what used to be beautiful and prosperous parts of town with great schools and amenities.
You make it sound like there is magical brick and mortar that makes a school a bad school. As if you could swap all the students from a bad school and good school, and suddenly the poor students get a great education and vice versa.
My wife taught in the worst school district in our city- I met the other teachers. They were fine. These schools are bad because of the students- they don't care, they don't obey. It was a clownshow. The school wouldn't discipline them because it would make their discipline numbers look even worse.
You think the amenities are shit just because? Or that there are food deserts because Albertsons and Kroger and Publix hate money and don't want to enter an area where they'll be the only competition?
It's the crime. Arrest the criminals, keep them off the streets. This keeps them from destroying property, stealing from stores and causing food deserts, reproducing and making more fatherless kids, etc. This in turn makes neighborhoods nearby not have crime spillover and makes them livable again.
"If we made housing a right but also handed this right to anyone willing to wander into the country..."
The problem is... what?
I re-read my comment above and realize I failed to say explicitly- this was in relation to illegal immigration and unrestrained so-called "asylum seekers".
-> Make housing a right of anyone in this country
-> Allow anyone and everyone into this country
I will let you use your imagination as to why this is a problem.
what are you a communist? hahaha
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