Comment on Has any country actually _solved_ the housing crisis?
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week agoIn my own Portugal, which is a very turistic country and also towards the bottom of the GDP-per-capita scale in the EU, things that would likely work very well would also be:
Portugal currently has a massive house inflation problem (extra massive because of how low average incomes are) and a lot of it has to do with residential housing being removed from the housing market and turned into short term turist lets (for example, over 10% of housing in Lisbon has been turned into AirBnB lets) and foreign investors (not just big companies but also individuals, such as well off pensioneers from places like France) pulling prices up by being far less price sensitive than the locals.
Having lived in both Britain and Portugal during housing bubbles, what I’ve observed was that the politicians themselves purposefully inflate those bubbles, partly because they themselves are part of the upper middle class or even above (especially in the UK) who can afford to and have Realestate “investments” and hence stand to gain personally (as do their mates) from Realestate prices going up and partly because the way Official GDP (which is supposedly the Real GDP, which has Inflation effects removed) is calculated nowadays means that house price inflation appears as GDP “growth” since the effects of house price increases come in via the “inputted rent” mechanism but the Inflation Indexes used to create that GDP do not include house price inflation, so by sacrificing the lives of many if not most people in the country (especially the young, for example the average age for them to leave their parent’s home in Portugal is now above 34 years old and at this point half of all University graduates leave the country as soon as they graduate) they both enrich themselves and can harp in the news all about how they made the GDP go up.
Crack down on AirBnB Forbid ownership for non-residents.
Ah, yes, I forgot to mention AirBnB! Those are both good calls.
The AirBnb issue is a little complicated because I’ve seen some good arguments that it can help people afford to keep their homes. But I think that could easily be addressed by a single, simple rule: you are only allowed to rent your primary residence as determined by tax records.
that it can help people afford to keep their homes
This is actually a good argument but I believe it’s only valid when people sub-let empty rooms, and don’t buy whole new houses to rent out as is now more commonly the case.
In addition to only renting out single rooms, I also thought of the scenario where someone goes to visit a relative and rents their whole apartment while they’re away, perhaps when there is some major event in their town that causes all hotels to be sold out. Both of those scenarios would be addressed by the rule I proposed to only allow renting out the primary residence on AirBnB.
Agreed
only allow renting out the primary residence on AirBnB.
Yes this sounds like a good (and importantly very simple) rule
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
I see, yes I definitely agree that AirBnB is part of the problem (it’s happening too here in Prague), although I think it can’t be the main cause because the price rise is also being felt in other parts of the country where there are practically no tourists…
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Whilst I would be wary of saying AirBnB is the main cause (more likely it’s a big one but not the only one), keep in mind that when realestate prices go up in major cities that pushes out people who go to cheaper places, pushing prices up in those places which in turn might push some out from those places and into even cheaper places.
So housing bubbles centered in main cities do naturally spread out from there to places were the original cause of the bubble is not present.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
That is certainly a good point