• takeda@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    127
    arrow-down
    12
    ·
    10 months ago

    I think the difference with the first 5 is that a manufacturer sets the price, scalpers purchase it by that price and sells it at a much higher one.

    The house price just fluctuates continuously and when the “investor” or “scalper” purchases it, it was available at that price for everyone (or did he purchase it from another scalper?)

    Yes, the problem is the high prices of houses, but to reduce it we need to either increase supply (encourage building more, perhaps changing zoning laws to allow more homes etc) or reduce demand (increase interest rates (that though make it harder for regular people), restricting corporations from purchases, banning Airbnb (yes, they drive prices up, and if you use them, you are contributing to it), penalizing if unit is not occupied (though enforcement of this will be hard), or banning foreign investors.

      • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        10 months ago

        It’s wild that you don’t see how exploitable such a tax would be. Specifically, it would make gentrification occur more easily and quickly.

        If a developer became interested in rebuilding a poor neighborhood, their interest alone would dramatically raise the land value of the area. The now untenable tax burden would force the current residents to move out, and because the developer would be the only one interested in buying, the developer has nearly complete control over the sale price.

        • vin@lemmynsfw.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          Developer is not controlling the price, they’re the highest bidder. It seems like a positive anyway - existing owners can sell at a high rate, government can get more tax, more tax can fund more support for the poor

          • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            10 months ago

            The current owner can no longer afford the taxes and is forced to sell whether or not they want to. The developer can position themselves as the “highest bidder” by an extremely small margin over the property’s historical value, denying the current owner the windfall from the recent spike in land value. Despite the increased land value, no one else will be interested in purchasing the property at this valuation until the developer’s project is complete, as the project itself is the cause for the spike.

            This is effectively eminent domain for private developers. If you’re a homeowner and you’ve been paying your property taxes just fine for the past decade on a $40,000/year salary, you shouldn’t suddenly become unable to afford to live there because someone said you live in a “hot area” or whatever.

            • vin@lemmynsfw.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              10 months ago

              Pardon, I don’t get this - “The developer can position themselves as the “highest bidder” by an extremely small margin over the property’s historical value, denying the current owner the windfall from the recent removede in land value.” - Wouldn’t ask/bid and transaction value determine the land value? Why does the land value tax increase a lot if the best offered purchase value will be only slightly higher than historical?

        • explodicle@local106.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          LVT is already a thing in a bunch of places… How come we haven’t seen these dramatic gentrifications happen?

    • bstix@feddit.dk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      33
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      For existing houses the investors might very well overbid the market price to get the lot, thereby making it inaccessible for any individual to realistically buy. They’ll gladly overpay the market price on adjacent lots so they can “regenerate” the area, by stuffing four houses into two lots. Any individual simply wanting to buy the existing lot is out of luck, because it wouldn’t ever make sense for them to overpay the asking price.

      For new lots, it works so that whenever a city council decides to change the zoning of a lot of land to allow for residential construction, the price is set for investors to bid on. The entire lot is bought by an “investor” or “developer” who will either build on the lot or sell individual parts of the lot for others to build on. There’s no risk. There isn’t necessarily any work carried out. There’s no service provided. It’s just paying for ownership at one price, shuffling the papers and selling at a higher.

      It’s the same fucking thing as scalping, only over longer time and for larger amounts.

      So the idea that “If it’s so easy, why doesn’t everybody do it?” or “It’s fair, because they paid above asking price, you could just have bid higher” is wrong because I for one can’t afford to buy ten fucking houses just to get one of them at the right price.

      This is how capital accrues.

    • Grimy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      10 months ago

      I don’t enjoy the whole foreign investor solution, I think it’s a scape goat.

      It matters little to me if the person fucking me was born in China or 10 miles from me. Being born in this country doesn’t mean you can screw over the rest of the population.

      I’d rather see hard limits on how much property one can own. There is no reason for anyone other than the state to own those huge apartment complexes. Dismantle the land barons class, no one should own enough to house thousands.

      • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        10 months ago

        I think a less heavy-handed way of doing that is, every person can have 1 (one) permanent residence, and all other property you own incurs a much higher property tax. If you’re filthy rich and want a couple of houses, fine, but you’re gonna get taxed for it. But that will stop speculative house buying, more or less. Of course, this will never happen because states race to the bottom to offer low taxes to attract rich people. Another issue is, what if someone wants to live in a house but can’t afford to own it? Renting is the best option for a lot of people. I think that is solvable, but my idea would inevitably take a lot of property off the rental market.

      • takeda@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        I don’t think it is a scape goat. For example, many people from China are not trusting Chinese Yen, they often purchase property purely to hold value and won’t even rent it to others, because it would cause wear and tear. So it is basically a wasted unoccupied unit.

        As for your suggestions I totally agree.

        • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Americans do this with property too. If we only regulated foreigners from doing it, that would allow american investors the opportunity to do it more beduase they have less investors to compete with.

          • takeda@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            If you allow foreigners (keep in mind that those who do this, but only are very rich in their countries, but also are very rich compared to you or me) to purchase property now you not only have demand created by locals but you are adding foreign demand. This all drives the price up.

            Even if Americans would do the same thing the prices would be still lower, because now they are out priced.

        • explodicle@local106.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          How much property is owned by foreigners paying taxes while not collecting rent? That sounds nuts compared to just holding the dollars they’d use to buy the house in an offshore bank.

    • baseless_discourse@mander.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      The house price just fluctuates continuously and when the “investor” or “scalper” purchases it, it was available at that price for everyone.

      That doesn’t mean everyone (or people who needed it) have the ability to purchase it. The down-payment is simply too high that most people who want a house cannot afford it.

      This is the same as scalping other goods, they have a unfair advantage in the market, and then they can make back all their money via rent and selling the house. They have nearly no way to lose in this game.

      The unfair advantage is what making people angry; they are not making money by labor, insight, or even luck. The only reason these people are becoming richer is because they started rich.


      I absolutely agree with your solution BTW, just arguing that people scalping houses are very much brain-dead scalpers. Many of them probably don’t even care about the basic human right to shelter.

    • Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      restricting corporations from purchases, banning Airbnb (yes, they drive prices up, and if you use them, you are contributing to it), penalizing if unit is not occupied (though enforcement of this will be hard), or banning foreign investors.

      Agreed, we should be doing all of those things. Corporations should not be able to own any kind of housing at all, and multi unit buildings should be under non-profit co-ops.

      And to penalize unoccupied housing, we should have a georgist taxation system.

      • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        10 months ago

        The only time it makes sense for me for a corporation to own a residence is if they have a need to put up their own employees in that area regularly, or if I needed a manager living on site (like some storage facilities have). Corporations should not make their money renting or buying/selling single family homes.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          I don’t think there are enough such edge cases for it to make sense for it to be legal.

          If a corp needs an employee to be that close, then they should hire local, and/or rotate staff.

          At a bare minimum, I agree, no corp should profit off of housing.

      • throwwyacc@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        I’m not sure I’d agree that corporate ownership is necessarily bad If you want to rent an apartment because you don’t want to buy into a co-op then how do you go about this? Someone needs to own the apartment to rent to you Personally I don’t mind if that initial investment comes from a person or a corporation

          • throwwyacc@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            Who are you paying? Other owners of the apartment? So they put in extra up front so they can rent to you? If so do you get to pay back their initial investment over time? If it’s non profit does that mean they can’t take anything in excess of what they paid or do they get payed x amount over the top?

            I’m fine with co-ops generally but when it comes to rentals I just don’t see how you’d make a “not for profit” rental But I mean if someone wants to set one up and prove me wrong that’d be cool. In theory nothing is stopping them

            • explodicle@local106.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              10 months ago

              I was actually asking a question. So anyhoo I just Googled it and it’s called a “zero equity co op” if you’re curious.

          • Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            That’s how a lot of co-ops works. Or maybe it’s called non-market rental. I don’t remember the exact name but it’s definitely a thing.

            Either way, landlord parasites are not needed.

    • Resonosity@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      The house price just fluctuates continuously and when the “investor” or “scalper” purchases it, it was available at that price for everyone

      The goods from manufacturers are available at that price for everyone too, right?

      And then as another commenter said, sometimes down payments on housing are outside the budgets of certain groups in society - a point I suppose you can also make for the manufactured goods too.

      I think the difference with the first 5 is that a manufacturer sets the price, scalpers purchase it by that price and sells it at a much higher one.

      I don’t see the difference here with housing. If a real estate owner buys a property then sells that property for higher than they purchased it, the market will either respond by buying or not. The same is true for manufactured goods: if the price set at MSRP doesn’t not elicit a response from the market, then the manufacturer may lower their prices until a response is drawn - or hold out until the rest of the economy shifts (a gamble on the part of the manufacturer).

      I don’t think your reasons substantiate your claims.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    59
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    10 months ago

    Buying up enough of something so that you’re one of the only names in town is a “smart business move”, because then you can start to charge whatever prices you want. Totally not scalping. You see it in private healthcare, food, newsmedia, streaming, telecom.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Not just buying it up, of course, but making the market openly hostile to any kind of competition.

      Maybe that’s through state regulation. Maybe that’s through some smear campaign. Maybe that’s through leveraged buyouts or vertical integration or just doing a little industrial espionage to fuck over the business next door.

      Just ask Aaron Swartz what happens to guys who try to foster open-sourced alternatives to cartels and monopoly concerns.

  • rwhitisissle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    73
    arrow-down
    22
    ·
    10 months ago

    I’m actually a huge fan of scalping and hope it happens more. Here’s why: many of your more dim-witted, more or less middle-class “free market” bros will gladly tell you that the value of a good is set by supply and demand. Hospital care is so expensive because there are comparatively few doctors, MRI machines, etc. in comparison with the entire population. Houses are so expensive because everyone wants a house and it’s an appreciable asset. I’ve seen these people my entire life. They’ll decry socialism and make the age old joke that “socialism is when no potato.” But the second a PS5 gets a street price of 700 bucks, suddenly they become walking “Homer Simpson fading into the hedge and coming back out wearing a different outfit” memes. They’ll say things like “scalping should be illegal” or “the government should step in to make sure that the actual consumers who want one can get one - nobody should be allowed to buy 500 of them and just sit on them forever.” Suddenly, market economics produces a state of inequality that doesn’t directly benefit them, and the guiding hand of the government should be used to ensure equitable distribution of resources. Not that they’d ever reflect on this in any way or consider how their personal experiences indicates a larger set of structural problems with the economic systems that produce such a state of affairs.

    • gornius@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      62
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      It’s free market exploitation. If you believe a free market can exist without regulations, you’re imbecile.

      Just imagine: People need fridges. All fridge manufacturers agree to raise prices of a fridge by 2000%. So what, people are going to stop buying fridges? No - because they need them.

      You would say: it’s a free market, some new manufacturer is going to offer fridges at regular prices. Well - no you dumb fuck. What’s the incentive for the new fridge manufacturer to sell at lower prices, when people are going to buy fridges anyway, because they need them? The answer is - none. It would be a dumb business decision, because your supply is limited, and you’re going to sell it at market price, because that item is essential.

      So how does the economy even work if that’s possible? That’s right idiot - because it’s price fixing and it’s fucking illegal.

      • throwwyacc@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        23
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        10 months ago

        The incentive here would be that a new company could sell far more fridges when reasonably prices compared to their competitors and take all of their market share

        But yes of course govt regulation is required when there is actual price fixing going on. I’d also like to know the alternative way of pricing goods/services from people with the alternate view

        • gornius@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          10 months ago

          Your goal as a company is not to sell as many, but to make the greatest profit. So let’s say that the new market price is $3 000.

          You’re the new company. Your supply is 20 000.

          Do you

          a) Sell fridges @ $2 950/each, undercutting competition while selling whole supply, because of demand being higher than your supply, making $59 000 000?

          or

          b) Sell fridges at a reasonable price of $400, selling the same amount, because your supply is limited anyway, making $8 000 000?

          The company still has no incentive to go B route. They only need to undercut the competition, not make prices reasonable.

          Free market self regulates, provided nothing artificially screws with supply and demand and there are competitors. Both scalping and price fixing screws with it. It is literally the cancer of free market, and people screwing with it call themselves “investors”, while actually destroying the economy.

          It is the government’s responsibility to prevent those situations before they happen, otherwise these changes may be irreversible.

          Btw. A situation like this was happening recently in the GPU market. Nvidia had a crazy high demand for their GPUs because companies invested in AI were going to buy these cards no matter the price. So they bumped the prices like crazy, and they were instantly sold out.

          Meanwhile Nvidia’s competitor - AMD - didn’t have nearly as strong GPUs for Ai as Nvidia. Do you think AMD’s prices stayed the same? Nope. They bumped it just like Nvidia, barely undercutting them, because there was still demand, in fact growing demand, for GPUs for gaming, while AMD’s supply was obviously limited.

          2 years later, lower demand, GPUs actually in stock, but prices are still fucked (though not as much) because people got used to it.

          • flakpanzer@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            10 months ago

            I don’t think you ever took even economics 101 in school because for almost all products there exists a price where you can actually increase your profits by decreasing the price because the larger sales volume offsets the revenue lost. Applies to your fridge example as well. You just assumed the same sales in both scenarios which is not even close to being realistic. And your Nvidia/AMD example ignores the high inflation seen during that period.

            • bl_r@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              10 months ago

              They are making the assumption that demand is constant because the product is a necessity (such as with something like insulin). Profit at higher volume and lower prices only happens with products with elastic demand.

        • lad@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          In this example this new company would probably sell fridges at a whooping discount of some 5% and still be able to sell more although the price is 1990% of the original

          • throwwyacc@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            The point being that if company A cuts their price to compete, and company B has an artificially inflated price

            Now we have company B with no sales, and are forced to match or beat their competitor

            Repeat until the price is fair. This breaks if both companies are co-ordinating with each other and forcing all other competition in line. But that’s a crime and would be regulated

    • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      This take is basically accelerationism. That if something is bad it will inspire more people to change their opinion. Your take is fine, I guess.

      • lad@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        10 months ago

        I agree with the sentiment but feel like it doesn’t really work that way. It’s what I learnt from 2020 at least, whenever things turn to worse, people would rather do nothing than change anything. That makes a bit afraid of how bad should something get for changes to occur

        • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          This is an important observation. You’re probably more right, that things can get worse without people caring. Sometimes when we say things will get worse unless we do something, that does prevent a bill from passing or someone awful getting elected or some business going bankrupt etc.

    • prime_number_314159@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      I’d rather have retailers and manufacturers agree on a way to start prices high, then bring the price down towards the target MSRP every time the item is back in stock. That prevents scalping, let’s consumers decide exactly how much “get it early” tax they’re willing to pay, and gives the money to the people that did 99% of the work.

      The simple reality is that if there are more people interested in a good at the current price than there are goods available, you must select a way to figure out who gets those scarce items. Raising prices and lotteries where you verify everyone participating is a distinct human are probably the most fair options.

    • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      10 months ago

      Economic liberals being dumb. Truly shocking. Now tell me a story about how conservatives are dumb.

  • kameecoding@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    54
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    10 months ago

    I feel like North America could fix its housing issue by simply abolishing the single family housing zones

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      10 months ago

      No. Every American should be able to have 40 acres and a mule.

      What do you mean, that’s more than 5x the total acreage of the US? This is a minor problem, we’ll just make more land or steal some more from the Indians.

      • Hugucinogens@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        13
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        They could also fix it by deregulating the market.

        They could also fix it by doing basically random changes to the law, because the law currently is perpetuating the crisis.

        Fuck it. Put a pen on the jaw of a goat eating grass, and write the result into law. I think we actually have a shot at improvement this way.

          • Hugucinogens@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            Yeah, I’m absolutely not saying deregulation is a good idea, just like goat-law. I can see how my comment read though, rewrote a bit to make the cynical undertone a bit more obvious.

            I was only pointing out that the current, specific set of laws, is keeping this problem a reality. That it’s not a particularly natural situation to be in.

        • qwrty@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          “deregulation” detected. ready the down votes. /s

          Seriously though, zoning laws are a big reason why we have the current housing crisis. If given the opportunity, someone or some business will build high density housing. But you can’t with he current implementation of zoning laws. Without that barrier, you would see a lot more high density building projects

          Still we do need zoning laws. I don’t think anyone wants a factory or a garbage dump in their back yard. Used correctly zoning also helps limit sprawl.

          • frezik@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            I think there’s a blind spot on the left for this one. Opening up zoning for higher density is effectively a giveaway to local developers, who are invariably shitbags. It’d be preferable if solutions like banning corporations from owning housing could be enacted.

            That’s based on the theory that there are enough houses and flippers and hedge funds are just sitting on them in order to rake it in later as property values are driven up. If that were true, we’d expect to see large vacancy rates in cities. Problem is, we don’t. My city has <4% vacancy for rentals and <1% for home ownership. This seems to be similar to the numbers in many other major cities in North America. If we got rid of every corporation that was sitting on a house unused, the available housing would go up by 4% or so, at most.

            We need more housing stock. As it stands, the only way to do that is a giveaway to shitbag developers. They’re the ones that hold the capitol for building more housing.

            This could be mitigated by city councils also encouraging/mandating those developers to have unionized staff.

    • neeeeDanke@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      Idk, its not like there’s no housing shourtage/rant gauging in other countries with more sensible zoning.

    • hglman@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Here is the thing North Americans love single family homes.

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        How would you know, North America is literally missing the opportunity to have new development of things other than single family houses or apartment big buildings, bet you there would be a lot of demand for midrises, row houses, mixed neighborhoods in general

        • deeferg@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          Row houses maybe, but there’s an adversity to condo fees which usually come along with every other source of housing. A lot of people want to feel like they own their home outright, so that once their mortgage is done being paid off, all they need to worry about is the hydro, water, and property taxes. There’s a lot of stories about condo groups doubling condo fees that put others off those types of places.

          • Ledivin@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            10 months ago

            I feel like every single family home has HOA dues, these days, so that comparison is kinda moot. Whether it’s condo fees, HOA dues, or the local cartel extorting you for protection, you’re gonna get nickel and dimed.

            • _dev_null@lemmy.zxcvn.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              10 months ago

              I feel like every single family home has HOA dues, these days, so that comparison is kinda moot

              Narp. I wouldn’t buy a house in a hoa ever again, and haven’t had issues finding the last two I lived in (in both large and small markets).

        • hglman@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Both are true, she point is those with the single family homes now wont get out of them

      • frezik@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Developers in my city are building apartments like mad and filling every single one of them. The common council finally opened up zoning for row housing in the past year.

        • spikederailed@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          In Charlotte, NC where I last lived. They were building apartments like crazy, but all “luxury apartments” and charging $3-4/sq ft.

          $1850/month for a 600sqft apartment wasn’t really sustainable for a lot of people.

      • shiftymccool@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        10 months ago

        Same. I’ve lived in all the basic types of housing: apartment, duplex, house, etc… If I liked being woken up at 3am by some drunk asshole stomping around in the apartment above me or some kid storming in because they don’t understand addresses yet, then I would be doing that already. Maybe other people enjoy that sort of thing? You can have your congested living conditions, but leave me and my single-family zone out of it

  • Ziglin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    We’ll you see if you’re making people pay extra for their human rights that’s called investing. Not puny recreational items.

    This is a joke. But it is a pattern I noticed in this sample.

  • theodewere@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    yeah someone needs to stop the Chinese from buying up residential property everywhere

    • ryannathans@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      Over here foreign investors are banned from buying property, they can only build property. Unless you send your kid to uni here, then it’s all fine apparently

      • HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        And if we in the US tried banning foreign investors buying houses we’d be called racists. It needs to be done. I’m tired of not being able to afford anything where I live

    • Grimy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      10 months ago

      No one should be able to, regardless of where they come from. China is a scapegoat.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Op has right idea but terrible phrasing. Sounds racist (well, xenophobic) and I actually started trying to type a (tongue-in-cheek) racist response, but I couldn’t get the tongue-and-cheekiness strong enough to be clear I was mocking it.

        • Grimy@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Domestic corporations outpace them by quite a bit. Even if you only look at foreigners, China only accounts for 13% with Mexico at 11% and Canada at 10%.

          We should aim to ban everyone from doing this. If no one, domestic or foreign, can abuse of the housing industry, the problem goes away.

          If only China is banned from doing so, the vacuum gets filled in the space of a day and the problem persists.

    • MBM@lemmings.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yes, we should ban foreign investors. Especially the US companies that want to profit from our housing scarcity.

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Technically, China did… They’ve limited yearly investment outside the country to ~$20k, which would significantly dampen it. They’re even cracking down on the multi millionaires

      Granted, laws don’t seem to work on billionaires or multinational corporations. China having those is a problem…

      The US ones are really doing a number too… Investment funds like Black Rock gaming the market have been the biggest issue, they’ve been snatching up everything at a bit above market rate or below in an area, which makes the price skyrocket. Some of them are renting them out and driving up rent prices, but a lot of them are just collecting them like Pokemon cards and leaving them empty until they (presumably) decide it’s time to sell.

      Granted, that’s probably more like billionaires all over the world collectively doing it indirectly

  • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    I flip items all the time, but they are items that very few people want, so I’m providing a service to the few people who need the things that I sell. If anybody needs any vintage vacuum tubes, I have several hundred. I have a Pentium III laptop. Good luck finding these things out in the wild if you’re looking for them.

  • xenoclast@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    10 months ago

    They’re all investments. Most of these products are specifically setup by artificial over demand and under production to be profitable, basically exploiting the fact that there are 8 BILLION humans and a small group have most of the money.

    Shit like this wouldn’t work in a stable global economic system that wasn’t headed for collapse on a bullet train

  • amorpheus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Just an inherent consequence of capitalism. If people are willing to pay much more than the price that was set by the manufacturer, it’s their loss and a business opportunity for third parties.

      • emmie@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        So you will own nothing and be happy?

        Who will produce things without incentive as monetary gain through which they can acquire things? Noone

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          That’s Capitalism, buddy. I’m advocating for Worker Ownership of their own labor, and collective ownership of the Means of Production. Personal Property is fine, but the end goal of Capitalism is everyone renting everything from a few Capitalists.

          • emmie@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            They tried it and people just sold their shares immediately to some guy buying them all and bought vodka and cigs

            All I want nowadays is just equal opportunities to everyone to amass capital which probably would abolish inheritance first and then regulate market to protect from monopolies.

            It’s a race and war but at least make the rules fair. Then those who win they win and lose they lose but it was a fair fight

          • Nobsi@feddit.de
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            10 months ago

            Who will produce things without incentive as monetary gain through which they can acquire things? Noone

            • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              Do you clean your room?

              On a more serious note, Communism is a future ideal, money would still exist until its possible to abolish. There are tons of writings on this that can help elaborate, why do you believe work must be done with monetary inventive?

              Edit: oh yea, you’re the landlord everyone called out a while ago, and rather than making any points to defend yourself you just pretended you were superior. Lmao

              • Nobsi@feddit.de
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                3
                ·
                10 months ago

                I clean my room because it gives me a feeling of order.
                I do not work because i like work.
                I work because i have to so that my children don’t

                • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  You like the feeling of order, so you work. Seems like a non-monetary motivation for me.

                  You also think worker ownership of the Means of Production is Capitalism if it has profit, so I think you’d do better by actually researching what you talk about first.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          There are systems with private property and property rights, this anything other than capitalism = the most extreme version of communism shit is getting real old and people should be shamed for persisting it’s hyper-bullshittery.