Condos are generally the worst of both worlds, because you have almost all the responsibilities of homeownership combined with nearly all of the restrictions of renting an apartment.

There's a reason they appreciate significantly less than other types of property.

Enjoy all the housing you could ever want when your town has even less economic activity than it did before!

Spain is one of the last places on Earth I'd look to for economic policies. Enjoy your even higher unemployment and additional dying towns after attacking your only notable industry (tourism) I suppose.

There's plenty of housing available in places with no jobs, so mission accomplished in one sense!

Generally, there aren't any meaningful number of completely vacant homes in desirable areas in major cities. The caveats are there for cities like Miami where there are a significant number of second homes, cities like Detroit and Baltimore that have failed in some sense and experienced major population loss at some point, and rural areas that also have been experiencing population loss for some time.

I don't have a problem with vacation homes and most Americans don't seem to either, but if you do, okay.

The areas with declining population aren't really relevant to the discussion IMO, other than it's cheap housing that exists as a counterpoint to the people who claim no cheap housing exists.

> But I think taxes should be levied in line with incentives. If you place a wealth tax on property ownership, the only tangible thing that will happen is rents going up to offset. Since the tax applies to all landlords, it will be the closest thing to rent inflation.

I agree.

> What you really want to avoid is homes built but sitting empty. Whether that's a builder who can't sell at asking price, or a landlord not getting the rent they want doesn't matter.

Sure, but that's not a problem today. Builders aren't sitting on homes for extended periods of time, and landlords aren't leaving units empty for extended periods of time either. They are already disincentivized from doing so by existing carrying costs, so they don't.

> If the city sold a lot to you, they did so for improving home supply, not the developer's profits.

They presumably did it to generate revenue for the city, though there isn't much buildable city-owned land in most municipalities.

> For commercial, my opinion was based on Louis Rossman's YouTube channel about New York. The hypothesis there is that loans are based on property value, which are tied to requested rent. Asking for a lower rent might mean they have to put up more collateral, which they can't. So they keep asking for high rates and leave it vacant.

The commercial market is completely different than residential. Loan durations are shorter, terms are different, and there are many other factors that differ.

That analysis can't be applied to the residential market.

In short, you're just making things up. I'm glad you aren't in charge, though there are a concerning number of people with your mindset.

All data would indicate otherwise, and why shouldn't short term rental or vacation properties exist?

Why do you think people are hoarding land today that could be used for housing developments and leaving it empty?

What is "too much" land that would subject it to your exponential taxation?

Presumably you mean desirable land is scarce, which is true by definition, but land in the US is far from scarce.

Setting aside the "I know it when I see it" definition of speculation used by most people that changes as needed during a discussion and all the negative side effects that come with that, is telling people who produce a scarce asset that they will make less money when they sell it a good idea, or a bad idea?

Why do you assume that prices increasing faster than inflation is manipulation, and what is the definition of "normal changes in demand"?

Real estate historically hasn't appreciated faster than inflation over time. Supply constraints, historically low interest rates, and a couple other factors have changed that in a number of areas in the last couple decades, but not all. The Rust Belt is a prime example, yet for some reason that isn't relevant in these discussions.

Because of how tightly coupled local taxation is to the real estate market, the political risk associated with angering local homeowners, and the regulatory capture performed by local government employees and supporters of the status quo, it's highly, highly regulated already in nearly every populated area of the US.

Controlling 11% of the rental market is not enough to manipulate it, and that's one of the most concentrated markets in the US if I remember correctly. It's not an actual issue. If those 3 companies are in fact colluding, use the existing laws against that to prosecute them instead of inventing more counterproductive policies.

I wonder when Xi will come up with a witty one liner for that one.

Also, buying or building and operating an apartment complex isn't speculation in general, unless you consider basically any financial investment speculation.

All data indicates it's not the case, as well as common sense.

Your post was marked as dead by the mods, and I didn't have deadlinks enabled. I'm glad we now have external confirmation that you are commenting in bad faith and the substance of your comments is obnoxious and useless enough that this site hides some of them by default.

I think that's a good ending point for this thread, because you have absolutely nothing of substance to say on any topic remotely related to technology. I'm betting you're a lawyer?

Again, the person you originally were talking to about this and myself have pointed out that it's not just Facebook's problem, it's society's problem, and all I have said is that there are tradeoffs, which you deny for inexplicable reasons (probably because you have no idea what you're talking about, but feel free to correct that assumption).

In a similar vein, I asked you what specifically you'd like Facebook to do, and you didn't have any meaningful answer (probably because you have no idea what you're talking about, but feel free to correct that assumption).

> I did, you asked me to and didn't respond.

Why does this thread end with my question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47987893

Where is your comment where you've defined these basic words and got no response?

> Oh, excuse me, not everyone, just "basically everyone else on earth". Again, incredibly dishonest on your part.

I'll restate to "basically everyone on earth with a clue about the differences between centralized and distributed systems".

> There's nothing ill-defined about my stance. It's very clear. Meta should clean up its child porn mess,

The first obvious question is: How (what is the definition of "clean up")? The obvious question after that is: If they do so, where do the pedos go next, because Facebook didn't create their interest in child porn? The obvious question after that is: Is that better than the status quo?

Yet you have literally no comment on this. Why are you so adamant about your position when it's apparently so uninformed?

> Well, I think it's incredibly disingenuous to act as if the only reason one could come to such belief is because of an extreme opinion. I'm willing to bet you that most people would agree with me that Facebook should do something meaningful about its child porn problem.

See the link above where I asked you to define meaningful and you didn't respond. They aren't doing nothing now from what I can tell, and they certainly could be doing more, to the point of shutting down their service entirely. What is "meaningful" to you?

> For no discernible reason you jumped to the conclusion that what I stated is an extreme opinion only shared by zealots. I'd bet most parents would agree. I'd bet most people would agree. In fact, you haven't at all explained what is extreme about that opinion. I think most people think child pornography is a problem, and I think most people think that Facebook, a website which facilitates the proliferation of child pornography and enables predators to get in touch with children, shouldn't. That all seems fairly self-evident, actually. I'm not sure where you spend most of your time such that you think people don't think child pornography is a problem and that only zealots care about it. What a weird place that must be.

I live in a world where Facebook is used for a lot of things, just like every other service on the internet, recognize that those services are far from the root cause of any issue related to the creation or distribution of undesirable content, understand that they are not able to solve the root cause, and that the only way for them to fully eradicate any specific type of content from their service is to shut it down, with the end state being no internet once this is applied to all services that host content.

If you see that state as acceptable or desirable, then just come out and say so. If not, then you need to accept that online services will end up hosting some objectionable content at some point. You rejected both of these options previously when stated slightly differently, and have yet to describe a third state that must exist for that rejection is valid, which is what leads to believe you might be some sort of zealot (as they are known for rejecting reality). Feel free to describe why this rejection of the only two option I'm aware of is valid at any time, beyond just saying "Facebook needs to do more".

> Yet you came back to respond again. Either engage in a conversation honestly or fuck off.

You could start by sharing a coherent thought beyond "Facebook bad" on this topic. I've presented numerous comments and questions that have gone unanswered.

You don't use any words, other than repeatedly saying "Facebook should be solving this problem they created", so people have to fill in the gaps because that is a very strange perspective and you refuse to elaborate.

> That's where the dishonesty is. Look back at our thread, how many times have you done that? You ask me to define basic words and then don't respond when I do... everyone else on earth agrees with you? Just read this thread. There is literally someone else in this very thread here agreeing with me.

You don't define basic words, that's the issue.

I never said everyone agrees with me, and the one person "agreeing" with you is just as clueless about the pros and cons of a centralized vs distributed system.

> You did. You argued it's better to be on Facebook than on smaller sites and audaciously asked me how I could disagree?

I did not. You're either confusing me with someone else (and twisting their words) or just imagining messages, just like you're imagining that you've diligently responded to every request for clarification on your ill-defined yet adamant stance.

> It's much more telling that you think those are the only two reasons why someone would think "Facebook should really do something about its child porn problem already."

Again, feel free to elaborate.

> Good riddance

Likewise

You've decided that there's some relatively easy solution to a problem that existed before Facebook and will exist after Facebook that Facebook should be implementing to solve what appears to be an unsolvable problem to basically everyone else on earth, yet you have no ability to describe this solution and don't seem to have put much effort into thinking about it beyond assuming it exists.

No one is arguing that it's better for child porn to be anywhere. What myself and others have said is that there are tradeoffs to be made concerning content moderation, and you basically refuse to even contemplate the theoretical benefits and downsides of different approaches and their outcomes.

I don't know what your motivation is, whether you just have some irrational hatred of Facebook, are a zealot concerning child porn, both, or there's some other explanation for your obstinate ignorance, but attempting to talk to you appears to be a complete waste of time.