Why Land and Homes Actually Tend to Be Disappointing Investments

Re:Why Land and Homes Actually Tend to Be Disappointing Inve... by ChuckMcM on Sunday July 17, 2016 @05:01PM (#12111798)

I would suggest, perhaps controversially, that individual home ownership mitigates rent seeking and capital accumulation in large firms. Some percentage of the GDP is always going to be allocated to a housing expense.

Homeowners subsequently hire contractors for maintenance and upkeep which spreads that choice around vs firm ownership which will negotiate a single contract and extract price concessions from their position.

As it is impractical to have land ownership be a public good (centrally owned (or not owned depending on your take on the whole land ownership issue) distributing ownership appears to have the best effect on overall use.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why Land and Homes Actually Tend to Be Disappointing Inve... by rubiquity on Sunday July 17, 2016 @05:25PM (#12111917)

The problem is that the payment for home ownership is centralized in that your mortgage goes to a select few big banks. A more distributed form of home ownership would be more ideal but likely impossible.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why Land and Homes Actually Tend to Be Disappointing Inve... by chii on Sunday July 17, 2016 @08:21PM (#12112574)

The same problem exists with business loans.

It's the lack of banking competition, not mortgage.

[ Parent | on HN ]