Yeah, it's very neat, but having to sell your house because you mistook the value of your home? Not gonna fly.

Wasn't something like it actually done in classical Athens? http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_sy... bottom of page:

"The solution was simple. I offer to exchange everything I own for everything you own. If you refuse, you have admitted that you are richer than I am, and so you get to do the liturgy that was to be imposed on me."

Seems like the converse to an idea I once had, wherein if the property tax assessor valued a parcel of real estate too highly, the owner could compel the municipality to buy it at that price. Assess too low, and you don't get enough property taxes, but assess it too high, and the owner calls your bluff.

Related is an the idea for eminent domain reform, where instead of compelling a sale, the government could usurp an arm's-length sale in progress, taking the property, paying the owner the agreed-upon sale price, and paying the disappointed buyer a percentage of the sale price, plus any actual costs incurred by failure to take possession of the property. That would likely feed the property-flipper industry, where an eminent domain seizure counts as an instant flip.

I listened to that podcast episode and had the same reaction.

Their counter-argument is to start with markets where there is not so much personal emotion wrapped up in the price setting and valuation, such as broadcast spectrum rights. Then you could work out the logistical details of how it would work, people would get comfortable with it, and then years or decades later you expand it to housing.

Part of their proposal relies on a huge mental shift in how we think about housing and property rights, to treat it as a shared public good rather than something any individual owns. That's the kicker, which realistically would take a few generations as the mental model shift required probably exceeds the capacity for change in anyone over the age of 40.

What a horrible dystopian idea. No one should be forced to move out of their home on short notice just because they failed to set the value correctly. Imagine how wealthy people could abuse that system to punish their critics by purchasing their homes and evicting them.

Sounds fantastic for the wealthy, who in a recession still have access to easy capital. Better yet REITs, who can swoop in to take entire blocks of SF homes and then rent them back to the same people who don't want to leave.

Then why didn’t those people set the value higher? If you sell for some price, then you agree that you do want to leave for that price. The “market” would be efficient — people would sell for exactly what they would be willing to sell for. “Sentimental” value could be expressed in actual, taxable value. You could quantify exactly what a house is worth to you — and can insure the home appropriately.

> “Sentimental” value could be actual, taxable value. You could quantify exactly what a house is worth to you

That sounds horrible and very much impossible by definition. The “exact” value of my house where I spent my entire adulthood/childhood is “not for sale”

I keep hearing abouy this market efficiency but never came across a quantifiable measurement of this efficiency. Could you please point me to some literature where they say “oh this market is 70% efficient and that market is 90% because …”? How do you put “exact value” to this efficiency stuff?

Moving every time someone else decide you have to would sux for anyone except very young people. It would also make it even harder to keep social ties and networks. In particular those people who care about elderly or sick relatives who live nearby. It is also pretty cool when your kids can have stable set of friends, stable school and what not.

Having to pack everything and look for new place to live just because some asshole decided he wants your living place now must be real pleasure.

So set a high price. Problem solved. You wouldn’t be forced to sell for any less than the value you, yourself have assigned. Nobody gets exploited: people get exactly what they want.

Except that there is the tax thing which is literally designed to make people bleed money if they want to stay at place and force them to move.

See, when I am with small baby and kid has friends and I have deadlines in work, I don't want to have to move nor be suddenly force to pay much higher tax then flexible single dude who can leave easily.

But a high price leads to higher taxes. In this way I am taxed for my sentimental attachments, which seems wrong. An old man with 5 years left may have a very high sentimental attachment as he wishes to die in his 'forever home.' Should he be taxed more for that? What about a young couple who just had their first kid? Providing a sense of stability and staying in their current home has a lot of meaning to that family, should they be charged for it? A family in 2008/2009 who is making payments but barely and struggling may place huge value on being able to maintain their position as homeowners. You're going to force them to choose between much higher taxes or selling to a PE firm?

We already have a system where you can offer any property owner any amount to sell, the idea that the government should come in and shape the market in such a way that people are charged for emotional attachments and compelled to sell at a specific price is ugly. It seems wrong to shape human behavior in that way (especially for a spurious benefit) and it seems like it mistakes efficiency towards a goal for the goal itself.