Landlord Tech Watch – What Is Landlord Tech?

Re:Landlord Tech Watch – What Is Landlord Tech? by nradov on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @12:56PM (#24483511)

If we want low-income people to be able to live in certain areas then the best solution is to just give them money and let them obtain housing at market rates. We can do that through income redistribution, by taxing high-income people (which may include some landlords among others). Forcing landlords to rent at below market rates distorts the market and causes artificial housing shortages.

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Re:Landlord Tech Watch – What Is Landlord Tech? by hammock on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @01:09PM (#24483680)

>taxing landlords

Don't you think that would just drive up the market price ? (by restricting supply i.e. making landlordship less desirable)

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Re:Landlord Tech Watch – What Is Landlord Tech? by nradov on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @01:21PM (#24483892)

Income is taxed at the same rates regardless of source. That doesn't make landlording any more or less desirable than other investments. In general all classes of long-term investments generate roughly the same risk-adjusted returns.

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Re:Landlord Tech Watch – What Is Landlord Tech? by hammock on Wednesday September 16, 2020 @08:25AM (#24491920)

OP edited their comment, after I had already replied, from "taxing landlords" to "taxing high-income people (which may include some landlords)" so you missed that earlier nuance.

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Re:Landlord Tech Watch – What Is Landlord Tech? by clairity on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @01:58PM (#24484397)

> "If we want low-income people to be able to live in certain areas then the best solution is to just give them money..."

yeah, that didn't turn out so well for higher education and healthcare. so no to that.

housing markets are distorted in a thousand ways. a solution like that might be appealing for its simplicity, but what we need to do is the hard work of rationalizing a death by a thousand cuts. start by aggressively repealing every zoning/building regulation that's not tied to solid safety concerns (and not nebulous and nefarious ones). eventually you'd be in a position to repeal (in CA) both prop 13 and rent control (but not saying that'll happen), which are complementary distortions, but only when the market is functioning well enough not to need (for sociopolitical purposes, not economic ones) them.

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Re:Landlord Tech Watch – What Is Landlord Tech? by crumbshot on Tuesday September 15, 2020 @01:08PM (#24483672)

With that model, if the government are going to be effectively paying whatever the landlords demand for rent, then the best solution would be for the government to seize rental housing from the landlords (perhaps with some token compensation so they don't complain too much) and run it as a non-profit rental service, i.e. social housing for all.

Obviously not the best solution for the landlords, but, really, so what? Removing a class of parasites from the housing system would be a feature, not a bug.

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