Hmm. What if we abolish private property?
A conundrum
Submitted 6 months ago by ickplant@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/15e46ee1-78e0-4f48-b909-bd21d684306c.jpeg
Comments
Ray3x10e8@feddit.nl 6 months ago
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I am coming to realize that my rural perspective is pretty different, and that lots of people live in way higher cost of living areas than I do. My biggest suggestion is if you don’t like expensive housing, get out of the city.
aeiou_ckr@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I tried and here are some places I have looked where the average home is $810,000 come to find out.
Pinedale, Wyoming, USA Ennis, Montana, USA
These are in the mountains about 1 hour from the nearest big city of Jackson, Wyoming and Bozeman, Montana. I guess I need to look in the deep sticks.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Are you really confused why those properties are expensive? Those are both desirable locations in regions with quickly growing populations. How about Livingston, or Butte?
xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day 6 months ago
If city folk starts coming to rural area, they will start complaining that city people are jacking up property prices.
jmf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
This is an unpopular take, but that is reality. It really is affordable out here! If you want more income, learn to repair reliable japanese beaters and commute a little. It’s less busy than the city, and it may bore some, but it keeps the bills paid, the kids fed, and the 401k growing.
MiDaBa@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
This really isn’t as easy as it sounds. Moving means you lose your support system of friends and family etc. Some people have children and need the grandparents to help watch them during the day as just one example. Job opportunities are likely not the same. While their current city job may not pay a lot the opportunities from that job could lead a lot higher but of course life choices can be a gamble. On top of all of that, moving long distance is difficult and expensive.
I have a highly intelligent friend from a small southern town and he moved out of there because he recognized there weren’t any opportunities for someone with talent but no capital. Sure he could have stayed and bought a cheaper house but he’d still struggle to make the payment on his small salary.Wisas62@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You realize the headquarters of Walmart are in Arkansas? There are plenty of very high paying jobs in significantly more affordable places. Also if you pay 1/4 less for a house, and add daily childcare it’s still gonna be cheaper. People literally do it all the time, the whole concept of the suburbs was created so that people could afford houses.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I moved to the small town. I’m a college drop out, there’s always labor in the country, and I guess I just don’t want as much from life as other people. I’ll be happy working maintenance the rest of my life of it keeps providing.
Noodle07@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The problem is some jobs are only inside the city
MNByChoice@midwest.social 6 months ago
We know.
There are a number of people that have a home in the country with their family, and they travel to the city to work. Sometimes they are homeless during the work, or rent a small room.
No, it is not the ideal solution, but it is a solution. Fixing the housing situation is beyond most people’s power, and it will take a long time for those trying to fix it to actually fix it.
MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Very dependent on the field. A lot of jobs are concentrated in a handful of major cities, mostly very HCOL but with high salary. That’s why remote work becoming bigger partially caused the housing surge nationwide.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
“Landlords” are probably one of the oldest grifts in the book.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
if you can’t afford to own a home would you rather have no options to use one temporarily while you get back on your feet?
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
That’s not the point, and I can’t tell if you’re being genuine or arguing in bad faith. Do you want me to take the time and effort to explain why what you said is capitalist BS? I’m happy to if you’re genuinely interested in learning.
A7thStone@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Mao did nothing wrong.
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 6 months ago
except for causing that famine.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I saved up a big (to me) chunk a few years ago, thought I was there. Expected the red carpet to roll out. Nooooope. There were people buying houses for $100k more than the asking price, sight unseen, within a week or two of the house being listed. My little $40k deposit was adorable, in comparison. I had no chance. Then Covid, life, etc…
MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
The 100k+ over asking was the big deal because that never made it into the housing data properly so prices looked like they were lower than they were and we don’t have accurate comparison data now
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Was it in a desirable location? Our tourist town went out of control with our of state buyers during the pandemic, but property values have adjusted back some and the market competition is gone. If you still have some of that $40k now might be a better time. My wife and I just did the federal First Time Homebuyers class and wound up getting a USDA rural development loan, they wouldn’t even let us put a down payment to lower our payments.
I am a skidmark that cannot believe that I live in a house that I “own”(have a mortgage). And I am so much less pessimistic about anybody’s potential to do what I did. I am happy to answer some questions. I make $22 an hour and my wife makes $17, the loan officer told me I almost make too much for the program.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yes, at the time, I was hoping to buy in the Salt Lake Valley and it just wasn’t feasible. Thank you for the tip, I will read up on the USDA loans.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
The first time I applied for a loan, I didn’t have a credit card yet. And they were like:
How can we know you’re responsible with money?
Because I haven’t needed credit in the past and I’m still alive, idk? Having enough liquidity to not need credit would seem to suggest I’m good with money.
But maybe your parents are paying for everything
Ok? How does using a credit card change that?
bunchberry@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They are NOT looking to see if you are responsible with money. They are looking to see if they can make money off of you, so they want you to be a heavy credit user. Before I bought my house I made sure to take out two credit cards and just buy random shit on them for a few months because that boosts my credit score drastically which then made it easy to get the loan.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
That’s the impression I get too
But it’s plausibly deniable enough because you can still get decent credit score if you pay off your credit before you pay interest. It’s a numbers game for them, I expect, but still.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Because people that quickly pay off their principal and avoid accruing interest don’t make the Credit Card companies as much money. They prefer people that are bad with money, sort of like how police departments don’t accept applicants that do too well on the tests.
filcuk@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Considering how much data they can get on anyone, this process seems pointless and outdated, except to give them somewhat arbitrary power over who can get a loan.
Not that I like such private data to be available at any institutions fingertips, but so it is these days.
LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You can’t even get an apartment here without making a ton of money. Cheapest studio apartment here is $1,500 a month. I have to prove i make $4,500 a month just to barely qualify, which i don’t. Then they charge you so much for application fees, and then utilities they overcharge for, it’s all a scam.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I went from an apartment that cost ~$1250/mo. To a mortgage that costs ~$4300/mo. Just got the “privilege” of owning a home (and paying for all repairs myself).
I can only afford this because of the people I’m sharing that cost with. We’re all on the deed, and we all have a stake, and claim to, the house. Four of us.
My payment didn’t really change.
The only way we could get to the point of a down payment is that one of the four of us has been saving for something like this since they were in highschool. Because of their effort, we had enough for a down payment.
And I’m lucky to be in this position.
What a fucking crock of shit.
Despite all of this, I’m hoping the market takes a dive so the rest of you can do the same at a much more affordable rate. I’ve already spent the money and I’ll be spending years paying it off. I didn’t buy a house up objectively save money, I bought a house for stability. I never want to move ever again. There are good reasons for that which I won’t get into. I promise that I will have ZERO issues if you all get a better deal than I did. I hope you do, and I hope the housing market, specifically the rental/flipping/“income property” markets crash, hard.
In the same way, I’ve paid off my school debt, I’m in favor of school debt forgiveness. I also enjoy pretty good health, I’m in favor of universal healthcare. I’ve never caused, not been the victim of a fire, I’m in favor of fire departments.
I could go on.
Good luck everyone.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
In the same way, I’ve paid off my school debt, I’m in favor of school debt forgiveness. I also enjoy pretty good health, I’m in favor of universal healthcare. I’ve never caused, not been the victim of a fire, I’m in favor of fire departments.
That’s commie talk
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I’m glad I don’t live in America then.
billwashere@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Damn $4300 a month. I thought my $2600 was steep.
Right before we moved my rent had gone up to $2500 so it was a push. Now when we first started living there the rent was $1400 and the landlord had even refied so his mortgage was cheaper at the end. When we were moving up and he drove up in a brand new Rivian that I’m pretty sure I basically paid for…
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
To be fair, it’s a pretty large home. I’m living with my SO, my brother and his wife and there’s a couple of offspring that needed space too. Our house has ~5 ish bedrooms. Considering the number of people who live here, it can feel small. If it was just me and my SO, this would be humungous.
But that also means that we have four fully grown adults helping with the mortgage. So my share of the mortgage is around $1100 ish, per month, and we split most of the household bills, so I usually throw in about $400 more to help with that. I personally pay about $1500/mo.
My SO does the same, and we’ve encouraged my brother and his wife to also do the same. If everyone pays $1500 towards the house every month, we have more than enough to cover all the bills (electric/gas/water), as well as shared things like the Internet. Also that’s enough to cover the house insurance.
AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah, I went from $1200 rent to a $1300 mortgage but the city added $50k more value to the assesment so between taxes and insurance it’s going up to $1700/mo next year so that’s fun. I don’t know how many more years of that I could afford cuz $2600 just isn’t doable for me :/
devedeset@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Bad take. In my situation it went from us paying $1900 in rent to paying $4500 in mortgage.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
How??!
jj4211@lemmy.world 6 months ago
While renting in some markets can be cheaper than typical mortgage for comparable homes, the amount indicated seems a bit insane.
So either he is in a crazy real estate market, or there’s some additional context that makes it a poor comparison (going from renting in Virgina to Mortgage in San Francisco, going from a 1500 qt ft townhouse to a 3000 sq ft detached house with a quarter acre of land, or going for a 10-year mortgage). Or he’s just making it up or exaggerating because it’s the internet.
Interestingly enough that $4500 is pretty much exactly what it would be with 20% down on a $500,000 house for a 10-year mortgage. Of course, I’d expect such a house to rent for about $2700 rather than $1900. I could easily imagine he was renting a 2000 square foot 3 bedroom for $1900 and moving to what seems ‘slightly better’ 3000 square foot 3 bedroom with an extra special room or something, seeing that the 10-year mortgage is much cheaper in the long haul and going for it despite the huge monthly payment in the short term.
jj4211@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It depends on the market. Around here is similar, the market rental rate for a house is lower than what even the most lowest realistic monthly mortgage payment would be, but only by about 10% or so. I don’t know if you also dramatically upgraded your home quality.
Not too long ago around here it was the same as the post, renting higher than mortgage.
Even then over long term, the mortgage would make sense, since you can sell and get back some of the money and your principal and interest won’t magically get bigger because of market conditions.
In a sane world renting should be a touch cheaper than mortgage over the first few years, with tenants that only plan to be there 2 or three years. The owner gets a little income while taxes and insurance get paid and their asset maintained, and the tenant gets an easier and cheaper house to move in and out of for a short term living arrangement. Problem being when the market is upside down and when tenants are stuck never being able to build equity.
Agent641@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Well you made a choice. Either you knew you could make the payments for the price range you bought into, or you didn’t read the repayments figures on any of the documents the bank sent you and made a massive decision uninformed.
I pay 20% more for my mortgage than I did on my rent, but the house is also better, I can easily afford it, and I made that choice willingly and I’m happy with that arrangement.
devedeset@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
The bad take I was referring to was OP claiming the mortgage payment would be lower than the rent payment. In the US this is almost never the case.
rabber@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I hate the housing situation too but this is seriously a braindead take
FosterMolasses@leminal.space 6 months ago
More like a braindead comment
aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Braindead take? This is just the reality of the situation for a lot of people
rabber@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I know that it is why why would you be entitled to own a home just because you can make rent payments? Do you think the bank should give you a mortgage with $0 down? There are enough people buying who can save a down payment just fine
devedeset@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Mortgage payments are almost never lower than rent unless you are seriously downgrading
Ibaudia@lemmy.world 6 months ago
My issue wasn’t getting pre-approved, it was being able to actually afford the mortgage amount I was pre-approved for. A lot of these companies don’t give a damn if you can actually afford the mortgages they offer, because they know you’ll either figure it out or go homeless trying.
Ellvix@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah that was my experience as well. Mortgage companies were happy to pre approve me up to like 75% of my monthly income. Not even close to enough to buy even cheap food.
devedeset@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Fudging the numbers a bit, but let’s say I’m paying $3000/mo for a mortgage. Brokers tell me I can afford $10,000/mo.
I cannot afford $10,000/mo.
Logical@lemmy.world 6 months ago
We probably live in different countries, but where I live it’s more like you can’t get pre-approved for anything unless you either have a large amount of money saved up, or your salary is high enough that it’s far beyond what you would reasonably need to get paid to afford the mortgage.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
The corrosive corollary to ever-rising real estate valuations is that there is no incentive to keep buildings like condos nice or neighborhoods clean, someone will buy at the inflated price anyway since they all are inflated.
So basically I feel in Canada we live in a system that pulls valuation out of thin air, produces nothing, incentivizes no one, yet allows everything.
FosterMolasses@leminal.space 6 months ago
Same shit happening in Scotland. Knobheads makin bids above asking price on slum complexes in the city like it’s fooken millionaire row. Last landlord I had chucked a new tenant out and returned her deposit for complaining about the broken shower basin cos he cannae be arsed. Not exaggerating.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I never thought I’d end up at a place in life where I worry about real estate valuations, but here we are. In my condo building, things are getting decrepit. I wondered why no one else seemed to care then I realized I’m in the minority of owner-residents, every one else rents out, so they don’t care about how it looks. They just care about rents coming in.
Then I wondered why they don’t care about losing value, then I realized, no one is losing value, some units here sell for the same price as a single-family home in the suburbs, even with the graffiti and homeless people wandering the street.
julietOscarEcho@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
It’s mad given that Scotland technically is quite pro-renter. You just can’t enforce anything so landlords have learned not to give a fuck. A friend viewed a tennament they were trying to let with no kitchen (as in no cooker fridge or sink). Like something out of trainspotting.
Cocopanda@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Going to be wild when people just give up on society and just start eating the ruling and ownership class. I tried warning these assholes if they didn’t give something. Then they would doom their existence. And now you have more people radicalizing everyday because they are being put on the streets.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
The deposit is not to prove you can make the repayments.
Housing markets do, occasionally, go backwards in value.
If you have a loan for a house which is more than the value of the house you would have an incentive to just stop paying.
Thats why the bank needs a buffer, in the form of a deposit. Its not really nefarious.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
you need to pay us interest because we’re taking the risk. Also you need to give us a down payment to offset our risk.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Correct.
Less down payment means more risk and therefore more interest.
Its pretty simple really.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
It’s a little nefarious
Akasazh@lemmy.world 6 months ago
nefari-ish, if you will.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 6 months ago
The alternative is some variety of private mortgage insurance. The insurer bets that housing prices will rise, so that you won’t default. If you do default, they reimburse the lender on their losses associated with your default.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
as in the subject of this post, yes.
Lumisal@lemmy.world 6 months ago
If the loan is fixed at an amount or matched to inflation, you’d still have to pay or lose the house.
That’s still a pretty bullshit excuse, because it’s not like all that money you’ve already spent on paying the house will magically come back to you, you’d still be homeless if you lose the house, and the bank would still have a house available for the market, even if it’s at a lower value than before.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
I’m not sure if you’ve really understood the dynamic.
Suppose you buy for $700k, pay off $50k, but then the market collapses and the property is only worth $600k.
You’ll be $50k better off if you just stop paying and let the bank foreclose.
kungen@feddit.nu 6 months ago
And if it gets so bad that the bank starts losing money… no worries, the government will simply bail them out like usual!
Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 months ago
“The apartment is $1300 a month.”
“Perfect, I make $2000 a month.”
“No. You’re gonna need to make $3900 a month before we will rent to you.”
merc@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
There’s a rule of thumb that your rent / mortgage payments should only be 1/3 of your pre-tax pay. In expensive cities that’s sometimes impossible to manage. But $1300 out of $2000 means you’re spending 2/3 of your pre-tax pay on housing. If you’re taxed at only 20% that means your take-home pay is going to be $1600. After rent you’d only have $300 a month for food, utilities, clothing, transportation, etc.
If I were a landlord and someone on $2000/month wanted a $1300/month apartment, I’d be asking questions too.
PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
you’re not gonna be able to afford this apartment after a few years of 10% rent increases, and we don’t want the inconvenience of evicting you when that time comes
Furbag@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah, the 3x salary requirements are insane when housing accounts for almost 50% of people’s take home pay in most places.
Paddzr@lemmy.world 6 months ago
3x rent is pre tax, 50% is after tax.
Just a small clarification.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I live in the Toronto area and rent here is up to like $2600 for a 2 bedroom. Why haven’t we burned shit down? Why do we take this??
Im no leader but I’ll gladly build some gallows and die for my kid’s generation. Im also a vegetarian, but I’m willing to roast and take a bite of the billionaire just to show my conviction. I think we should actually literally do it with one to prove a point
mrregina@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah saving the money to buy a house is terrible.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 6 months ago
i swear my pancreas, the hospital and my bank account are conspiring against me
mrregina@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It took me starting my own business and throwing every dollar into savings to get a house. I advise anyone looking to get a house especially younger people to live at their parents as long as they can and save money that way too. But the standard if living keeps going up while pay stays crap too. It’s really hard. Every conspires against us. Life blows sometimes. lol
PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I hate to break it to you, but mortgage payments are not cheaper then rent anymore. Obviously depends on your mortgage and money down and all that, but if you expect to pay half as much for mortgage payments as you did for rent, you’re going to have a very bad time.
NickwithaC@lemmy.world 6 months ago
500 Vs 1000? What year is it?
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Not buy a house, inherit a house from our boomer parents.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 6 months ago
Actually i guess the bigger issue is that we’re gonna be unemployed in 15 years and then who pays back what?
workerONE@lemmy.world 6 months ago
People don’t want to twerk anymore!
brognak@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
And while we’re ranting about this, can we throw PMI and whomever came up with it on the bonfire where they belong?
Your telling me that I need to pay for you to have insurance in case I default while your also charging me interest who’s very purpose is to offset risk? Why am I paying to offset your risk FUCKING TWICE AND HOW IS THIS FUCKING LEGAL.
Shit infuriates me. I want all the bankers to get William Wallace on live TV, recorded and played back once a year during a mandatory viewing window so that we never, ever, forget.
sirico@feddit.uk 6 months ago
They did this before it worked out really well around 2008
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
How fucking old is this? Unless it’s a real shithole, mortgages have not been this cheap since Truss fucked up the economy
NENathaniel@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Where y’all finding houses for 500/month with a 25k downpayment?
Seems cheap af. If you only did a 25k downpayment the mortgage would certainly be more expensive than rent where I’m at.
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
They don’t actually need regular payments for 10-30 years. They need you deposit that down payment cash ASAP so they can lease it to billionaires and crypto exchanges.
altphoto@lemmy.today 6 months ago
Suppose I was the bank…
Guy1) Hey bank I want to sell my house for $1,000,000.00. Here is the deed, I owe $999,999.00 bank2.Bank1) OK I’ll take the house, here is $1.00 and $999,999.00 for bank2. Did you fuck up the house or burn it down to the point I can’t sell it?
Guy1) yup to the ground I burnt it all.
Assessor) I’ll charge Bank 1 $300 to go asses the price. Yeah currently this property can be sold for $300,546.00.
Bank 1) OK Guy1, you owe Bank2 $699,454.00 but here’s your $1.00.
Guy1) your honor I need to file for chapter 11. I have no money
Guy2) Bank 1, I would like to buy this property.
Bank1) Sure that’ll be $1,000,000.00.
4am@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
An ancient conundrum of you think anyone’s mortgage payment is £500, in any country
Tall_Chilchuck@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’ve never paid a mortgage, but £500 seems pretty low. Do mortgage payments tend to be that much cheaper than rent prices?
FireRetardant@lemmy.world 6 months ago
To be the devil’s advocate here. Rental payments vs mortgage payments is not an accurate comparison of the true financial burdens.
With many rentals some if not all utilities are included in the price of rent, whereas homeowners must pay the full cost of utilities. There is also the additional cost of home insurance and property taxes. Most rentals have the majority of their maintaince covered whereas the homeowner is responsible for lawn cutting, gutter cleanings etc. The cost of repairs and maintaince is not negligible. While renting if the heat quits or an appliance breaks, the landlord is supposed to cover the cost but owning means you must take that full cost.
In the posted example, having double the mortage payment in rent payment is probably adequate to cover the additonal costs but the comparison of renting vs owning is not black and white. Several financial managers have even studied that depending on your needs and income, you can actually be getting ahead financially by renting if you don’t actually need the full benefits of owning and are able to maintain a store of wealth through other investments. This is especially true if you are in a rent controlled unit.
PhillyA92@lemmy.world 5 months ago
And on top of that, they made any alternative illegal! You want to live in your van? Illegal, you want to build a tiny house? Illegal. It’s insane