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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

So, I prevented someone from owning a home that could only barely afford $80-$135/week with all utilities included?

Isn’t that the ultimate “let them eat cake”?

The alternative would be for the eight people to be homeless?

Are all of the people buying property and focusing on student housing also keeping people from buying houses? Were the college students with no income who were only going to be in town for four years and living off of student loans also going to buy houses? Should they have also been forced to buy homes or be homeless?

> So thank you for contributing to the housing issue that causes young people to not be able to afford a home

I assure you those eight people (two houses) were happy to be able to afford to have a roof over their head.

Do you suggest no one be allowed to be renters and everyone buy a home?

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Do you think if income grew at the same pace as house prices, those paying $80-135/week would be able to afford a house and mortgage on a smaller home?

Do you think everyone in your perfect world would be able to or should buy a home no matter what their circumstances? Including the recently divorced single guy who found odd jobs, the ex convict trying to get his life together, etc?

The guy with the cheapest room was paying less than $4200 a year all utilities included. Did I do him a disservice?

Are you saying that renters shouldn’t exists or do you think no one should be allowed to rent a single family house under no circumstances and you should either rent an apartment or buy a house?

Providing a service doesn’t change that you’re contributing to a problem. You really sound like you don’t want people to own homes. You would rather houses be expensive so you can provide a service to more than to a few or to people who don’t want to own a home etc.

I sold my investment properties over a decade ago.

But you didn’t answer the questions.

Should everyone who wants to live in a house be forced to buy no matter what stage of life they are in?

What shouid the people do who can’t afford to buy?

I don't think everyone should be forced to buy - I think that the tax code should be changed in order to not favor buying so heavily over renting.

A few ideas to start

1) Get rid of the mortgage interest deduction

2) Tax imputed rent same way that rent payments are taxed (so you would have to pay tax on the money you would have paid to rent from yourself)

3) Get rid of capital gains exemption ($250K per person, 500K for married couples)

or the more extreme version

Land Value Tax.

In Switzerland, 58% of the population are renters. Notably, the tax advantages of owning above are missing in Switzerland, making renting a more attractive proposition. That's what should be fixed. Don't push everyone to buy a home, but don't keep shoveling money in regressive transfers to those who do.

(I didn't even mention prop 13 in California here which locks in your property tax - that is a complete abomination and should never have been passed. It's a regressive giveaway to homeowners)

> In Switzerland, 58% of the population are renters. Notably, the tax advantages of owning above are missing in Switzerland, making renting a more attractive proposition. That's what should be fixed. Don't push everyone to buy a home, but don't keep shoveling money in regressive transfers to those who do.

I don't know how familiar you are with Switzerland, but if you are trying to paint this as a good thing, it is not. Go to www.homegate.ch or www.immobilier.ch and see how much a house costs. Hint: very few are below 1 mio CHF for a family home in a good area. That's an insane amount of money, even for a good earner. People in Switzerland don't rent long-term because its a great financial decision, they rent because they can't afford to buy.

Interest-only mortgages are common here. That means you take out a mortgage and don't even try to pay it back fully, only paying back the interest your whole life and then when you die, the bank sells the house and takes its share of the capital back. There are also some tax rules around (2) from your point above, plus negative interest rates for a long time, leading to Swiss property prices going parabolic the last few decades.

> Get rid of the mortgage interest deduction

Just a useless talking point. Especially with the changes in the tax law, the standard deduction is so high, most people don’t take advantage of the interest tax deduction.

https://smartasset.com/taxes/how-did-the-trump-tax-bill-affe...

> Tax imputed rent same way that rent payments are taxed (so you would have to pay tax on the money you would have paid to rent from yourself)

So now increasing taxes are going to help make houses more affordable?

And if you do that, and want to start treating home ownership as if you are renting from yourself at “market rate”, you are now back to also allowing deductions from ownership as you would if you were a landlord - interest deduction, expenses, deductions for depreciation where you can depreciate the cost of your house over 17 years, etc

> Get rid of capital gains exemption ($250K per person, 500K for married couples)

If you make it more punitive to sell, less people are going to be willing to sell their house when they outgrow it. That makes for less housing to come onto the market.

> That's what should be fixed. Don't push everyone to buy a home

So now you want more landlords?

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