this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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[–] Aljernon@lemmy.today 10 points 7 hours ago

A lack of housing is not the problem most places. The problem is that housing shifted from being a place for people to live to a way for people to acquire "passive income". Hell, the very design of housing changed in a noticeable way: houses shifted from being homes to being feature laden investment vehicles.

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Residential housing shouldn't be owned by corporations. It should be built by them and then sold to individuals.

[–] Aljernon@lemmy.today 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

A co-op could handle it without much problem.

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Yeah, anything that prevents the financialisation of residential housing floats my boat. In Iceland we have big corpos selling each other houses at over market price to increase the average m^2 price in an area. It's pretty bonkers.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 12 hours ago

That is not the consequence of enough housing. It's from wealth hoarding.

[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 10 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

IMO: do what Vienna is doing: state provided apartments and flats, competing with everyone else. Try price fixing now, corpos. If Vienna did not have this, it would be at the same level as other european metropolises.

Edit: typo

[–] D_C@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 hours ago

After the embarrassment of the last ten years, and the ongoing embarrassment until the fat orange child rapist dies, then I'd say getting a backpack and leaving the Nazied States of America is probably the best move.

[–] Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 10 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

We have plenty of housing. The problem is its all tied up with money hoarders. There are several times the number of empty houses than there are homeless. If we got rid hedge fund scumbags ability to horde everything including single family dwellings it would go a long way toward fixing this inequity.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 hours ago

I'm not really buying the no housing thing now. The thing is, it turned into a commodity. If you just build more, then those with all the money (because that gap is pretty damn vast nowadays) will just buy and hold and rent them

Wait till air comes next, or some stupid ass shit.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 60 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

No, it's the consequences of capitalism.

There are over 15 million empty houses in America, over 5 million of those are in the 50 largest metropolitan areas of the US.

770,000 people were counted as houseless in 2024.

Sure not every house is in great condition, and not every house is in a major city - but there is surely enough that people could use to if not house everyone, at the very least make a huge dent in that figure. The issue is people cannot afford to buy them because housing is seen as an industry not a basic life need.

[–] arrow74@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You know I see this figure a lot, but I wonder how many of these are actually liveable.

My grandfather's old home is unoccupied, that's because the roof entirely collapsed. The county refuses to remove it from the property taxes. Based on all available records it's an unoccupied home, but it's a total loss in reality.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Who knows, but you only need 5.13% to be in good condition to house everyone.

[–] arrow74@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 hours ago

Oh yeah we certainly have that many homes ready to be occupied tomorrow

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 15 points 17 hours ago

Precisely. This is extreme inequity. There are plenty of resources to go around.

The future was stolen.

[–] bunkyprewster@startrek.website 5 points 11 hours ago

How about taxing owners of unoccupied homes?

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 57 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

There is enough housing. It sits unoccupied and sometimes disrepair.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 20 points 18 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 11 hours ago

that did happen on various degree, only 1 incident in the west last years ago.

[–] BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Yes, though also some are in such economically depressed areas that you can barely get a job.

Which is a concern, but can largely be mitigated by encouraging work-from-home jobs. If people are able to reliably WFH, (and COVID proved that many jobs can be done entirely from home), then the local job market doesn’t tend to matter as much.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

We also need to organize for clean public transit; in the meantime, there's often plenty in bustling areas, as well.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Lots of empty apartments are in luxury buildings right in the best parts of big cities.

Fully furnished too, just empty tax shelters to be traded back and forth by billionaires and their kids when they need cash.

We need to convince the desk staff and security in this buildings to help people squat in them indefinitely.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 5 points 15 hours ago

Knowing how poorly these employers tend to compensate the staff, they may be happy to accept roommates in the accommodations.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 3 points 14 hours ago

But a lot of them are in densely populated suburbs or cities, driven out by the artificially inflated rental costs. The owners would rather have a few units empty than lower the rent.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 26 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (5 children)
  • Crack down on price fixing
  • Don't let corporations run AirBNBs or similar
  • Don't let corporations own any rental building under approximately 10 units.
  • Don't let rental buildings have more than a low percentage of empty units for turn around. They have to lower the rent then. If it goes to $200/month, then so be it.

There are so many things to try, but Trickle Down Housing never works.

[–] bountygiver@lemmy.ml 4 points 13 hours ago

hell yeah, rentals should be made prohibitively expensive to keep empty, if the city don't have the demand to rent it? Then you should sell it at a price people will buy in a short enough time.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Ratcheting taxes for unoccupied houses and apartment units. Allow a grace period of one year, to allow for flips. But after that, every home you own after the first is considered unoccupied if it is vacant for more than three months of the year. And taxes on vacant homes become increasingly expensive as you own more and more of them.

Like the first vacant house you own may be near a normal tax rate, the second makes both more expensive, the third makes all three super expensive, etc… And these tax penalties should get expensive fast. Like up to (or even over) 100% if you’re sitting on more than like five or six properties. Then take the proceeds of these higher taxes, and put them towards first time homebuyer assistance programs. I’d even go so far as to say that renting a single family home shouldn’t totally eliminate the tax, only reduce it. This would solve the three largest issues with the housing market right now.

First, it solves the “sitting on vacant houses to drive up the price of rent” problem. Actively force landlords to keep their apartments and houses full, driving down the price of rent. If the unit is occupied, the tax is lower. And again, even the most expensive landlords should only be able to feasibly own three or four extra properties before the taxes get prohibitively expensive, even after being mitigated by occupation.

Second, it solves the “buying a dozen houses and only selling one of them” problem. Corporations do this to be able to game the market and drive up prices on the few they do sell. But by making it prohibitively expensive to sit on vacant houses, you preemptively wreck any kinds of profits they would make by sitting on them.

Third, it would allow for more low interest loans for first time home buyers, and could even be used to offset the potential downpayment costs.

But of course, this will basically never be implemented, because the lawmakers are all bribed by the corporations that own thousands of vacant homes.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

It's true that it's doubtful that this stuff will get implemented if we continue the way we are going. Most people don't know about these issues and talking about it gets this info out there. The propaganda coming from the corporate landlords is heavy and strong. I'm surprised this isn't getting trolled heavily tbh. Not sure why it isn't.

Things to continue talking about and what I don't think people realize, know, or understand how bad it is:

  • Price fixing is a huge problem in rentals. They have website services that help the landlords do this.
  • Corporate landlords hold empty homes and apartments vacant until they can get the prices they want rather than lower the price. This is why that trickle down housing shit doesn't work.
  • Corporations buy up all cheap housing so downturns in markets are only good for them too. See the first 2 bullet points.
  • The push for more housing means that there are more luxury apartments, not homes for who need them. They'll say that homes will be available when they get shitty over the years. See above bullet points and even if that were true, would take 30 years anyway.

Go after the corporate landlords and corporate airbnb shit first, then go after the nimbys. The nimbys are the distraction and pits the neighbors against the 15 minute city types instead of the corporations that are making fucking bank.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 12 hours ago

I was recently a NIMBY. Let me explain. People from California sell their homes for millions and come here and offer way over asking price so we are priced out. Natives cannot afford to live here now. In 2020 they fucked me out of a house I wanted, even after I offered well over asking. Now they want to put 450 homes behind the neighborhood where I finally got a house. The roads are already damn near impassible. The state refuses to allow us to charge the developer an impact fee. We're running out of water. Our water bills just went up 149%. Real estate has flown through the roof. We do not have enough infrastructure, enough schools, and an ambulance might take 45 min. Traffic is ridiculous. Some person from Cali was in Reddit asking locals for advice, and they attacked her so bad she said never mind, I'm absolutely not moving there.

Honestly, we're not bad people. We're just sick if it. For some reason people in high COL places romanticize this area and it's ruining everything. Like damn, how much more do things have to be to accommodate all these people?

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 13 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Don’t let corporations own single family homes. Drastically increase the tax rate for more than 3 houses by any single person. A landlords income is not producing anything useful, it’s stealing income from people actually providing society with something useful.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 6 points 16 hours ago

Drastically increase the tax rate for more than 3 houses by any single person.

I would say that it should start building the tax after one house and go drastic like you said on the 3rd.

[–] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Don’t let corporations own any rental building over approximately 10 units

Wouldn't corpos be the ones to buy larger buildings (e.g. over 10 units)? It's tough for typical individual investors to be able to buy a 100-unit building.

It's SFH that they shouldn't be buying.

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I meant under 10 units, you're right. I fixed it. I'm down with a cold and I knew it wasn't quite right, but my brain couldn't fix it, lol.

Edit: That has to be in conjunction with them not being able to have airbnbs though too. Cuz that's just a hotel.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 3 points 17 hours ago

Best I can do is fed interest rate cuts.

[–] bajabound@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago

Obviously fake and misrepresented. The paint isn't peeling off that van.

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 7 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Haha

I was just watching a YT travelogue of a US guy in his 50s (Gen X) who was travelling the world frugally with a backpack because he can't afford rent in the US. He had some investments and spent less travelling then working and living in the US, so his investments have grown in the 3 yrs he's done this.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuNKV0CMgcVUiJNdA-JNlJA

Plent of US retirees in Cambodia for the same reaon, can't afford the US anymore.

[–] dp@thebrainbin.org 25 points 19 hours ago

Damn that backpack looking spacious af

[–] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 5 points 14 hours ago

Another cyberpunk come true scenario that involves absolutely no cool cybernetics

[–] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 13 points 17 hours ago

Building it isn't the problem. My Republican shithole burb just bulldozed the last of our open space, to build 600 single family units starting in the "low one millions." Can't afford that? No problem. They're also building 2000 condos, starting in "the mid 500s."

Starting to see the real problem?

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 13 points 19 hours ago (2 children)
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[–] ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zip 4 points 17 hours ago

....you cross-posted from "Neoliberal" and tried to pass it off as a shitpost? For fucks sake. They're not even trying anymore. At least we don't have to look at a pedophile in this particular political post. Are the mods ever going to do something about this shit?

[–] asg101@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 12 hours ago
[–] Smart_Penicillin@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago

In Europe we have already achieved the backpack level. We are winning. 💪

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

The consequences of letting companies buy up residential homes.

[–] evol@lemmy.today -2 points 11 hours ago

House ownership rates have been like the same for decades ? I really never understood these arguments

[–] wander1236@sh.itjust.works 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

There's plenty of housing, it's just not profitable to let people live there, so obviously it's better to just leave it all empty.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 4 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

The backwards thing is, it probably actually is profitable, but we can’t see beyond the next quarter. We don’t understand that you can invest in your people.

I might have kids if I had the space for it. You know, future taxpayers.

[–] modestmeme@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

200 million Americans in 1970, 340 million now. The dream of a nice house with a big yard is limited by space; space that also requires farmland, forests, parks, etc… We need dense apartment buildings, not houses.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 hours ago

We made a shit tin of those. Many are empty to drive prices up.

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