this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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Housing crisis: The hottest political issue European politicians aren’t talking about (www.politico.eu)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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The Continent's housing crisis has gone from being a slow burn to a four-alarm fire — but some countries are handling it better than others.

One of Europe’s long-simmering political frustrations is suddenly boiling over.

From Lisbon to Łódź, voters are angry about the lack of affordable housing. Anti-immigrant riots broke out in Dublin last fall, fueled in part by claims that the Irish capital’s limited public housing was being given to foreigners. Meanwhile, in cities like Lisbon, Amsterdam and Milan, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to denounce the lack of affordable homes.

In a poll ahead of last week’s far-right surge in the European Parliament election, the Continent’s mayors listed housing as one of the most important issues facing their constituencies.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

In many cities, politicians have decided that it's better to have tourists than people living there permanently, so they simply ignore the fact that every house is today an Airbnb (legal or else) and that any new homes being built are simply unaffordable because they aim to be purchased by Investors to speculate.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Is housing a basic right in your country ? I believe it should be.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

It's not. Not in the U.S. Not at all. Not even slightly.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Seems more general an issue with wealth distribution

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Nobody seems to talk about in the US either, one of the most basic human rights is in crisis and it’s just business as usual.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

In a poll ahead of last week’s far-right surge in the European Parliament election, the Continent’s mayors listed housing as one of the most important issues facing their constituencies.

Cash-strapped municipal councils that had previously built housing gave up on new construction and sold off existing stock — but the private sector failed to pick up the slack.

The housing associations are not run for profit and two-thirds of the rent collected goes into a national building fund, which has been used since 1967 to finance the construction of new homes and the refurbishment of existing stock.

Bent Madsen, CEO of the Danish Federation of Non-Profit Housing Providers, said that even though about a quarter of the dwellings were assigned to vulnerable groups — like single families or refugees — anyone could apply for a home, regardless of income.

For publicly owned homes built after 2000, rent per person per square meter is 40 percent cheaper than market prices, according to data analyzed by the Danish Federation of Non-Profit Housing Providers.

Rebecca Omoregie, vice director of Wohnbaugenossenschaften Schweiz, an association of nonprofit housing developers, said that the co-ops were democratically organized, with all residents having the same rights and say regarding the buildings’ management.

The original article contains 1,215 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] -5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

This website won't like this. But it's a failing of the market and it could be fixed by capitalism.

Removing restrictions on housing density, and where houses can be built and adding a Land value tax would help things. Also obviously less immigration would solve the demand side of the equation. I think countries should stop focusing on the ever increasing growth of countries and we should focus more on things like free time.

But really the solution to this is A build a new city or B destroy large parts of a city that were built when the city size was 10% it size and built more density, modern building standards, public transport etc.

But the boomer generation don't give a fuck about the next generations so probably have to wait for them to die.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Only capitalism can save us from capitalism! - Capitalists

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What'd the solution to a fundamental lack of housing stock then?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Government spending but capitalists don't like that answer unless they're the ones getting the money.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 months ago

Government spending do to what exactly?

I have no issue with government spending. If fact I think the government should buy all the land. That's my proposal. But housing will be built more efficiently by the market. Governments are inefficient.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I don't see how this addresses the AIRBNB problem, or the corporations that are rapidly buying up all ~~analogous~~ available housing stock in order to rent it out.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Ultimately it is a supply and demand issue.

Supply is artificial restricted because no one will build because either they simply can't or the value is going up too much that there is no point (which can be solved) and population is increasing.

If you built a shit load of homes there would be both more houses to rent/buy and more Airbnb options. Honestly the airbnb option in a lot of places is a problem because large hotel can't be built.

There are 827,557 residential homes in Barcelona. There are 10,101 airbnb properties. That's about 1.2%.

What you think happens if Barcelona builds another 100,000 houses/hotels?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

100k hours and hotels is going to hit where exactly? And that 10-50 billion dollars of investment is funded by what exactly? Magical money printing machine?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The industry in Spain is worth $206.4 billion per year. Money would be found.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

No one is going to loan an industry 20% of its yearly revenue.

I'm beginning to suspect you don't have an mba.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You're an idiot. You're not going to build that much in 1 year.

If you did have that much work being done in Barcelona money would flood in from elsewhere also. Especially the EU.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Congrats you lose the argument by resorting to personal attacks.

I never said it would be built in a year so it would appear the idiot is you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, let's make it even more of a hell to live in cities by paving over anything green and making people live like livestock in tiny cages. That will surely solve the problem!

Oh, and really it's the immigrants' fault! They're the ones buying up all of the houses with cash to later rent them as AirBnBs!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I didn't say any of that.

Airbnb is 1% of the stock having been formed in 2007. How much do you think immigration has increased by since 2007? Less than 1% of the population?

You really think freeing up 1% of housing stock is going to magically mean everyone that wants to buy a house now suddenly can?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Saying "Airbnb" is obviously an oversimplification - a ton properties seem to be bought by rental companies, not normal people. There's a ton of properties just sitting empty, as well.

The solution is to introduce more control for housing, not less. Less control means more cheaply made hell-scape skyscraper buildings housing hundreds of people each, with no green spaces anywhere in sight.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There isnt a ton sitting empty. Dome need to be empty obviously for people to move in and out and for renovation. But even that isn't enough to satisfy demand.

Your plan is more housing restriction and let me guess the awful idea that is tent control? Neither of these prevent the issue of lack of supply. Thats where the solution lies.

Of course governments need to enforce building standards. Things like public transport and density.

But at the moment the government is the one stopping more housing, especially higher density. If you allowed business to build more houses they would.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

About 10% of homes in the US are considered vacant, 5.5% in UK, 18% in Europe. 0.02% of the US population is homeless, I believe it's 0.006% in UK, 0.07-0.33% in European countries.

Yet your solution is still to make housing even less comfortable for poor people by getting rid of density laws and blame immigrants for the housing prices, to boot.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I think you will find some of the most high density housing in the world is very expensive. What are you even on about. Land is expensive. You think detached housing is the cheapest way to build houses? You're out if your mind. Supply and demand. Locals could live in the houses if other people weren't coming in and buying them. How many immigrants are living in these countries? Why dont you compare that to vacant housing? The vacant housing is only a big issue in undesirable locations and you need some anyway. Like I said LVT is the way forward. Solves this problem.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

No one ever claimed detached housing is the cheapest form of housing... Way to build a strawman.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You're talking about keeping density low as a means to keep house prices low. It's stupid.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

No, you're claiming that that's what I'm talking about.

What I'm saying is that making density even higher is not the solution to the housing problem. There are other, better ways of making houses more affordable than forcing people to live elbow-to-elbow with their neighbors.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

What are you proposing then. Shoulder to shoulder includes everything that isn't detached.

How would less dense housing be cheaper when you need to buy more land and land is the thing that is expensive? Never mind things like utilities, public transport, police etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Some ideas could include, but are not limited to:

  • ban companies from buying housing properties
  • introduce a fairly high tax on every second (or at least third, progressively higher with each) property to deter buying up properties to rent
  • perhaps introduce another tax on properties which have been vacant for X months/years
  • introduce rent control
  • perhaps even introduce some form house price control (per square meter, tied to median wage, perhaps)
  • make the government build some housing

You can debate how well each of these would work, but there are many ways to bring prices down without making it less pleasant to live in those houses. I'm most partial to a progressive property tax, rent control and government housing, myself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You really need to look into why those things are bad ideas because they seen like good ideas until you actually more than superficially look at them.

Especially rent control it is an awful, awful idea and leads to bad outcomes for everyone. But people refuse to learn about it and think it's a good idea. Go look up some YouTube videos on what's wrong with rent control. That will have comparisons to a lot of other things.

The problem is there isn't enough housing. Stop housing from being rented doesn't make more housing, it will actually make less.

The only actual good idea on that list is government building. But the issue governments have is the exact same issues as what companies have. Laws and NIMBY stop people from redeveloping areas that people live in or near. There just isn't any more land to build on that's available and with governments forcing population to increase and how everyone wants to live in big cities the issues gets worse and worst.

The solution lies in building more housing, nothing else. If there isn't enough housing literally nothing makes more housing than building more housing or converting no other solution works.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry, but you won't be able to convince me that allowing a single company to own hundreds of apartments is a good idea that won't contribute negatively to housing prices.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

We are on about new ones.

If you won't accept the most basic, basic, basic ideas about economics. Then yes congratulations you can't be taught something. I wouldn't be proud of that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, advocating for basic human dignity is now "not understanding basic ideas about economics", and none of the SIX different solutions I provided (which I didn't invent myself, btw) could ever work in any capacity.

I won't be continuing this conversation, as it is clearly not productive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Dignity is great and all but it doesn't make houses when there aren't enough. That's two different problems.