Labor isn’t really cheap. As a home owner, I can tell you that getting a plumber, electrician, sewer guy, appliance repair guy, roof repair guy, squirrel trapper guy, eavestrough guy, etc, etc. are all very expensive and it adds up. Plus property taxes, major stuff like roof replacement every 10 years, grass cutting, painting.
But yes, it’s also property values that go up - and that makes it more expensive to buy land because more people want to use that land. And as a result, the value of renting goes up. You could rent on the outskirts of town for much less; but you want to live in a nice spot just like everyone else. So how else do we proportions out the land except by attributing value to it and doing trades?
when I say labor is cheap I mostly mean the landlord “labor” since this is virtually nothing. It’s not that expensive. It’s never 30%+ of your paycheck, most houses need nothing most of the time. Most of the rent/buying process of housing is land (aka dirt) value.
It’s not so much that you want to live in a nice place, it’s more than one must. We need to bring land prices down it would be better for the economy, for future generations, and for social equality… We can:
tax the hell out of the land value to finance what give land its value (public transport…)
Build publicly owned rent controlled flats
do aggressive rent control on part of the local housing stock.
Look up how Vienna does it, or in the US, the rezoning associated with rent controlled guarantees (without those guarantees rezoning increases land price)
Labor isn’t really cheap. As a home owner, I can tell you that getting a plumber, electrician, sewer guy, appliance repair guy, roof repair guy, squirrel trapper guy, eavestrough guy, etc, etc. are all very expensive and it adds up. Plus property taxes, major stuff like roof replacement every 10 years, grass cutting, painting.
But yes, it’s also property values that go up - and that makes it more expensive to buy land because more people want to use that land. And as a result, the value of renting goes up. You could rent on the outskirts of town for much less; but you want to live in a nice spot just like everyone else. So how else do we proportions out the land except by attributing value to it and doing trades?
when I say labor is cheap I mostly mean the landlord “labor” since this is virtually nothing. It’s not that expensive. It’s never 30%+ of your paycheck, most houses need nothing most of the time. Most of the rent/buying process of housing is land (aka dirt) value.
It’s not so much that you want to live in a nice place, it’s more than one must. We need to bring land prices down it would be better for the economy, for future generations, and for social equality… We can:
Look up how Vienna does it, or in the US, the rezoning associated with rent controlled guarantees (without those guarantees rezoning increases land price)