Do social democrats generally believe that rental housing is a private sector failure, or do they believe that the private sector generally creates affordable housing? I'm having trouble deciding for myself.
Posted Sep 1, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC
I think the Singapore model is a good one, but obviously would need to be adapted to be applied elsewhere. Basically the government owns all the land, but you can "own" it with a 99 year lease that transfers to your kids, you can sell, etc. Allows for a market while maintaining government oversight to ensure fairness.
Isn't that model only because it's just 1 city? What I'm asking is are there any countries (even small ones) that have gone that route?
As I said it obviously needs modification for larger countries but its a good base to work from
I think the issue is who is and isn't allowed to own houses. LLCs and REITs owning houses shouldn't be a thing. They gobble up housing and turn it into rentals, then jack the prices up. If we had something like a local FTC that could break up local oligopolies, I think the private sector housing market would be much better in terms of provision of affordable housing. If you want to own multiple homes, do it yourself and pay your fair share of taxes (and assume the liability). But because we don't regulate the housing market much, it's uncompetitive.
A lot of people view housing vouchers as helpful policy that preserves the private sector housing market, but that doesn't grow wealth for those people. It just goes towards rent. I feel like rental assistance should count towards a mortgage also. It would grow that person's wealth rather than handing it directly to corporate landlords.