Fixing Retail With Land Value Capture (worksinprogress.co) 127
The independent coffee shops and quirky boutiques that make neighborhoods like Hayes Valley in San Francisco or Williamsburg in Brooklyn desirable are caught in a frustrating economic trap: they create value that ends up in the pockets of nearby homeowners rather than their own cash registers.
An essay in Works in Progress magazine argues that when an interesting new store or restaurant opens, commercial and residential property values rise in the surrounding area, but the retailer itself captures only a fraction of that value through its actual sales. Almost half of stores in one San Francisco shopping district shuttered within four years even as the neighborhood thrived and rents climbed.
The authors propose several fixes drawn from historical and international practice. Shopping malls and mixed-use developments solve this through unified ownership, allowing a single entity to cross-subsidize interesting tenants. Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway buys land around new stations before building begins, making it one of the few profitable transit systems in the world. Business Improvement Districts let businesses tax themselves for shared amenities, though they currently don't capture value that spills over to nearby residents.
The essay suggests creating hybrid institutions -- something between homeowners' associations and business improvement districts -- that could levy hyperlocal taxes to keep valued retail alive.
An essay in Works in Progress magazine argues that when an interesting new store or restaurant opens, commercial and residential property values rise in the surrounding area, but the retailer itself captures only a fraction of that value through its actual sales. Almost half of stores in one San Francisco shopping district shuttered within four years even as the neighborhood thrived and rents climbed.
The authors propose several fixes drawn from historical and international practice. Shopping malls and mixed-use developments solve this through unified ownership, allowing a single entity to cross-subsidize interesting tenants. Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway buys land around new stations before building begins, making it one of the few profitable transit systems in the world. Business Improvement Districts let businesses tax themselves for shared amenities, though they currently don't capture value that spills over to nearby residents.
The essay suggests creating hybrid institutions -- something between homeowners' associations and business improvement districts -- that could levy hyperlocal taxes to keep valued retail alive.
Something we don't think about (Score:4, Interesting)
You are basically paying a tax to a handful of billionaires that own virtually all the commercial real estate of any value in the country. If you want to open a business in America and it's not something like a machine shop that can be out in the middle of nowhere then you are going to have to pay ridiculously high rents and you are going to have to pass that cost on to your customers.
Back in the day Montgomery wards survived several major economic downturns because they owned their own buildings. They got bought out by a venture capital firm that sold off the land and they were gone in no time.
As an added bonus we were all forced to go back into the office because those billionaires commercial real estate holdings took a bath.
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The problem with that is it would create runaway inflation.
To a certain extent, inflation only matters if you aren't the one that owns everything. Continually devaluing wages before minimum wage can rise to meet it is another way to skim off the top.
Mixed use example misses the point (Score:5, Informative)
Coffeeshops and quirky stores do not capture the value in a mixed-use building because they are tenants. It's insanely rare for a business in a city to own the actual space in the building in which they reside.
This isn't just a general poor people's case, or some modern startup business failing, but rather includes some truly historic situations too.
Café Griensteidl in Vienna which indirectly traces its roots back to 1847 and was ultimately closed because rents rose more than they could afford to pay.
Tea shop 't Zonnetje in Amsterdam closed after 450 years operating in the same location due to rising rents.
These are businesses that have seen empires rise and fall and yet suddenly can't afford rent because of land value increases.
Businesses usually simply don't own the buildings they operate from. They capture no value, not by themselves, not in mixed use dwellings (both the examples I gave are mixed use).
Re: Mixed use example misses the point (Score:2)
I'm in the greater Philadelphia area and it is not uncommon for ground floor retail and restaurant space to be ultra low rent if the building owner thinks it makes the area hipper.
The owner extracts the value in $150/unit extra for the ten floors above.
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You are right, and the building owners are real risk-takers just as the tenants are. They stand to gain a lot or lose a lot, depending on how well their building and neighborhood does. And these business owners *do* gain from the rising values in the neighborhood.
Metroland (Score:3)
There's some prior art in buying land around new stations before building begins. "Metroland" [wikipedia.org] is an area to the north west of London that was developed by the Metropolitan Railway on that basis. Build the stations, attract commuters, and make a profit from house sales and increased traffic. It would be interesting if the big gaps in CA high speed rail - San Jose to Central Valley, and Central Valley to LA, could be partly financed by commuter rail. People can commute a long way on high speed rail: look at Kent to London St Pancras on High Speed 1.
They also get a free ride (Score:2)
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This is already happening in northern chicago suburbs. The malls have destroyed dead anchor stores to rennovate mixed use commerical/residential concepts. 1 was just built from scratch near me and it has been great success. As for the larger malls with larger foot print, they are extending the space to also include outdoor venue for events (food markets, small concerts etc). There is no added noise/traffic as the space was already a giant mall with dead parking utilization already.
That's the new big thing in the suburbs. Suburban malls near me are dying, mainly due to new mixed use taking away the higher end shops, leaving anchor stores and empty retail space or low end stores selling TEMU junk at inflated prices. The only thriving malls are in more dense areas where a mixed use development is not feasible. I suspect the anchor stores at the dying malls will be shuttered and the retailers move to smaller focused mix use store/mall location or simply stay at the mall; or if there is
Hayes Valley (Score:4, Interesting)
I’m a teacher, so clearly (Score:5, Insightful)
I’m a surgeon, and I basically save the lives of several people per day. Without me, their productivity would drop to zero. But, my salary only captures a teeny tiny fraction of the gains from my work. We should force every patient of mine to sign over a chunk of their lifetime income to me, and use the power of government to enforce it.
I could keep coming up with examples of why this is a bad idea, but it’s already gotten too easy.
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I’m a surgeon, and I basically save the lives of several people per day. Without me, their productivity would drop to zero. But, my salary only captures a teeny tiny fraction of the gains from my work.
Not a good example. When the surgeon is billing a couple hundred thousand per heart surgery on people making $35k/year. He's getting an outsized chunk of their productivity.
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I’m arguing a ridiculous point to support my argument that the idea under discussion is prob
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Not a good example. When the surgeon is billing a couple hundred thousand per heart surgery on people making $35k/year. He's getting an outsized chunk of their productivity.
People think that, but it's not really the case. The heart surgeon themselves gets well paid, but, relatively speaking, it's squat compared to the rest of the cost. It's basic math. A heart surgeon does maybe 200 operations per year and the higher paid ones get maybe $900K per year. That's around $4500 per operation. Sure, there are multiple people involved in the surgery like an anesthesiologist (who both makes less per year than the heart surgeon, but also handles considerably more cases, making their cos
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I am glad someone understands what is being discussed. This "story" is all about entitlement and how some people deserve more than others. There is always some amount of Truth in these discussions; however, everyone thinks they are the entitled ones.
This is the kind of smooth-brained thinking (Score:2, Informative)
only Capitalism could muster. Always looking for a way to make a claim and profit from something they have no right to.
Business condominiums (Score:3)
IMHO the answer is business condos. I've seen a few signs of these around town. You buy the storefront that is part of a larger building. Now you can benefit from the increased land value. Don't have the capital up front, get a mortgage. Can't get a mortgage, that should tell you something about your business.
Worth mentioning is that there are a lot other changes happening at the same time that are affecting neighborhood shopping
1. Online retail. Those folks in quirky Hayes Valley are likely spending a good chunk of their retail expenditures on Amazon and other online shopping. Probably go into the fancy store, take a snapshot of an item and order it online.
2. Food delivery. I am constantly amazed at the popularity of waaaay overpriced food delivery. But local, quirky, cafes, etc are now competing with cafes across town and ghost kitchens.
3. Changing habits - people are going out less. Less to bars, less to restaurants, less to movies, just less. Less likely to include shopping if you aren't already out for dinner, drinks, etc.
4. Demographics - SF like all of the US and most of the world s getting older. As a group the older folks are less likely to spend capriciously, like the 20s-30s crowd
I RTFA and it's peppered with nonsense masquerading as a 'plan'. The basic premise comes back to the tried and true that certain business owners (landlords) are bad, but other businesses (quirky stores) are good, and the author and his cohort will choose which ones are good/bad. That should strike everyone as a path to certain ruin.
It sucks, but we have to let the local market do this choosing over a period of time. How many of us have bemoaned the loss of a treasured neighborhood store, but have also reflected that we rarely if ever shopped there. Prob the best a municipality can do is make it as inexpensive , easy, and quick as possible for new small businesses to start. Instead of having a storefront vacant for 9-19 months on permitting, get it done in 60 days and let them serve their customers.
Zoning (Score:2)
Online, there are interesting shops everywhere with niche products. But they do nothing for local neighborhoods.
If you work from home, you can make a good living paying a single mortgage or rent payment. But if you want to sell something, now you have to pay for a second location.
If small towns want to be interesting and invite investment, then they need to make it possible for people to run small businesses out of their garages or front porches. They could cap annual revenue if they wanted to limit it t
Not terribly new issue (Score:2)
Businesses are always trying to capture more of the value they create. Problem is, successful businesses virtually always capture only a tiny fraction of it.
There are some studies, for which I do not have citations, which estimate that entrepreneurs capture something in the low single digits of the value they create. Steve Jobs was a zillionaire but a billion people got phones which are way more valuable to them than what they paid. Jobs and Apple only skimmed of a tiny portion of that value.
We often grouse
Re: Not terribly new issue (Score:2)
I'm confused - what are local businesses entitled to?
If I open a coffee shop in an up and coming neighborhood, the neighborhood was ascending before my shop opened, I opportunistically hope to ride that wave and enrich myself.
As the property values increase, arguably the property value of my coffee shop increases - but if I rent a store front, why do I 'deserve' subsidies? Why does the land lord deserve subsidies? Why do my neighbors owe me money to keep my doors open?
If you want to profit from increasing p
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I'm confused - what are local businesses entitled to?
If I open a coffee shop in an up and coming neighborhood, the neighborhood was ascending before my shop opened...if you want to profit from increasing property values, you have to OWN property, not rent it.
Well, if I understand the argument, the property values are going up because the coffee shop opened. They may have been going up beforehand but the growth continued because of the added flair of having hip coffee joints in walking distance.
I can see their point: I put in the work to open a coffee bar and can only make so much from it (because competition from other coffee stores prevents me from charging over $X for a latte). OTOH, the homeowners and landlords don't have the same constraint so they make muc
Is that why you open a coffee shop? (Score:2)
The essay suggests creating hybrid institutions -- something between homeowners' associations and business improvement districts -- that could levy hyperlocal taxes to keep valued retail alive.
Why do coffee shop owners feel they are owed a reward for increasing property values? They make their money offering a product to local customers - as the income level of the neighborhood increases, they need to adjust their offerings to benefit in the changing environment.
The ONLY benefit they might 'deserve' would be reduced property taxes to offset increasing property values...
"Fixing" means extracting and monopolizing (Score:2)
The other way around? (Score:2)
Where's the problem? (Score:2)
It's always weird to see (Score:3, Interesting)
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Basically r/Georgism written up into an article. LVT and Henry George go back quite a ways. It's an interesting idea. Powerful in theory. Dangerous if oversimplified. Which a lot do.
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True. Their approach failed, so they want more of it because they do not have the skills and mental flexibility to consider other things. Basically a form of high-functioning idiot or a person with non-general intelligence.
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An article like this written by somebody who has drank the Kool-Aid and they can't think of any other solution to a problem besides more market consolidation and less regulation. It's a classic case where if you're only tools a hammer you're going to make a really shitty piece of furniture.
It always seems to be the case with extremist philosophies that they think the only reason it failed is that we just didn't try hard enough at the thing that failed.
Communism, fascism, libertarianism, Brexit, ask a true believer and they'll tell you that "if we just did it right this time, it'll all magically work out". They never seem to understand why it failed all the other times before.
Re:total batshit (Score:5, Informative)
There was also a time when Main Street business buildings featured business on the ground floor and residence on the next floor up, where the small business was a sole-proprietorship and the owner lived above the store. In other configurations it was a front/back divide, with the shop on the front facing the boulevard and the home on the back facing the side-street or the alley.
The modern shopping-center doesn't generally seem to cater to that, and cities don't seem to zone for that kind of arrangement much anymore.
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There is only one owner and "he" is collecting all of the rent that is due. All of it.
Humans are fucking mental. "You" can't own anything, it all belongs to "him".
Re:total batshit (Score:5, Insightful)
It's time to recognize that rent is theft.
Someone took the risk, bought the land, built the infrastructure, the building, parking lot, etc. all with the hope that they would recoup that investment through renting the space to retailers. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. There are plenty of malls right now who are struggling to fill their huge sq. ft. space with anything at all, and those owners are losing piles of money. This also keeps the cost of starting a business much lower because you can simply rent prepared space and don't have to invest in building all of that yourself. And yes, that convenience takes a share of your profits (but owning and maintaining your own land, parking lot, infrastructure, etc. would also take a share of your profits). AND, property doesn't always go up in value. So there's the risk that even if you invest, own, and maintain your owned property, that the new highway or entertainment district or etc. will be built somewhere else and your property will suddenly be worth much less. With renting, you can pay less rent or just move on to a new location. If your customers value what you offer, they'll find you in your new location, too.
HOAs are the bane of most homeowners' existence. Many businesses already participate in these sorts of groups (such as Downtown Business association, etc.), and adding more will only increase the complexity and costs.
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Business associations can do things like pool their funds together to build a parking garage so individual businesses don't have to provide their own onsite parking. Where land is expensive, this can be a really good deal for them.
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Where land is expensive, this can be a really good deal for them.
Ideally, you get the government to build it for you. Major sports teams (see: Kansas City football and baseball) do this better than anyone.
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Shopping centres have higher rent because you're charged on foot-traffic and sales: Operating costs are higher, you have to open the same hours and days as the rest of the centre: That results in staff being casual employees. (Why some countries changed pension liabilities to include casuals.) That's before we get to the reality that the centre treats you as a fixed cost: No maintenance or improvements until the rental contract expires.
This 'poor landowners' rant also avoids the fact that the centre g
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"Probably" related to past crimes? Way to generalize.
Sure, there are landlords involved in crime. But most are just...landlords. If you want to blame this all on crime, you'll need some evidence, not just accusations.
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"Probably" related to past crimes? Way to generalize.
Every great fortune. But also, I live in the USA where all of the land is stolen, so it's a certainty. What makes it specifically stolen isn't even the genocide, although clearly that is bad and explains a lot about this country, but that we've broken literally every treaty we ever signed with a native nation.
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Oh, so now we've jumped from "landlords are criminals" because they're rich, to "our ancestors broke treaties and stole the land from the native Americans."
So yes, our ancestors did take (steal) land from the native Americans, and they broke their agreements. It's easy to condemn them, because yes, they did those things. For that matter, every single civilization in history, got their land this way. The Mayans, the Aztecs, the Chinese, the Mongols, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, Alexander th
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Yes, all of them conquered whoever they were strong enough to conquer, and kept the spoils. Even the native Americans did the same. They were far from peace-loving civilizations.
The fact that some Native American tribes sometimes had violent conflicts with other Native American tribes does not justify the slaughter of the Native Americans by Europeans. A crime against humanity is a crime against humanity no matter who commits it, when it is committed, or why it is committed.
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I fully agree.
But it also doesn't mean that today, if a person owns property, they are evil or unethical or committing any kind of crime. When you buy a house or a commercial building, there is no reasonable expectation that you should first research the entire history of that property for the last several hundred years, to establish that it wasn't taken by force from a rightful owner 200 years ago. Yes, it was awful what early colonizers did to the native Americans. Those awful acts do not invalidate your
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It's not that simple in real life.
My brother owns a small business and leased a space in one of those little shopping centers. The reality is, many shopping center owners go to great lengths to accommodate and work with tenants who are struggling. They will enter into unusual and creative arrangements if they need to, because it's harder to find a good new tenant than to keep the ones you already have.
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You're assuming a mall will always have tenants, that's a dumb assumption. Places with high churn usually have low interest as well. There's countless examples of malls that are EMPTY. There's no one interested moving in, and sure as heck no one to pay money. There's a whole subreddit dedicated to photos of dead malls https://www.reddit.com/r/deadm... [reddit.com]
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Successful real estate developers plan ahead. Vacancy rates, churn, tenant acquisition costs, loss/damage, maintenance/upkeep, renovation and renewal, all these should be factored in.
Some of this is debt, some financed out of current revenue. Unoccupied space can also result in tax offsets due to losses, planned for so that capital gains may be offset by capital losses. This is tax code, and simplified taxes would permit property owners to make decisions based not on tax implications, but on cost/benefit co
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Less government then.
Government isn't inherently bad for business. The government builds roads so people can get to your business. The government educates people who you may want to employ to do important things in your business. The government protects your business from fire and crime, and ensures you have access to clean water and somewhere to dump your waste. The government protects your workers (from themselves and from dangerous work settings), and protects your customers from the bad, unethical business practices of your
Does your math even make sense? (Score:2, Interesting)
Businesses used to capture that value because they often owned the property that hosted them. Now they rarely do. The rent seekers are sucking out the value.
It's time to recognize that rent is theft.
I am just trying to understand what you're saying before having an opinion. So I have a coffee shop that brings in $1000 a day with materials cost of 1/3 of my revenue. Whether I'm paying a mortgage or rent, what difference does it make in my viability when property values double? The issue here is rent increase. If you had rent stability for small businesses, little changes. All ownership does is prevent the rent increase and make you liable for property tax increase....plus whatever you make when you
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I'll agree that a single vacant business may not deeply affect property values across the neighborhood. And I understand that the property owner is worried that he'll sign a lease for a low amount, and miss out on some sweet sweet money. But he may also be like the former high school quarterback who's dreaming of the old glory years instead of being business-savvy. That's not a free market failure, but an ego failure.
When you own property (on which you are paying annual property taxes at a minimum), it's
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"Whether I'm paying a mortgage or rent, what difference does it make in my viability when property values double?"
The difference is that a mortgage does't go up, because it is the amount of money you borrowed to buy the property, and that transaction in the past doesn't change because prices are changing now, while the rent will likely double itself.
Now, granted, your property taxes are gonna go up, but that's a cost you were going to be paying indirectly as a renter anyways.
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You were right, until the last sentence, which is a non-sequitur in relation to the first sentences.
Yes, the building owners do "capture" the rising values. That is the nature of the risk they took. They risked their money to build the buildings and maintain them, a business venture in itself, which can succeed or fail. If a small business wants to "capture" rising property values, they need to purchase or build the building they operate in. There are plenty of businesses that do just that.
Re: total batshit (Score:2)
"Rent is theft" - really?
So we should end rental of properties, then everyone can settle into one of two groups - homeowners and homelessness. Brilliant.
Rental properties solve housing problems for people looking for a place to live without the ability to actually buy a property.
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Only excessive rent is theft. Sane places bind it to something like what the equivalent profit via interest would be.
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Only excessive rent is theft. Sane places bind it to something like what the equivalent profit via interest would be.
Could you please define (mathematical formulas are delightful here) "excessive rent"? Is there a variable in the formula that addresses the risk of loss or property damage, so that a frat house charges a different rate per square foot than a suburban family home? And which interest rate do you consider, the current mortgage rate, the prime rate, or what the bank pays on savings accounts? If the world can come to agreement here on details and terms, I can support it, but without serious specifics, it feel
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Only excessive rent is theft. Sane places bind it to something like what the equivalent profit via interest would be.
It's preventing others from building equity at best.
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Re: total batshit (Score:2)
Western economies are all about rent seeking. Do you think the insurance company actually pays a nickel for healthcare? The money flows back to them through a series of rebates and kickback schemes while your premiums go up every year.
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Here you go again: talking about non-computer things, and showing yourself ignorant.
Renting is separate from rent-seeking.
Renting is where you are owed rent. Rent-*seeking* is where you are *not* owed rent, but want a piece anyways.
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It's also long past time to recognize that communism (even if you call it socialism) is suicidally stupid, but here we are.
Nobody appears to have been talking about communism besides you. If you'd like to read up more on how rent is theft, I suggest a little known book titled The Wealth of Nations:
[Landlords] are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind
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Apparently you did NOT read The Wealth of Nations, or you would recognize the concept of 'stock', and how it is used.
These cherry-picked theories fail. The landlord, owner, puts their stock either at risk, or to 'work'. Purchasing the property is not without some risk, and also not without utility. The shop owner who feels cheated by not benefiting from the increase in value of the space they rent should consider also going into the real estate business... Or not, and recognize the cost of doing business i
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Re: total batshit (Score:2)
Rent seeker definition; A rent seeker is an individual or organization that attempts to increase their share of existing wealth without creating new wealth or adding productive value.
A landlord adds productive value by providing space for people to live in, do commerce in or even simply store materials or goods. It is easy to conflate the term. Rent seeker with landlord. They are not the same, and in conventional economic discussions they are not considered the same at all. An example of a rent seeker could
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I would point out that, further up in the discussion, it is pointed out that many commercial landlords now demand a percentage of gross revenue as part of the rent. Let's say the property is $10K per month with 20% of gross revenue. The business takes in $15K per month then the landlord takes $13K of that, but if the business takes in $20K in a month, the landlord takes $14K of that. Why? They are not providing anything extra beyond what they provide for the base $10K in either case. You could potentially s
Re: total batshit (Score:2)
The trick here is that if doesn't really matter how the lease payment is calculated, it's still a lease payment. But keep trying to make landlords into rent seekers.
Bear in mind that this arrangement could be characterized differently. Is that business starts out slow, sales are low, the business is getting started. Lease payments are low. As the business grows, revenue increases, lease payments do increase, but with increased revenue the business can support it.
That's exactly the arrangement most of the t
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The problem is that "landlords" do not exist in a vacuum. While "landlording" can be difficult, it's also widely recognized as a sound investment. As a consequence, more and more businesses have tried to move into the business. As a result, home ownership costs have risen beyond the intrinsic costs, because now buying a home is tantamount to a business opportunity, and everyone wants their cut of the added value. It also decreases the supply of for sale homes, compounding matters. We now have a situation wh
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I'm watching a version of this where I live. Lots of single-family homes built-to-rent. But this is not a rental lock-in as it may seem.
In Maricopa County, Arizona, builders need a 100-year guarantee of water supply. This is usually provided by the municipality. Ah, but groundwater is being consumed faster than expected, other pressures, and it really doesn't matter what they are. Builders are being denied these certificates. No build, no sale.
One way around this is for municipalities to arrange for water f
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The trick here is that if doesn't really matter how the lease payment is calculated, it's still a lease payment. But keep trying to make landlords into rent seekers.
So, you're stating that it is axiomatic that a landlord can't be a rent-seeker? Even if they use software from a company that organizes landlords together to raise rents in unison to increase profits? If it doesn't matter how a lease payment is calculated, then it doesn't matter if it is done in collusion with other landlords to distort the market.
If you've never been a property owner, you have, perhaps, very little understanding of the business. For instance, does the municipality stop collecting property tax if your property is empty, and no rent is coming in?
Depends on the municipality, but effectively yes in many of them. It's not automatic, but there are lots of rules allowing landlords to reduce or eliminate their
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"they use software from a company that organizes landlords together to raise rents in unison to increase profits"
Please, investigate the nature of rent-seeking. Google is your source. Please.
You're describing collusion, price-fixing, and anti-trust violations. At least get your offenses straight...
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If you persist in misinterpreting the term 'rent seeking', you risk my believing you do not merely understand, but you assert that property ownership is somehow indefensible on its own merits.
But then I re-read your comment. It must be too early in the day for you to discern the difference between 'make unwarranted profit' and 'actually own and use'.
Did you intend to assert that these landlords, at least, neither actually owned, nor use, the property they did, in fact, own? Are you so lost in the weeds of
Re: total batshit (Score:2)
You're defending the process of becoming stagnant because of rent seeking behavior where landlords actually reduce opportunity and you think I'm in the weeds? You think people deserve to profit from the needs of others only because they had money first. That is everything wrong with capitalism and it is unsustainable.
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He's just an idiot.
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Reduce opportunity? Then you're also identifying usery, debt and interest, as rent-seeking?
A landlord does not have any duty to enhance 'opportunity', other than provide usable space. If you think higher rents reduce opportunity and deprive for instance, shop owners opportunity to practice, then you must feel the same way about gasoline prices, taxes, utilities, every expense. Rent or lease for a property is an expense for a business owner if they choose to do it that way.
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Sigh. I previously asked:
So, you're stating that it is axiomatic that a landlord can't be a rent-seeker?
I'm starting to think that maybe, with you, it's axiomatic that the set of all rent seekers is the null set. I mean, I suspected that there was no example whatsoever that would get you to label anyone as a rent-seeker. So, maybe rather than me working my way to your definition from my end, we start from your end. Please provide a real world example of a rent-seeker.
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OK. Common examples of rent-seeking would include:
The NFA previously required payment of a $200 fee for a 'stamp' or something, so that you would be permitted to purchase a suppressor, or other restricted firearm accessories. Adding absolutely NO value to the transaction, other than registration, which would be the second criteria to be considered as a 'rent-seeker'.
Many states permit reciprocal privileges for certain trades and such, those in the cosmetology and similar fields, but they require a license f
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Reduce opportunity? Then you're also identifying usery, debt and interest, as rent-seeking?
Fuck yeah.
A landlord does not have any duty to enhance 'opportunity'
Yeah, that's why the system is unsustainable. Very good observation, but too bad you had to lick boots about it.
If you think higher rents reduce opportunity and deprive for instance, shop owners opportunity to practice, then you must feel the same way about gasoline prices, taxes, utilities, every expense.
It must seem that way if you are very stupid and satisfied with facile explanations which make you feel smart.
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OK. Common examples of rent-seeking would include:
The NFA previously required payment of a $200 fee for a 'stamp' or something, so that you would be permitted to purchase a suppressor, or other restricted firearm accessories. Adding absolutely NO value to the transaction, other than registration, which would be the second criteria to be considered as a 'rent-seeker'.
So you are using an excise tax for your definition of "rent-seeking"? In other words, you're just using your own personal definition. Taxes would only be rent seeking if they are being used to funnel money to a particular manufacturer. The excise tax you are describing is indiscriminate. In a rent-seeking scenario, there needs to be a party looking to extract rents. Who would that be in your excise tax scenario? The mere fact that the government is taking a fee doesn't make it a rent. So what other party is
Re: total batshit (Score:2)
I'll just take one example. The NFA tax that used to be required to buy suppressors distorts the market by restricting it to people who can afford to buy the suppressor. In addition to the tax. If you can't afford to buy the suppressor by itself, the argument is moving. You're not part of that. But add another couple hundred bucks on top of it, and you do have a problem. I neglected dimension that in that process it was not uncommon for applicants to wait 6 to 9 months for approval of what was merely an adm
Re: total batshit (Score:2)
Interest or usury might be considered unethical or immoral, as it is in Islam. But it's not rent seeking. I give you some of my capital for you to use. I charge you interest on it. I put it at risk, if for no other reason but I'm putting in your hands and not mine. If you pay me back most excellent you got the use of it. I got the interest. If you don't pay it back, prima fascia example of risk.
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I'll just take one example. The NFA tax that used to be required to buy suppressors distorts the market by restricting it to people who can afford to buy the suppressor. In addition to the tax. If you can't afford to buy the suppressor by itself, the argument is moving. You're not part of that. But add another couple hundred bucks on top of it, and you do have a problem. I neglected dimension that in that process it was not uncommon for applicants to wait 6 to 9 months for approval of what was merely an administrative function.
I very specifically covered this scenario and the reason (barrier to entry for the poor) why you could maybe, just maybe consider it as a form of market distortion. Except that I also covered why it appeared that it wasn't because there is no apparent "market" that you have to have a suppressor to be part of. You certainly didn't illustrate any "market" that people without suppressors are kept out of. Why didn't you use the cosmetology example, where there at least is a market that you need the license to p
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This [ryansafner.com] is instructive.
Page 35 is very interesting. Pages 43 & 45 do not load on my machine, which is disappointing, they may be very instructive.
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Ah, sweet Jebus!!! The pain! It's been a while since I had my nose in an actual economics textbook. I mean, I know that math in economics tends to have no use for geometric constants like the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter so it's technically free to use, but still! Pi as a variable! It just seems so wrong!
In any case. I am not sure why you thought that reading that would bring me around to your view. That lecture is quite clear that using market power to pursue monopoly rents is ren
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This post started with the complaint that in areas where property values were increasing rapidly and/or significantly, businesses that were leasing did not share in these increases. And that it was not fair that they did not somehow profit from the property owners' own profits.
Which I still do not get. Property value increases generally should accrue to the property owner... Kinda obvious to me, but somehow, profiting from property value increases became an example of rent--seeking... And I still cannot mak
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Which I still do not get. Property value increases generally should accrue to the property owner... Kinda obvious to me, but somehow, profiting from property value increases became an example of rent--seeking... And I still cannot make sense of that, in that I reject it as a misapplication.
Gentrification, which you are describing, is widely considered to involve rent-seeking, along with other issues. I specifically referenced an economist and the "rent gap" issue further up the thread. I should note that my part in the thread came when you essentially implied in your post that it is impossible for a landlord to ever be a rent-seeker. As it went on, it became clear that you seem to only be able to see government action as rent seeking, and that you apply the concept to government action that i
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A late comment, but I think this [slashdot.org] seems to be rent-seeking, masquerading as some form of protection or 'necessary' regulation.
Re: total batshit (Score:2)
And bear in mind that in the example of say a retailer, the retailer puts their stock including their time at risk. Hoping that they'll they'll sell enough stock at enough profit that they can persist. Their landlord's risk is perhaps as simple as the opportunity to rent someone else at a higher price, though of course that's always a choice they have to make. There is risk in owning property and there is risk in starting a business to do just about anything. The primary risk in business probably is failure
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HOAs are voluntary associations. I'm not defending them, just pointing out the obvious. Don't want an HOA, Buy a different property. Nothing so desirable without an HOA? It's just part of the purchase decision, and one I made years ago.
It's a choice. No law I am aware of compels you to buy property belonging to an HOA.
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HOAs are voluntary associations. I'm not defending them, just pointing out the obvious. Don't want an HOA, Buy a different property. Nothing so desirable without an HOA? It's just part of the purchase decision, and one I made years ago.
It's a choice. No law I am aware of compels you to buy property belonging to an HOA.
I'd rate that statement half true. In some municipalities, almost all housing stock is in HOA neighborhoods. No law compels you to buy there, but in those regions, alternatives are few and far between, pushing you out of the area. Don't want an HOA? You get the longer commute. And that is a perfectly reasonable trade-off for some folks. We can't all have unicorns and jet-cars and 2.5 perfectly-behaved children.
Re: total batshit (Score:2)
In my part of the country, the non-hoa neighborhoods are often also older and sometimes lower quality. You can fix up your property if you want to, it's an expense and maybe not recovered and improved property value, but these neighborhoods are also often a shorter commute. Just cuz they're close at everything that's not residential and that's not always desirable. Your experience of course and my experience of course are both limited.
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In my part of the country, the non-hoa neighborhoods are often also older and sometimes lower quality.
They're older because all the developers put newly built houses into HOAs. To paraphrase what has already been said, HOAs are a way for developers to both sell the houses and extract rents from them.
Blame Clean Water Act detention ponds (Score:2)
Blame the Clean Water Act. Last I checked, developers in the United States were required by law to put in stormwater detention ponds for new development, and HOAs originally were made to collectively own those ponds.
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That hardly requires the contracts of adhesion through covenants on properties though. Municipalities can put special taxes, fees, and assessments on properties that use stormwater detention ponds or other special infrastructure perfectly well without creating HOAs.
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LVT basically sounds like a connection tax.
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This is about "Land Value Capture". A Land Value Tax is how you kick the unwanted boutique and "quirky" businesses out of their store fronts in preparation for capturing the land value for your buddies in the land speculation business.
Re: Neighborly reciprocity (Score:2)
With the coffee shop example, eventually the neighborhood will be full of people with high-paying jobs that can afford their own coffee maker, and the coffee shop will go out of business.
Does anyone move to a neighborhood because of a shop or restaurant? Outside the major cities, folks like me look at the local schools, crime, and other, more meaningful metrics about a neighborhood - not local retailers.
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With the coffee shop example, eventually the neighborhood will be full of people with high-paying jobs that can afford their own coffee maker, and the coffee shop will go out of business.
Does anyone move to a neighborhood because of a shop or restaurant? Outside the major cities, folks like me look at the local schools, crime, and other, more meaningful metrics about a neighborhood - not local retailers.
I'm inclined to make a snarky comment that it's a poor coffee shop that goes out of business because its customers can afford coffee makers. Target sells them for $20.
But I also don't think a coffee shop just provides brewed drip coffee. For starters, it gives inexpensive access to a clean space where you can meet with your friends or just get out of your apartment. How much would someone's rent rise if they needed to add that extra space? How much work is it to keep your own space ready and inviting fo