• lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 years ago

    I’ve been to a discussion about house occupation and vacancy recently and one take home message for me was that it’s better to frame this topic about vacancy than about homelessness. When we talk about homeless people, we talk about scarcity, people wanting to take something away from us. Once we talk about empty houses, we talk about mismanaged abundance. Let people use houses of the rich they don’t need anyway, they don’t even use but rather leave it empty than let poor people in.

        • lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 years ago

          The discussion I’ve talked about was in the context of an occupation of a university building standing empty for two years while many initiatives wanted the room. After 28 hours, the occupiers left because they convinced the university to let people use that space.

          This might be different in the states but the city I live in is famous for building luxury housing that’s used as an investment and stands empty while people sleep in the subway stations. The need for cheap housing is there, but these people have little money so the demand for expensive housing wins that might be used as second houses of the very rich or it really is empty and not used at all, just a future investment.

          At some places, people will even leave houses empty to increase the market value of other houses, but that’s not happening here according to the discussion.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Fuck yeah. I’d be happy living nextdoor to an immigrant, as long as they were quiet and respectful.

    Then again, that’s true of ANY neighbor. I have no issue with neighbors, regardless of background/race, as long as they’re quiet and respectful.

    I just want a calm and quiet night when I’m home.

    • kamenlady@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I don’t have issues if neighbors are loud. As in children playing, music or having people over for a party.

      What i can’t have, is adults arguing, obnoxious unnecessary noise like shutting close doors with full force or trampling around as if they would be wearing those Dutch wooden shoes.

      This is from my perspective, living in an apartment building, thinking about the neighbor living above me.

      Edit: once i had a couple living above me. One night they came home late and fucked themselves up the stairs. Slowly.

      That was the most uncomfortable experience i had with neighbors.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Edit: once i had a couple living above me. One night they came home late and fucked themselves up the stairs. Slowly.

        That was the most uncomfortable experience i had with neighbors.

        Should have joined in.

        • kamenlady@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Nah, both were pretty meh.

          Thinking about it, that must have been their intention. To find out which neighbor joins in.

          No one joined and they moved out like 3 weeks later.

  • count_dongulus@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    It’s actually that a small cheap home and a large expensive home aren’t much different in cost for a builder, but the second nets way more profit. So no builder wants to build and sell starter homes. Thus, housing shortage for working class people looking for affordable homes.

    Somewhat still impactful is that construction has a worker shortage, but that’s probably in part cause they don’t get paid enough to attract more new tradespeople. If they DID get paid enough, it would drive up prices further since builders still want the same cut and their margins aren’t that crazy to begin with.

    How do we incentivize building and selling starter homes? They need to be more profitable relative to expensive big homes, or working class people need more income to afford them to increase demand at rates builders would make good money on due to volume.

    I think the growth of townhomes for sale and five over one condos is helping with this somewhat, but not enough. Many of those get used for apartments or short term rental too because those are still more profitable than just selling.

  • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    There’s a 3 bedroom condo in my building that has been vacant for 10 years now. They still pay the fees automatically but they live in Hong Kong. So it just sits there empty, while people are looking for homes