What would happen if people could only own one home?

I would have one really really big house.

im not an economist wrote:

All in the title. You can own one home, either as a primary residence or as a rental. What happens? Does society collapse?

I own 3 homes, live in one and rent two. Am my tenants hurt by the fact that I own more than one home?

Would you also make it illegal for foreigners to own homes in the USA? If not, then you'd just substitute local landlords with foreign landlords.

Perhaps this is an interesting hypothetical, and might have interesting short term effects. The fairly clear long term result would be far less housing than what would be otherwise.

asdfghj1 wrote:

I own 3 homes, live in one and rent two. Am my tenants hurt by the fact that I own more than one home?

Yes

asdfghj1 wrote:

im not an economist wrote:

All in the title. You can own one home, either as a primary residence or as a rental. What happens? Does society collapse?

I own 3 homes, live in one and rent two. Am my tenants hurt by the fact that I own more than one home?

Would you also make it illegal for foreigners to own homes in the USA? If not, then you'd just substitute local landlords with foreign landlords.

Perhaps this is an interesting hypothetical, and might have interesting short term effects. The fairly clear long term result would be far less housing than what would be otherwise.

Yes, let's add that it would be illegal to have foreign investment. Every US citizen can own one house in America.

By the way, I know landlords can be good people. I have been lucky to rent from two different landlords over the past 5 years where I pay less money in rent than I would as a home owner with any of the current houses for sale in my area. I don't know if I'm lucky or what.

Still, if I bought the market estimate for the house I am currently renting, my mortgage would be dirt cheap. The same can't be said for the houses being sold nearby. It seems that all of the affordable homes have become rental cash cows by folks who bought them 10+ years ago. I would glady buy a 2 bed 1 house bungalow in my area - there just aren't any for sale.

Probably a more useful change would be to disallow vbro style short term rentals.

We generally trust the free market in the USA and Adam Smith has stood the test of time. Why mess with the market?

To answer the question, you’d probably have some poor dude with a huge family build a low quality, large house, so that you could fit a ton of people in it.

I don’t really buy the idea that housing is overpriced….you just can’t afford what you want. The exception to this are weird scenarios like the Florida Keys where tons of rich tourists are served by low/middle class people and there is an extreme shortage of land, also applies to some ski towns.

I can afford what I want. The problem is what I want doesn't exist. Investors have already bought them.

I'm in the midwest. I'd guess about half the houses in my zipcode are worth 200-300k. And about half are worth considerably more. The 200-300k ones are all rentals. Like 90%+.

Playing devil's advocate for my own logic, perhaps if there were no landlords, then EVERY house in my area would be million dollar homes, and you'd just have a higher density of rich people living there.

i am a small time landlord. I have three rental units. But I actually rent the apartment I live in because I prefer to rent in the market I live in (my owned homes are in another city).

I suspect yes, investors drive up the price of homes somewhat. But how much is unclear. The problem is, there are people who simply could not afford homes even if they were 1/4 the price. Many people do not have enough in savings for a down payment and closing costs. Or maybe they have other reasons for wanting to rent (temporary move, want to scope out a new city before buying, don't want to deal with the hassle of managing a home).

It sounds like an interesting proposition but I think as with many ideas that sound great at first, the devil is in the details. What if I split my time between two or more different cities? What happens with marriage and divorce - does the couple get one home or two - or one for each? What other funny ways would people figure out how to manipulate the system? I suspect you would end up with lots of people who lived in homes "on paper" but actually lived elsewhere, and then the system would be complicated and full of fraud, potentially making things more expensive for everyone in the long run.

im not an economist wrote:

Yes, let's add that it would be illegal to have foreign investment. Every US citizen can own one house in America.

Assuming you also are banning corporate ownership of homes and forcing multiple home owners to divest, what you would have initially would be a market crash. You'd be forcing millions of people to sell homes to very few buyers. Communities with a more than a certain percentage of second homes would collapse.

The home construction industry would be devastated as no one would be building homes anymore. The supply of existing homes on the market would be way more than the demand and it wouldn't make sense to pay for new construction. That would ripple through the supply industry and would cause a lot of unemployment.

If this applies to apartment units as well, then what you'd essentially be doing is eliminating the option for someone to rent. With prices collapsing many of the current renters would initially be able to get into some very nice homes. Those not able to get loans for the reduced prices would now be homeless.

People will become homeless on their vacation for the lack of a vacation home.