Maybe Treating Housing as an Investment was a Colossal, Society-Shattering Mistake
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This very much is a mistake because of all the distortions it produces. One thing that wasn’t mentioned is that as nice as it is to build wealth through land appreciation, what if you need to move?
I recently read some guy complaining about how Japan was stuck in the past, particularly how after paying a 30 year mortgage, houses are completely worthless. Thing is, though Japan has reasons for it not to treat housing as permanant, houses depreciate like everything else, why should they constantly increase in value?
The only value appreciation to a house is the land under it and the homeowner isn’t responsible for all of the appreciation so they shouldn’t get all of the benefit. Maybe a land tax would fix this 🤔?