I don’t know much about American laws, and I strongly believe that basic housing should not be for-profit.
With those caveats, if a house is empty for such a long time that squatters can claim it (7-20 years according to Google), then I think it’s not only okay to claim residence there, I think it’s the morally correct thing to do.
Obviously, there are exceptions to anything, but generally speaking, it sounds like society could use more of this.
i HIGHLY doubt the houses being referenced in the article have been vacant for 7-20 years.
On the other hand, I can’t imagine they’ve only been “vacant” for 6 months or something.
Again, I’m far from an expert on American law - much less on a state-by-state basis, but I have to think you’d need to live there for quite some time for it to count for squatters rights.
In these situations 6 months is exactly what I’d imagine. Where I live I can’t imagine any house staying vacant for 6 months. It costs more to rent a house here than it does to buy one. My mortgage payment is $1400/month, but I could rent my house for over $3k a month. it’s ridiculous.
I’m mostly confused as to why an instagram account is in any way relevant to squatters.
did you read the article?
You know who probably won’t have a problem with squatters? People who buy houses to live in them.
Hard to feel bad for a fucking landlord. Get a real job loser.
Hard to feel bad for a fucking landlord. Get a real job loser.
“I don’t have empathy for others who are better off than I am. Work hourly as a W2 like the rest of us instead of using systems, tax codes, and laws in place by the government to generate a better life for yourself while growing society.”
It’s my opinion that housing is so basic a need that no house should be allowed to use for a gambling chip.
The ‘housing market’ needs to be broken in favor of individual ownership. (For many, speculation has driven ownership out of reach.)
Only individuals may purchase individual homes, and must agree to occupy them as their primary and only residences until they sell and vacate them. (Live-in landlords included, e.g. boarders.)
As part of the deal, they must first find another individual buyer (under the same terms) for their present home.
(Futher stipluations needed, but none that permit violation of the above principle. )
I don’t think speculation is a big factor, actually. Rentals don’t earn money without renters and they don’t appreciate nearly fast enough to make up for the lack of income.
In my country at least there’s just measurably less houses than there needs to be.
they don’t appreciate nearly fast enough to make up for the lack of income.
depends on where you are. i bought a new house 3 years ago and within a year the value of my house had increased nearly 100k.
That’s one hot market.
Most of the time they don’t do that, though, and there’s a good chance if you had rented it out the wear and tear would not have reduced that value very much, so there’s still not a lot of “opportunity cost”.
to be fair it’s leveled out since. it’s still up that much, but didn’t continue the meteoric rise.
