dehumanised housing

The UN special rapporteur for housing, Leilani Farha, will highlight the devastating human rights impact of society’s tendency to view houses as financial commodities rather than homes for people, in her report to the UN this week.

The report warns about a rise in “dehumanised housing”: housing built as a high-yield commodity rather than for social use. A significant portion of investor-owned homes are simply left empty. In Melbourne, Australia, for example, 82,000 (or one fifth) of investor-owned units are unoccupied. In prime locations for wealthy foreign investors, such as the affluent boroughs of Chelsea and Kensington in the city of London, the number of vacant units increased by 40% between 2013 and 2014.​

UN report lays bare the waste of treating homes as commodities

It's a confronting and mind blowing report when you look at the sheer scale of funds being directed to residential property internationally.

In the course of one year, from mid-2013 to mid-2014, corporate buying of larger properties in the top 100 recipient global cities rose from US$ 600 billion to US$ 1 trillion.​

ODS HOME PAGE

I have seen properties built as home in my area. They are in demand and attract a price premium. I have also seen investment properties built as commodities in my area. They are characterised by cheap construction, kitchens that drastically undersides and tiny bedrooms. They are not desirable for buyers or renters and the developers have struggled to sell them or find tenants.

I take the point that housing needs to be designed for people. In my area at least, that is the profitable approach.

On nit pick with the report though where it claims:

A significant portion of investor-owned homes are simply left empty. In Melbourne, Australia, for example, 82,000 or one fifth of investor-owned units lie empty.​

The citation is Speculative vacancies 8: the empty properties ignored by statistics. However, the report makes it clear that it examined Melbourne's total housing stock, not investor-owned units. Aside from that, 82,724, or 4.8 per cent of Melbourne’s total housing stock appearing to be vacant is quite alarming in itself.

http://www.prosper.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/11Final_Speculative-Vacancies-2015-1.pdf

I think that there are people who are designing properties for people. There are also those who try to maximise profits by treating housing as a commodity. I think sometimes those who design housing for people make more money.

 

Agree about purpose built for. there's a heck of a lot of horrible apartments built in the last few years. Will struggle to be seen as valuable.
No window in bathrooms. That's should be in law!
2nd bedroom with no window!

And all fitted out with junk. Cardboard and plastic.

I see it as analogous to having a hire business and hiring out tools bought at kmart or something.
Even investors want a product that's going to have some sort of quality and longevity to it.

 

Housing is commodity but it's not 'just' commodity. Build with end user in mind.. I think this apply to almost anything. That said, in hot market even the cheap build will sell

 

Yes, that's true. In the boom you could sell anything. The problem is now the boom is over investors with the worse properties are struggling to find tenants. That's not how you make money.