Replying to Avatar TallBrian

Boomers who made their money in real estate often don’t understand the trade they have been a part of. Simply put it is short dollars long scarcity. The problem is the scarcity is artificial….a political moat. Land is somewhat scarce but fly across this country and you can understand how much undeveloped land there is. Technology makes more and more of it livable every year and also make higher density living viable in more places. There is no near term natural scarcity in housing and vacant land doesn’t throw off rents.

To enforce the scarcity and leech off the speculation a whole industry sprung up, agents, mortgage brokers, insurance, inspectors, contractors, service companies, management companies, escrow, appraisers, bankers, lenders and regulators.

Bitcoin is the new scarcity. We’re watching an industry form around it as well. The OG’s in real estate bought land cheap on the frontier, builders followed and then speculators and rent seekers flooded the scene to scrape every penny possible from the futures of their children. Bitcoin will be no different. The OG’s are currently taking their honest appreciation gains and selling to the builders who are developing products that pay rents (see: Strategy, etc.). The rent seekers will buy those products and spin up derivatives and future generations will be lucky to ever own a UTXO.

In the current system, the unencumbered land owner is near sovereign (except for property taxes), in the new system, the UTXO owner is sovereign, but must always defend against tax and legal schemes to ring fence them in. This might seem like a simple changing of the guard. Meet the new boss same as the old boss, but it’s not. Even if not everyone CAN own a UTXO, more people can be sovereign in this system than the old and it is less subject to government leeches. This is a phase change improvement on human freedom and best of all Bitcoin will return housing to its utility value improving the living standards of the whole world.

It’s not utopian, but it is better.

Good piece. But how are they gonna get rents from bitcoiners?

I do think they'll try something. There's a rent seeking class beyond the boomers, and they've been at it for centuries. Tbh, I think they'll go to actual war over it. I can't imagine them suddenly learning the meaning of honest work.

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Unlike land, Bitcoin’s scarcity does not rely on zoning boards, permitting offices, or political enforcement—it is enforced by physics, cryptography, and voluntary consensus. It’s going to be harder for the rentier class. You’re not wrong that they’ll try war.

First, the wealth tax.

Then 6102 type confiscation attempt due to national security narrative.

They'll try it, but I don't think many people are going to comply

There’ll be plenty of tenants.

Most aren’t wired for autonomy.

Bitcoin doesn’t make everyone a non-tenant. It just helps those with drive become owners if they want.

True. I'm just trying to imagine what the tenants will be paying for

My take is that Bitcoin could offer those not wanting to landlord a means of long term wealth preservation that allows them to get out of real estate altogether. The ones that want to be in that business will stay. But the premium on real estate could get tamped down considerably, offering better rates all around. Inflation isn’t going away, but the premium could lessen over coming decades. Pushing property to its functional value. Very slowly. Real estate moves very slowly.

Why's it so slow? Are real estate investors just retarded or what? Idk how anyone can see bitcoin and then still think the real estate game looks good.

Personally, I'm hoping it causes widespread abandonment of suburbia. Lawn/garage neighborhoods are depressing shitholes.

Most people who own their own in the UK have taken more than 20 years to pay down their mortgage.

When you stay in the same place for a long time you build an emotional attachment - neighbours, memories of raising your children, memorable family gatherings.

Downsizing is neither easy nor cheap.

When these people die, they will likely pass on their homes to their loved ones.

One could argue that Bitcoiners are attached to their stash of satoshis in a similar way to how boomers are attached to their homes.

I don't think boomers are attached to their homes. They're using reverse mortgages now to finance perpetual cruises.

The British pensioners I know live quite frugally.

That's good news. Maybe the UK isn't as borked as I thought. Here in the US, 70-80 year olds live in houses 4x bigger than they need, have brand new RVs and boats in their driveways, and spend half the year on cruises, while paying "house sitters" (millenials with degrees they were never allowed to use because there's no jobs in their specialized fields) to take care of their pets while they're away. And the whole economic and political system is designed to perpetuate this absurdity.

A bit of a tangent, but this shows how hard it is to be objective. What i thought was well reasoned analysis may just be misleading insights derived from personal observations

True. But personal observations generally lead to better analysis than impersonal observations, since the latter involves trusting someone else. All the information coming at you is actually more like noise, and it becomes information via your own perspective finding a way to orient it to your own observations. Or, as I just heard Professor Vervaeke say in a video, "I can't be unbiased, that's not a thing."

Speaking specifically about the US landlord/investor portfolio equity migration, these are people with low time preference by default. They are not inclined to jump from one lifeboat to another until the other is proven and necessary, or the diversification is warranted; and even then it’s not a leap but a gradual calculated migration of equity. Many of these people won’t risk a migration at all, and will die first, leaving the portfolio to the children to rebalance. My perspective tells me that it takes five to ten years for the migration to really start, and I suspect it takes around 8 to 12 years for there to be a momentum that sizably impacts the real estate market, and 20 to 25 years for it to find a new equilibrium between the asset classes. There are markets that will get impacted more quickly than real estate. It’s just slower than we think.

But for US individuals as homeowners, if you want to buy for you to live in it, and you just can’t yet swing it, just stack sats, focus on earnings and spend way less than you earn while increasing earning and stacking sats. Patience and sats will cure a great deal with time.

Sounds like bitcoiner culture could remain relevant for a long time. I like that. I don't like thinking about how it could disappear if bitcoin stops being a niche thing

Those wanting to buy a home, if this scenario plays out, would need to have patience and Bitcoin.