It's in Germany too, but recently it's become the norm for new-rich people to buy or rent these apartments and then sue the shop and especially bar owners for noise violations.

Not allowing that kind of mixed usage in the first place completely cuts away all that crap.

OP lives in Austin. If you have $1M net worth, you can probably buy a house there and live there. If you don't go do that, I think you're just punishing yourself.

> using real estate as a fiat currency

Even if we take your premise as a given, the entire reason real estate is so valuable is that there isn't enough housing in the first place. Real estate is, by its nature, a bad investment; it's only the scarcity of it that makes the value continue to go up exponentially.

> buying up available real estate just to make it unavailable

There isn't actually any available housing in the first place, at the point of cities even approving projects, compared to the number of people who need housing. That's the problem. The most extreme example is San Francisco, where as of this July the entire city had approved only 16 housing units [1] out of an already comically poor goal of only about 10,000 housing units per year.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-only-agreed-build-16-...

This is absurd. Does it happen? Yes. But this is not the primary driver.

We turned housing into retirement funds. The median family's wealth is their primary residence. We cannot have these assets depreciate in nominal terms for this reason, and we actually need them to appreciate in real terms for people to have a nest egg.

It's awful, but it's the truth.

Take it easy. These kind of thought won't help you. It's a rough time out there but thing change. Our ancestors survived famines and war. We should be able to manage this.

And yes, life is not fair. But don't waste it, it's finite.

"people like me aren’t as human as the folks that own this house"

What do you mean? People aren't human if they do not have a certain level of wealth?

Seems to imply that you may think people with less wealth aren't valuable or even human. What should people with less wealth than you feel?

You need to move, yesterday. Yes, moving sucks. No, ideally you wouldn't have to. But at the end of the day you are just plain shooting yourself in the foot if you continue to live in a place that absurdly expensive.

Like dude, you could buy an awesome house in just about any other part of the country if you truly have $1m in liquid wealth. You have options to own a house, you just have to act on them.

It sounds more like you can afford to buy a house, just not in the area you want.

I bought a house in Canada with a liquid net worth of $75k (admittedly, 2 years ago, but still). 15 minute drive to a major city’s downtown, 0.3 acres, 3 bed 1 bath with an attached garage. Is it the nicest house? No, but it’s a house, and I’d much rather pay a mortgage than rent.

With a net worth of a million USD, I could buy a house pretty much anywhere in this country, comfortably, and we’re known to have one of the highest costs of living in major cities in the western world. If you move almost literally anywhere from where you currently live, you can definitely afford a house.

It truly is embarrassing. Imagine seeing something and thinking, "how can I get the government to forcefully take some of that for my benefit?"

It’s not very thinly veiled

Yes you have missed something but don’t worry about it.

But then I wouldn't know how utterly badass this guy is, shooting around those sweet ticker designations that all us plebs wouldn't recognise.

TIL that stocks can have a "$" in their code.