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What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

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Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#41

Post by Alex3917 »

Shacklz wrote: post #14

The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.

> people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job.

Given that the rent in many trailer parks comparable with an NYC apartment, it stands to reason that most people are there by choice.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#42

Post by exolymph »

Shacklz wrote: post #14

The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.

The United States is the land of high variance. We let people crash and burn, but we also let people soar. A society that permits the former is unremarkable — letting people suffer is the default in poverty, and most countries are relatively quite poor. But the latter, letting the tall poppies stand proud with not much more than heckling for their height, is something special, and it's a big part of how we've become such an outlier nation in terms of success.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#43

Post by alacombe »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #24
zionic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said you will own nothing, not them. They also said "and you will be happy", which was an order.

At some point revolution will probably become inevitable.

Don't worry, the same rulers with ensure the People remains unarmed.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#44

Post by SavantIdiot »

"In the past decade, as income inequality has risen, sophisticated investors have turned to mobile-home parks as a growing market. They see the parks as reliable sources of passive income—assets that generate steady returns and require little effort to maintain."

Man, this is just... gross. I realize mortgage bond trading has been a ~$100 trillion dollar windfall since the mighty 80's under Volker (and Liars Poker), but the "little effort to maintain" just cries foul.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#45

Post by dghughes »

Shacklz wrote: post #14

The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.

I'm in Canada not in the US but I know of a medical doctor that lives in a trailer park near me. It's not a dump but it is a trailer park.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#46

Post by dylan604 »

quickthrowman wrote: post #28
CalRobert wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a basic house is pretty simple. Larry Haun put out a great book with Habitat for Humanity to do it for about $40,000, and irishvernacular.com/ outlines how to do it for €25,000. But we induce scarcity in the housing market because if everyone had a comfortable, decent home, they might not work so hard, would they? Imagine how much less value would be created for assetholders, how much less stuff we would mak…

> Building a basic house is pretty simple. Larry Haun put out a great book with Habitat for Humanity to do it for about $40,000 Sure, if you have free labor. I’d guess 99%+ of houses were built by a paid crew, so uh, it does not cost just 40k for a house. It costs $200/sq ft to build a house (in a midsize metro area of 3 million), without buying land.

There are certain aspects of building a house that I would have no problem doing myself. Besides the steps that would require more than 2 hands, there are also other tasks that I would rather have someone else do. Proper grading of the area the house is to be situated would be one. Digging the trenchs for the foundation or drilling the holes for the pier & beam posts would be another. After that, I have performed all of the other steps in various stages.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#47

Post by starpilot »

Shacklz wrote: post #14

The US are such a weird country... on one hand, Silicon valley et al, producing the coolest tech & the shiniest toys, and on the other hand... people who can only afford to live in trailer parks, even with a full time job. It never ceases to amaze & depress me simultaneously.

I read that the world needs both types of economies. The US is a dynamic, freewheeling sort with the most extremes. You can get incredibly rich, but the bottom has no floor. It's easy to amass capital and to pay workers. Or have western Europe, which is a relatively painful climate for businesses. Taxation for extensive social services is stifling, but at least most of the middle people are OK.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#48

Post by dhbradshaw »

After a cold snap recently I went out to visit an older couple in a trailer who had had their plumbing burst due to freezing.

The trailer was in really rough shape. They were huddling under blankets because heating and insulation were inadequate. And now they had no water.

Two things make me angry about the trailer park situation.

1. people living there who only get poorer from it. They own the portion of the home that decreases in value and rent the part that appreciates. If you're rich, sure. You can afford to own a depreciating asset and forgo the appreciation. But they're poor.

2. By having the lot renter own the trailer, they avoid many of the laws that protect renters with basic livability requirements. And yet those people are still paying rent alongside having to pay maintenance costs for their homes.

In the end at least in my area of the country it's much less expensive to buy a modest home.

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#49

Post by SavantIdiot »

blackrock wrote: post #34
black_puppydog wrote: post #10

> The financial industry[...] is undermining one of the country’s largest sources of affordable housing. 1. Yeah, I made an opinionated omission there. Sue me :D 2. That last part (the country’s largest sources of affordable housing) is even more damning than the rest. :( In a country that big, and that rich, with a frontier ethos like that, how the f*k does anyone think this is acceptable?

The fox is guarding the henhouse. The politicians themselves are benefitting from the situation. So why would they change it?

Who exactly is benefiting? I'd love to have this card in my back pocket for debates. Are there specific politicians we can draw-and-quarter over this? Or was your statement just a generic "all politicians bad" rant with no real citations?

Re: What happens when investment firms acquire trailer parks

#50

Post by mike_d »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #27
BitwiseFool wrote: post #12

How can individuals compete against institutional money? Housing prices are skyrocketing in my area and there are stories on the news about investment firms buying up homes and putting them up for rent. What's to stop these well financed institutions from buying up more and more real estate and forcing more people into renting?

Localities can fight back by reforming zoning laws & applying land value taxes instead of property taxes. In many areas of the country it is illegal to build anything but a single-family home. To people familiar with supply & demand this should be an obvious problem.

In almost every part of the US anything except a single family home should be illegal to build.

Land is in extreme abundance and multi-tenant properties are almost always built and owned by corporations.

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