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If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

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Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#201

Post by no-dr-onboard »

mrzimmerman wrote: post #140
nathan11 wrote: post #29

Probably worth pointing out this twitter account is promoting the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. To me that casts suspicion on their other assertions.

They also push the idea of "The Great Reset" in that thread, which is another conspiracy theory that is tied up with FEMA putting people in camps in abandoned Walmarts, Bill Gates chipping us through the Covid-19 vaccine, and Q-anon. As soon as they brought up "The Great Reset" I found the whole thread lost credibility.

> "The Great Reset" in that thread, which is another conspiracy theory"

Curious to see the argument _against_ "The Great Reset" tbf.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#202

Post by foogazi »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #170
cosmojg wrote: post #32

If only so many people didn't treat land and houses like investments, there wouldn't be such a disastrous hoarding problem. Henry George's Land Value Tax [1][2] seems like an obvious economic fix that would require a large fraction of the population to change how they think about land and natural resources, but most of them are invested in such a way (i.e. owning multiple houses on multiple parcels of land, often wit…

I’ve ranted about this before but CA Prop 13 not only makes housing a good investment, but one that you’re extremely incentivized to hold onto forever and never move. Two people can be living in houses next to each other valued around 1.5m, and one of them will be paying 1/10th the tax. If anyone wants to buy a house, they have to first be able to afford the property, so the barriers to entry are so much higher for t…

Prop 13 biggest beneficiaries are corporations.

> so the barriers to entry are so much higher for those who didn’t have the foresight to purchase a home 40 years ago.

40 years ago it was still expensive to buy otherwise everyone would have bought, including the investment funds

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#203

Post by kazen44 »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #131

The middle class continues to get raped and fleeced by corporations while our governments do nothing. This is how America dies.

i wonder how long until social unrest truely takes hold, especially among young adults.

standards of living have been going down in the past decade, while the government seems to think young people have nothing to moan about. not to mention the massive bill called climate change which is due sooner or later.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#204

Post by joshlemer »

scotuswroteus wrote: post #169
davidw wrote: post #125

Here's why investors buy up houses: they know your neighbors will do the dirty work of artificially constraining the housing supply, which makes it a good investment. Here's one who comes right out and explains this: > Meanwhile, local opposition to building is so commonplace and the approval process so cumbersome, time consuming, and expensive, even when a proposed project complies entirely with requirements, approv…

You lost me at the end. You lack political acumen if you think this is how politics works: " If there's a credible threat to build plenty of housing, they'll move on." The Yimbies supported Mayor Breed. She hasn't changed the political problems in SF that you're (for the most part, accurately) diagnosing here. The problem with most anti-activist government screeds like this is that they lack the same nuance and sophi…

Do you have any ideas to propose then, as actionable advice for activists to improve their effectiveness?

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#206

Post by gowld »

whoisburbansky wrote: post #132
tachyonbeam wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that we need to stop treating houses as investments, because they're a basic fundamental need everyone has. IMO, the problem could be fixed by having stricter laws prohibiting people who aren't residents from owning homes in another country. The requirement to become a resident is only to live in a country for over 6 months out of the year. Before that, you can just rent. We could also do things like limit th…

Something like this would effectively bar any person born in India who tried to immigrate to the U.S. in the last ~5 years from ever buying a house, unless they got married to a citizen. Broad strokes, I agree that residency requirements might help with reducing speculative investment, but maybe phrased in terms of how long you're in the country, not literally permanent residency as a legal threshold.

"permanent" residency was your contribution, so there's no need to rebut it -- just don't propose it in the first place.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#207

Post by tptacek »

stagger87 wrote: post #195
tptacek wrote: post #118

As has been pointed out repeatedly, this has the net effect transferring homes from owners to renters, which does not directly impact access or affordability; the housing stock remains available.

Do you think people should be able to buy affordable homes? Isn't affordability affected when you are competing with companies with deep pockets? When those companies need ROI do you think they will prioritize housing affordability over profitability?

I'm not sure how much I care about whether people own or rent. The politics of the place I live are controlled by owners and are renter-hostile; I don't think increasing the rental stock is a bad thing, and am inclined to believe --- without making any value judgement about REITs and Blackrock ---- that it's probably a net positive.

The compulsion to own homes and tie people's finances to the real estate market is a US idiosyncrasy. It's not, for instance, how they do it in much of Europe.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#208

Post by fighterpilot »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #163
gfodor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I follow this account and others like it because it allows one to be exposed to things like the idea that COVID leaked from a lab a year ago. Skepticism is warranted in all cases, of course, but I think it's extremely healthy to keep in tune with a variety of subcommunities who are in and of themselves skeptics of many mainstream narratives.

Something else to be skeptical of: skepticism. A good amount of skepticism is great. Questioning everything is belligerent and actually close-minded rather than open.

What you describe is called pseudoskepticism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#209

Post by plank_time »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #170
cosmojg wrote: post #32

If only so many people didn't treat land and houses like investments, there wouldn't be such a disastrous hoarding problem. Henry George's Land Value Tax [1][2] seems like an obvious economic fix that would require a large fraction of the population to change how they think about land and natural resources, but most of them are invested in such a way (i.e. owning multiple houses on multiple parcels of land, often wit…

I’ve ranted about this before but CA Prop 13 not only makes housing a good investment, but one that you’re extremely incentivized to hold onto forever and never move. Two people can be living in houses next to each other valued around 1.5m, and one of them will be paying 1/10th the tax. If anyone wants to buy a house, they have to first be able to afford the property, so the barriers to entry are so much higher for t…

You’re saying that old people should be driven out of their houses because younger, richer people deserve to live in their houses. I’m sure your feelings will change as you get older.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#210

Post by gowld »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #186
OJFord wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, also make holiday homes also illegal?

Maybe? They are a luxury for the upper middle class, and you could easily rent one the same way you rent an airbnb. Those holiday homes do need to belong to someone though, so I suppose it makes no sense to outright ban own multiple homes, but we could structure it so that resale is more highly taxed, particularly resale after a short time (i.e. people "flipping" properties).

This is already a solved problem: property tax + homestead exemption.
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