If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by Justsignedup » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #355

brightball wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just experienced something similar to this and it makes me wonder if much of this is just perception. We recently dealt with an out of state builder pushing to have a property that was zoned Neighborhood Commercial to be rezoned to something more flexible so that he could build 49 town homes with 49 parking spots on 5 acres of land. Everybody opposed the rezoning and fought to defeat it. The project would have been…

Yes. If you believe that no town homes should be built in the U.S. than you might not qualify as NIMBY. But if you believe that town homes shouldn't be built next to you that's the definition of NIMBY. Of course every instance has a long list of reasons why next to them is especially bad, character of the neighborhood, parking issues, infrastructure, etc.... But the end result of everyone fighting increased density i…

The irony is that density means more people, more homes, more availability.

That means more jobs open up and makes the place more lively. More desireable.

That means the house property value will go up.

They are thinking "will this make the property value go down in the next 5 years"? vs "will this make the property value skyrocket in the next 10 years".

We are catering to short-term gains at the expense of long-term.

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

#462

Post by gadaprog » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #14

commandlinefan wrote: post #4

This hurts people who already own houses, too - property taxes are assessed on the appraised value of the home, which is a function of what the similarly-sized houses in your area sold for most recently. My property taxes have increased 10% every year for the past several years (and it would have been more if not for a legislative 10% annual cap). I worry that there will come a day when I've paid off my mortgage but…

Property taxes do not have to go up because the assessment goes up. I have had assessments go up, but the tax rate go down because the town did not increase its budget. In the long run it probably will though, since higher land values will probably cause increases in wages and other costs. But it does not have to be proportionally as much as the land value increase.

I am not a tax expert, but my understanding is that each State sets their own formula for property taxes.

In every state I have lived in, the first factor of that "property tax formula" is always "Assessed Value" of said property, and then the formula continues from there based on a slew of criteria (property type, exemptions, etc.).

So you are correct that "Property taxes do not have to go up because the assessment goes up." but it is misleading since property tax is generally going to go increase if assessment increases and all other factors are held equal.

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

#463

Post by dnautics » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

_greim_ wrote: post #142

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 recently went down the Geoist/LVT rabbit-hole myself. It strikes me as uniquely appealing across the political spectrum, since it reduces tax on wealth-creation AND redistributes wealth from the rich to the poor. Sadly, this very fact provokes enough superficial resistance to keep it out of the Overton window. Whenever it comes up, shouters on either side have plenty of ammo to blast it, saying things to the effect…

You don't think geoism is just naive? This idea that the state can magically assign a value to property and not have it go sideways for the politically disenfranchised (the poor) is pure fantasy. If you haven't gone through the process of buying a house. I suggest trying it (especially during a frothy market), and each step of the way stop and think, "how would geoism get turned around to screw the poor".

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

#464

Post by jkubicek » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

matthoiland wrote: post #65

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…

> Everybody works but the vacant lot. I paid $3600 for this lot and will hold 'till I get $6000. The profit is unearned increment made possible by the presence of this community and enterprise of its people. I take the profit without earning it. for the remedy read Henry George. - Billboard posted in an empty lot, Rockford Illinois, 1914

For remedy read this wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

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

#465

Post by throwawaysea » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #187

world_peace42 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I clicked it. Looks like he's a Republican and a Christian (and has pretty standard opinions for that intersection) who likes to write long political essays. Are you sure he's a nut job, or could you possibly just be a bigot?

COVID denialism, election denialism, and “The Great Reset” are high profile crank subjects. Being a conservative Christian doesn’t make you a crank; those things do.

Respectfully, I think calling "The Great Reset" a 'crank subject' is itself a sign of conspiratorial thinking, or in the least, misleading/false information. I often see people label discussions of "The Great Reset" in this way, but that ignores the reality that the World Economic Forum literally branded their 2020 meeting as "Great Reset" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset). If the WEF isn't a familiar name, it's because you might have heard it previously referred to as "Davos", a meeting of many powerful and influential people.

When such a group meets to discuss society-wide changes and pushes their positions publicly, I don't think that's a "crank subject". That's simply a legitimate story that others may wish to discuss and raise concerns about. Critique about WEF/Davos isn't new - it has been described as an undemocratic forum previously, because it's a set of powerful people deciding how they want to shape the world outside of any national or international political process. This isn't conspiratorial thinking, it is literally the way the WEF is set up and operates. See the following paper for a critique, which mentions that WEF members downplay the importance of this forum and that their public exposure hides all that takes place privately: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?re...

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

#466

Post by OldGoodNewBad » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

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…

Why artificially? People move into single family dwelling neighborhoods because they have lower crime and better schools. There’s nothing artificial about selecting the best environment for yourself and your family.

Is it necessary to artificially editorialize when you’re making what is, at its root, a thinly veiled socio-political point?

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

#467

Post by pandeiro » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

Aside from the distraction of the author's nuttery, the issue is probably the most salient one for the American middle class over the next century.

Either very strong measures are imposed to limit / de-incentivize real estate speculation and hoarding, or the vast, vast majority of the population is entirely excluded from any kind of property ownership.

And while simplistic 'conspiracy' thinking definitely is of a much lower value than rigorous analysis, there is IMO merit to at least acknowledging that the politically powerful class might overlap substantially with the rentier (property ownership) class and thus resist any such reform taking place. It shouldn't be out of bounds to speculate on the motives of powerful actors, even if it is obviously not the same as making evidence-based claims.

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

#468

Post by whoisburbansky » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

Cerium wrote: post #144

whoisburbansky wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not necessarily - for example in China foreigners are limited to owning one house. That limits speculation but does not provide hindrance for someone honestly trying to live.

What’s the “not necessarily” in response to here?

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

#469

Post by maxwell » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #397

yabones wrote: post #102

Things went off the rails at the end... > Well, the banks are controlled by and in bed with the same cabal buying everything up. You think this will be corrected by market forces when it is a financial and political pincher movement pushed by the same cabal that stole the 2020 election & hid COVID Truth? You are fucked. https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402449561864577024 IMO, weakens the entire 'thread' and m…

This comment refers to the original URL, https://twitter.com/APhilosophae/status/1402434266970140676 , which we've since replaced with the article it points to (in keeping with the site guidelines).

And that guideline often results in confusing, disjointed comment threads.

Enforcing banal, insigificant titles diminishes meaningful discussion hinged on the actual point of the submission.

Strangely, but anecdotally, the titles that I see getting changed are ones involving race, state actors, or corporations.

What these moves feel like is censorship of story title that mention, for instance, Black people, the Chinese Communist Party, or multinationals like BlackRock.

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

#470

Post by CodeWriter23 » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #355

brightball wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just experienced something similar to this and it makes me wonder if much of this is just perception. We recently dealt with an out of state builder pushing to have a property that was zoned Neighborhood Commercial to be rezoned to something more flexible so that he could build 49 town homes with 49 parking spots on 5 acres of land. Everybody opposed the rezoning and fought to defeat it. The project would have been…

Yes. If you believe that no town homes should be built in the U.S. than you might not qualify as NIMBY. But if you believe that town homes shouldn't be built next to you that's the definition of NIMBY. Of course every instance has a long list of reasons why next to them is especially bad, character of the neighborhood, parking issues, infrastructure, etc.... But the end result of everyone fighting increased density i…

What if you're someone who thinks building stack-and-pack residences is the incorrect response for an investor-manufactured housing shortage?