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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

#611

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

dcolkitt wrote: post #592
adflux wrote: post #16

This is what happens when you keep printing money and keep mortgage rates incredibly low. All that money's gotta go somewhere. Hey, at least the CPI isn't going up right? Its only the most expensive thing in most people's lives that has doubled in cost in about 10 years. Same thing for stock prices, and slowly other commodity prices are catching up as well. Non-homeowners are being shafted by this fed/ecb policy. Eve…

I don't really agree. Japan has had very easy money and QE for ten years longer than the West. Yet, it's one of the few housing markets in the world where prices have not risen in 25 years.[1] Runaway housing costs are everywhere and always a phenomenon that results supply constraints. Usually entirely zoning/regulatory driven. Usually due to NIMBY activism. Given supply constraints, I agree that easy money probably…

Japan's population is declining. What's your point?

Why would you expect house prices to go up when there's a ridiculous oversupply of housing. There's only 55M households in Japan, and there's ~9M vacant homes. That's ~14% of homes.

Housing is an expense unless there's someone to live in it and pay rent.

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

#612

Post by bennysomething »

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…

They know that the current government planning regulations mean that getting anything built is extremely difficult. They know that due to supply and demand that this makes property a wise investment. Blame planning regulations. I read recently that Japan and new Zealand scrapped various regulations and this led to stabilization / lower of property prices.

Near me, someone is sticking up protest letters at bus stops complaining a developer wants to build flats. For heaven's sake, people need to live somewhere, please do build.

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

#613

Post by kerng »

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…

Another reason to consider: money printing and inflation

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

#614

Post by krferriter »

Manuel_D wrote: post #557
plank_time wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Or maybe, make it so that property tax increases are limited but only if the owner: 1. Is past retirement age 2. The owner lives in the property. 3. The owner does not have the means to pay the normal property tax rates. This is how m…

What you're suggesting is that the solution to the problem should be targeted at the actual problem trying to be solved.

Seems like a lot to ask, so clearly the best way forward is to just continue shoveling more wealth onto the already-wealthy at the expense of people entering the workforce and housing market, and even then still not actually solving the original problem we sought out to solve in the first place.

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

#615

Post by tptacek »

stagger87 wrote: post #477
tptacek wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Increasing the rental stock in an area of low rental units is one thing, but is not what the article is discussing. I'm not sure the relevance of the European housing market.

I don't understand the moral valence of an imbalance (in any sense) between owner-occupied and rented housing. Could you help me see where you're coming from here?

I bring up Europe just to observe that it's not a settled norm, even in rich western societies, that homeownership is somehow better or prosocial.

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

#616

Post by bennysomething »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #470
JamesBarney wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How can investors decrease the supply of housing?

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

#617

Post by krferriter »

yongjik wrote: post #383
plank_time wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I own a house in East Bay, and paying >$10k/yr of property tax. While I don't mind tax in principle, it greatly annoys me that I'm paying much more than my neighbors just because I bought it a few years ago. And why would my opinion change when I get older? Prop 13 won't do shit to lower my taxes, I'll have less income and still be paying through the nose, because the city needs money and half of its residents are pa…

It's a pyramid scheme, people newly entering the housing market radically subsidize the asset values of those who entered before them.

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

#618

Post by dcolkitt »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #611
dcolkitt wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really agree. Japan has had very easy money and QE for ten years longer than the West. Yet, it's one of the few housing markets in the world where prices have not risen in 25 years.[1] Runaway housing costs are everywhere and always a phenomenon that results supply constraints. Usually entirely zoning/regulatory driven. Usually due to NIMBY activism. Given supply constraints, I agree that easy money probably…

Japan's population is declining. What's your point? Why would you expect house prices to go up when there's a ridiculous oversupply of housing. There's only 55M households in Japan, and there's ~9M vacant homes. That's ~14% of homes. Housing is an expense unless there's someone to live in it and pay rent.

Tokyo is growing faster than New York, London, or most other major Western metros.[1] (It's true Japan as a whole has slow growth, but Tokyo still has robust growth because or rural to urban migration.) Yet real housing prices have not risen in Tokyo in 25 years.

[1]https://livejapan.com/en/in-tokyo/in-pref-tokyo/in-tokyo_sub...

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

#619

Post by pdpi »

nopeNopeNooope wrote: post #583
ta1234567890 wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, at least in California, realtors will always push prices up. It’s pretty much never in their best interest to lower the price. Even the buyer’s agent gets paid a percentage of the sale price, so if they try to lower it they’d be essentially working against themselves. And this is without even accounting for all the schemes realtors create (like listing below market to get a lot of offers and create artificially…

That sounds insightful, but there's no point in screwing a buyer for a tiny today payday. Those agents work on volume, so if you think they're pushing you to not get the lowest price, it's so they can close the deal, not because their incentives aren't aligned with yours. If they're telling you to offer more, it's because they have better knowledge of the market and the game than you. They're banking on many commissi…

It’s similar (if symmetrical) to the situation with recruiters — most of their money comes from getting you an offer and you then accepting it. Negotiating a better salary gives them more money, but costs time that would’ve been better spent getting another person a job.

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

#620

Post by dragonwriter »

throw737858 wrote: post #237
plank_time wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Someone who owns a house in cali is a milionaire. I am not sure it applies to immigrant who just moved to California.

> Someone who owns a house in cali is a milionaire

I own a house in California. I have substantially less than $1 million net worth. Not complaining, to be sure, but it simply isn't even remotely true that all California homeowners are millionaires.

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