Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt

> people are not entitled to shelter in any place of their choosing

I don't think that's a useful framing, because it's again putting the framing in terms of market dynamics in a vacuum. People don't pick where they're born, they don't pick who their parents are, and they don't pick the socioeconomic status that they're born into or have as children. The majority of people are born somewhere and cannot really afford to leave. For example, 72% of Americans live in or near the city where they were raised (https://www.northamerican.com/infographics/where-they-grew-u...). Most people don't have the agency to pick where they live based on price alone, because other non-market factors become comparatively larger when you have less money. If you can pick where you live based on price and how interesting it sounds, congratulations, that is privileged position. That's not to shame that position or anything, I'm just saying that the problem has to be viewed from the standpoint that most people aren't in that position. People are interdependent with their relatives, their friends, and their neighbors. Moving costs more than simply the price sticker of your new home minus the price sticker of your old home: the social costs are enormous. I think that a basic right of modern societies should be that people should not be priced out of their homes because of the whims of investors. So again, I think the idea that these things should be viewed through the lens of market dynamics alone is inhumane.

> Your proposed solution will increase rent prices for people who can't afford to buy a house while pushing the housing prices down and making them more affordable to middle class.

ok maybe. My point isn't that I have the perfect solution, my point is that there are far more levers to pull than what was being suggested, and that I do not want to live in a society that considers the problem by only looking at markets and pricing.

> I'm actually excited for hedge funds and financial institutions nail this process down and houses are both 1) very liquid, and 2) priced "correctly". Moving when you own a house will be as easy as moving when you're renting

Once financial institutions get it nailed down, they’ll be selling to each other in large tranches based on the strategies and target asset mixes of different funds, because the transaction costs are lower than doing piddling individual sales, interacting with the remaining individual owners only to buy inventory into the institutional system, and for individuals all that will be left is renting through management companies employed by the institutions.

It is a seller market, and it is probably gonna stay that way for some time. The only properties I am considering buy are those located in vacation places. You can still find good deals, and you can easily repay by renting them out for few months a year.

I will only consider buying a property in a major urban city only if I had to live there basically for ever. Otherwise I will keep renting. Prices in major EU cities, like the rest of the world are insane compared to the level of income, even for wealthy engineers.

They are losing money hand over fist in Tucson. I have several zillow signs in my neighborhood right now. Priced at ridiculous levels and Zillow paid an even more ridiculousness(fitting word play) price to "acquire" the home. Its laughable.

Boots on the ground here telling you the market in the Southwest is jacked up... again. I bought my house in 2009 as a foreclosure and I see the same signs I saw in 2007 all over again. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but Phoenix and Tucson are going to be real estate nightmares in 2022.

> Eventually, it will come down to common sense

People have been saying this for a long time in Canada, but there is no indication that things will change. People who waited and saved have simply seen that the price increases have far outpaced their saving rate.

When it's in a government's interests to keep prices rising, then they're going to do things that keep those prices rising.

Another outcome could simply be that actual ownership of a house in some areas becomes so expensive as to be the exclusive domain of the wealthy, and everyone else just rents. More middlemen raising the costs, more renting and less ownership per capita, as is the trend of more and more industries these days.