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

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

#291

Post by zemo »

xyzelement wrote: post #281
zemo wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one way to drive prices in your city down is to have some even that renders it undesirable (..., defund the police ...) there are so many problems with your post but the assumption that defunding the police is necessarily going to cause prices to collapse is probably the most obviously biased one. the idea that you should view housing as simply a matter of supply and demand and not consider any externalities is an…

> the idea that you should view housing as simply a matter of supply and demand and not consider any externalities is an abominable position Comrade, I am speaking about "how it works" not "what would be really nice if..." > Income from residential rentals is taxed at the same rate as ordinary income, the kind you get from actually doing something. I can tell you have never owned an apartment or a house. The amount o…

> I can tell you have never owned an apartment or a house.

I own my home and I pay property taxes, nice try though.

> Comrade, I am speaking about "how it works" not "what would be really nice if..."

faced with "the rent going up is a problem for working class people" you're instantly taking the side of investors and positioning it through this lens:

> I want to make sure people understand the dynamics.

the problem is not that people don't UnDeRsTaNd ThE dYnAmIcS, the problem is that the dynamics actively incentivize the creation of an investor and speculator class that owns a substantial portion of the housing stock and drives price up based on speculation and not based on any actual need to use the product. The supply is artificially held low by the investor and speculator class, my argument is that this is actively harmful and that the idea that the only way to raise supply is to build more houses is wrong, because your framing assumes a vacancy rate of zero, which no major city has.

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

#292

Post by topkai22 »

mikysco wrote: post #275
game_the0ry wrote: post #255

Former real estate finance professional, here. If you were hoping this was a sign of the real estate market falling and perhaps its your chance to get a bargain, think again. > The company is seeking roughly $2.8 billion for the houses, which are being pitched to institutional investors, according to people familiar with the matter. Institutional investors (Blackstone, Blackrock, Colony, et al) will be being in bulk,…

Aren't all these homes required to be listed on the MLS before being sold? My understanding is a home (at least in California) can't be sold unless publicly listed for X days on the MLS.

I don't think that is true. I know of intra-family sales where that definitely didn't happen and a quick search found nothing. There may be some internal rules among Realtors (who own the MLS- it isn't a public service) that require that, but a law declaring that would be dictating paying for a given private organizations product, which sounds problematic.

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

#293

Post by HarryHirsch »

rsj_hn wrote: post #260
HarryHirsch wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more people would decide to live with their roommates and family And we made fun of Soviet Russia, where people would live with roommates and family because their government was so dysfunctional that it couldn't even arrange shelter for its citizens, a basic necessity for life.

U.S. has a 65% home ownership rate. Not everyone can afford a Bentley or a condo in Manhattan. That is not some terrible injustice that needs to be fixed. Living within your means and buying a place where you can afford to live is also an alternate approach. Or you can moan about capitalism and how unfair life is.

The price for housing has gone up substantially in the last 20 years, housing takes up a greater share of peoples incomes than it did in the past, and there is no reason for it.

We wouldn't tolerate the price of food going up by the same percentage.

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

#294

Post by barbazoo »

Loughla wrote: post #64
barbazoo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But will they stay low for the next 30 years? Probably not. It's not a good idea to justify ones house buying decision with an all time low interest rate.

In the US, fixed interest mortgage rates are sort of the standard. So, the decision to buy now based on interest rates is a keen driver of many buyers. Source; I've refinanced three times based on rates going down. I dropped 10 years and 200/mo. off of my mortgage for the low, low price of $750 worth of appraisals.

I didn't know there were 30 year fixed interest rate mortgages. Interesting, here in Canada it's usually 5 years as far as I can see.

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

#295

Post by ineedasername »

Since this is unlikely to be the end of Zillow's ambitions in this area, I foresee an arms race between Zillow and local sellers & their agents:

Just like with SEO, algorithmic home buying will open up the opportunity for people to infer from the algorithms behavior which metrics or keywords it's triggered off of and respond accordingly.

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

#296

Post by the-pigeon »

game_the0ry wrote: post #255

Former real estate finance professional, here. If you were hoping this was a sign of the real estate market falling and perhaps its your chance to get a bargain, think again. > The company is seeking roughly $2.8 billion for the houses, which are being pitched to institutional investors, according to people familiar with the matter. Institutional investors (Blackstone, Blackrock, Colony, et al) will be being in bulk,…

This would be easy to fix with legislative that makes property taxes much higher for investment home properties.

I don't think I've ever heard of a politician even talking about that though.

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

#297

Post by giantg2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #203
giantg2 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Effectively prohibiting construction is a ridiculously stupid policy" But one has to convince the residents or other voting population of that. "it obviously can't apply for everything, and housing is one of the things it shouldn't apply to." I generally agree that government should take the smallest role possible. It seems that this topic has a long and expansive precedent - code requirements for how structures are…

> But one has to convince the residents or other voting population of that. There's plenty of other things that that has obviously not been true for, I don't see why we should default to this extreme localism you seem to be advocating. We didn't let local voters decide to continue imposing testing requirements to vote, we didn't let them allow businesses to continue to determine patrons based on race, we don't allow…

"Given that this is a large problem, I don't see why non-local governmental action should be given an effective veto power by residents who don't want to see anyone new in their neighborhood."

So my question still stands and just moves up to the next level. Now you have to convince the majority of the state or country to support that sort of law. At the federal level, the 10th ammendment might even prevent this type of law.

The second half of that sentence is pretty inflammatory. There are many people who don't want new houses constructed and changing the density of their neighborhood but would welcome someone new if they're moving into an existing house.

"Yes, plenty of people advocate for things that are in their self-interest yet bad for society. Your point?"

My point is that people want single homes with these amenities and in that sort of setting. Why shouldn't they have that? You're implying that this is bad for society, yet I see no support for this. I see nothing that prevents the free market from addressing or self correcting housing issues. Vaguely claiming that your position is beneficial and others are not is unproven. Even if it would be beneficial, you still have to convince the voters to support it.

"Sure. By beneficial, I mean net welfare enhancing for society. It's obviously not beneficial if your criteria is "increasing the price of my home by constricting supply.""

We would have to prove the net benefit part. Nobody said it was about home values. Some people support many restrictions for reasons other than property value, like quality of life, infrastructure issues, etc.

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

#298

Post by sokoloff »

the-pigeon wrote: post #296
game_the0ry wrote: post #255

Former real estate finance professional, here. If you were hoping this was a sign of the real estate market falling and perhaps its your chance to get a bargain, think again. > The company is seeking roughly $2.8 billion for the houses, which are being pitched to institutional investors, according to people familiar with the matter. Institutional investors (Blackstone, Blackrock, Colony, et al) will be being in bulk,…

This would be easy to fix with legislative that makes property taxes much higher for investment home properties. I don't think I've ever heard of a politician even talking about that though.

Many places have a (small) rebate for owner-occupied real estate. Cambridge, MA is one; I get a break for living in my house as a primary residence.

Edit to add: I looked up the exemption calculation. It excludes up to $432,666 from the assessed value. Multiply that exclusion by the rate of 0.00585 ($5.85 per $1K per year) and the exclusion reduces a homeowner's taxes by $2,531.10/yr.

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

#299

Post by BuckRogers »

mediaman wrote: post #283
BuckRogers wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 39 year renter flush with cash from 15 years of a professional job while living in austerity for the entire time. Soliciting free advice. You sound bullish so I wanted to share five risks in the short term that have been on my mind lately: 1) Evictions now allowed in 43 states after a pandemic moratorium on them. My state allowed them October 3rd. Supply. 2) A China conflict at any point. Disruption. 3) Taxes g…

A note on the mortgage: I understand your aversion to debt, but choosing a shorter duration mortgage can increase the probability of default, even if it shortens the time to the point that you are debt free, because for any given amount of cash reserves you have it shortens the runway you have if you lose your income. As long as mortgage money is cheap, the most profitable course of action is to use the 30 year mortg…

I haven't done it for a while but when I last compared 15 to 30 year rates the interest was outrageous, pure usury, for the 30 year. But that isn't my main motivation to sticking to a 15 year, it's just a mechanism to limit how much I can borrow and spend. It caps me at a reasonable amount without me having to think about it, while granting a lower interest rate. It just nicely lines up with an amount that my spouse or I can afford with even one job, or a very basic low paying job. I'm definitely doing what you're suggesting and staying away from the edge.

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

#300

Post by nojito »

game_the0ry wrote: post #255

Former real estate finance professional, here. If you were hoping this was a sign of the real estate market falling and perhaps its your chance to get a bargain, think again. > The company is seeking roughly $2.8 billion for the houses, which are being pitched to institutional investors, according to people familiar with the matter. Institutional investors (Blackstone, Blackrock, Colony, et al) will be being in bulk,…

>at a steep discount before they even hit the market

This isn't really true. They are paying above market rates and have been for the past 18 months or so.

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