451–460 of 634 posts
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It'll drive up rents, but you could pair it with a renters' tax credit.
Then renters can afford the larger rents, and after the dust settles all you've done is take money from one of the state's pockets and put it in another, no?
I guess what you'd want is to tax the hell out of rental properties, then put that money to first-time mortgage assistance.
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,…
> they will happily rent to you since that is the the plan all along - own all the assets, and every generation after X gets to rent Maybe if there wasn't the NA obsession with "home ownership" none of this would matter. Part of what is driving home prices are people with FOMO paying any price. Why?
More likely, people flush with cash see inflation eroding it, think the stock market is already too high.
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I'm a bit more optimistic. Only something like 2% of the U.S. is urban. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/america-land-use/ If it became problematic that people didn't own homes, but wanted to, they could easily just open land for building. They may own all the land around cities and all the corporations move there. There by making "corporate cities", but at the end of the day, people can create their own thing like t…
That's way optimistic. There's lots of other reasons to be in cities besides jobs.
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I think there's more going on here than simply RE speculation. Most importantly, Zillow is building capability. Capability to buy & sell quickly through processes, tooling, networking, and brand recognition. There is a long play here. Zillow's goal has always been to fully disrupt the real estate market. Why should this stop with brokerages and agents? Shouldn't investors also be on the list?
> Investors Sure, medium/large flippers may have investors putting up the money. And I agree that Zillow is not likely backing out of the game all together. They just had an expensive lesson learning what they don't know about how to go about this. But their current strategy was also only viable during rapid price increases. A completely different one is needed in other market condition. Making money flipping in a fl…
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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.
Curious to know how and where you got that impression. There is no such requirement. There are similar private requirements for the cartel known as NAR. What this means in practice is that pocket listings actually make to to the MLS for one day before apparently being sold "in 1 day". Zillow as property owner is not part of NAR. Zillow as broker is also not part of NAR, although if they were, they'd do exactly as ind…
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5% is still $20k. When you're living payslip to payslip, even $5k is too much as a deposit is too much.
But 5% is better than 20% down. Most have the capacity to save but choose not to.
5% is certainly better than 20%, but when you don't have the money, even 1% deposit is too much.
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,…
I agree. I wish people understood more of what these "institutional investors" are doing. The Fed has essentially trapped us in a system where the likes of blackrock get access to essentially free Fed printing press money right of the rollers that they then use to buy up real assets at inflated prices, which only drives up the inflation that thereby also drives up the value of previous purchases at near zero rate int…
Apartment complexes make sense as rentals because there's a great deal of efficiencies vis-a-vis property maintenance & management. Plus the added benefit of greatly reduced property taxes per unit. The downside is that they don't appreciate as quickly as other real estate can.
SFHs make a lot of sense for small-time landlords because they can be bought up in increments. But even small-time landlords pretty quickly realize the value in multi-tenant rentals and move to acquire more of them.
Blackrock, et al, will hold onto these so long as they continue to appreciate at double-digit rates. But after a few years of inflation-level appreciation, they will begin to dump these as their profits tumble due to the inherent inefficiencies of SFHs.
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,…
100% agree. Institutional investors are setting themselves up to be landed barons that will seek perpetual rent from working people who can no longer afford housing as the supply has shrunk and housing prices skyrocket. Oh and if these institutions fail they get bailed out by govt(they are too big to fail!). Imagine if these 7000 houses were offered to buyers, this would allow so many families opportunities to homeow…
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Thats not how you look at this. If this were a strong market signal they would be selling to Blackrock at a profit and not a loss. The exchange value is down not up. There were equal buyers matched to sellers in 2008 as well when the market was cratering (not that we are in 2008).
Sure, but that doesn’t mean that the average person can acquire a house for cheaper today. And that’s really the only part of the story that matters
To be sure, none of us will be buying one of their distressed properties though.
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Compound interest means that you will be paying a lot more money for the same house if you buy over 30 rather than 15 years. However, for someone disciplined, taking a 30 year mortgage and paying it off like a 15 year mortgage with significant over payments is a good strategy. It means if you need to tighten your belt you can always drop down to the normal payment for a spell without so much as having to speak to the…
This was the approach that made the most sense to me. Purchase a house where you can afford the 15-year fixed mortgage, but take out the 30-year fixed mortgage. Pay it off as if it were the 15-year fixed (ensure that your loan has no penalties for prepayment or extra payments, and that 100% of extra payments go toward the principal). If things go smoothly for you, you’ll pay a marginal amount of additional interest (…
Obviously if a bond paying 3% would be interesting to you, pay the mortgage off first before buying the bond.