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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

#481

Post by nemo44x »

whimsicalism wrote: post #114
jackorange wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a fallacy perpetuated by unrealistic ideals. I bought a house for 175K at 24. I only make 50K a year. I don't have a college degree. Lot of people saying buying houses is hard, unrealistic, or impractical want to buy mansions with a 10 second commute to their workplace in silicon valley but the reality is most people are not living like that. Wage workers are still buying houses no problem in what are…

My ideal is for real housing prices to remain somewhat steady - ie. I don't like that I have to pay much more than inflation to get a house compared to what my parents pay. It'd be nice to be able to afford a house where I grew up without having to tie a ridiculous amount of my net worth up in this one very pricey illiquid asset, even if I could get the mortgage.

What you're saying is you want interest rates to remain steady.

The monthly cost to own a home is the same as it ever was, inflation adjusted. It's interest rates that have changed.

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

#482

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

BuckRogers wrote: post #272
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,…

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…

I'm 45 and in the same boat as you ... except I've been waiting for a crash since 2016. I also made the mistake of keeping my cash in very cautious investments (and out of the SP500) ... thus missing the most historic bull run of my lifetime.

Regardless though, as a result of working at a successful unicorn and selling a lot of my equity on the secondary market, I ended up benefitting from the Fed's insane money printing anyway (the prices offered for my equity doubled and doubled again in 24 months).

I'm now sitting on a pile of cash. I invested a small amount (about 25%) into stocks (mostly REITs and dividend yielding stocks), but the rest I left in cash with the hopes of buying a home without debt (I can always take out a mortgage later to invest).

But the homes just keep increasing in value. The homes I looked at in 2016 in the Bay Area that were 600K are now 1.5M and up. I took my family out of the Bay Area into the Sacramento area, and even here houses have gone up 30% in the last year. Houses that were 800K are now going for about 1.2M.

But I'm still being patient. Now we're looking to leave the state entirely. I could buy a home here, but I'm looking at the economics for someone who is entry level or working a blue collar job (or being a teacher or caretaker), and I realize I don't want to live here. Apart from housing, I also have to think about what kind of teachers my kids will have, what kind of chefs will be at resteraunts, etc. A California that is unaffordable for everyone but me is a lame place to live.

After checking out Texas, Colorado, and Florida, we've decided we'll get way better value for our money, in terms of lifestyle for the family if we leave. California is bad and only getting worse.

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

#483

Post by gretch »

crate_barre wrote: post #388
shmatt wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article may not be a sign, but a different[1] article is a pretty decent sign Zillow is also selling individual homes, not just this package. In their main algorithmic buying market of Phoenix they're selling individual homes, 93% of whom they payed more for than the new current listing price (and they usually do renovations before listing) So Zillow VCs are essentially paying people to take a discount on houses…

Losing money is pretty sweet?

Not for Zillow but for everyone else, yeah it’s value transfer from VCs to the he average person.

Same thing with Uber/Lyft/dash/movie pass. For years the general population received rich VC subsidized services. Pretty sweet

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

#484

Post by vasilipupkin »

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,…

Blackstone, Blackrock - just buy their stock then, they are publicly traded

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

#485

Post by treeman79 »

mywittyname wrote: post #457
frankfrankfrank wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think institutionally-owned SFH rentals are viable in the long term. 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 c…

Places like Invitation Homes do everything as cheap as possible.

Cheap as possible paint minimal repairs no inspections. Shady things like intentionally covering up gas leaks. Source: Family nearly died in multiple different ways. Had an HVAC fall on kids bed In the night, just missed. Massive gas leak they lied about. Walls that were so hot they burned the skin.

Many things a home inspection would have uncovered.

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

#486

Post by dublinben »

azinman2 wrote: post #442
kennywinker wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canada also has a number of programs that make property purchase for new homeowners more affordable by waving some taxes and allowing interest free borrowing from your retirement fund Some further flaws in the system: I was shocked to find out that the new home buyers tax credit only applies to homes under $500k - which in vancouver means it only applies to a handful of small condos. It's also not poolable, so two…

I thought Cambridge, MA has a great system — the first $250k of any property value is tax free (or at least it was 10 years ago), and property taxes then only go above that. It had the effect of making property taxes cheap for small home, allowing lower income people to have more affordable housing over the long term.

Homestead exemptions like that are common in most states.[0] Cambridge does have a lower than average residential property tax rate, mostly due to how much commercial development they have. I still wouldn't point to Cambridge as a particular success in terms of affordable housing though.

[0] https://smartasset.com/taxes/what-is-a-homestead-tax-exempti...

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

#487

Post by mwambua »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #484
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,…

Blackstone, Blackrock - just buy their stock then, they are publicly traded

... And hope that whatever gains I get make me feel better about not being able to afford a home?

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

#488

Post by fleddr »

game_the0ry wrote: post #328
the-pigeon wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I don't think I've ever heard of a politician even talking about that though You have to consider that legislative members tend to own property and tend to be baby boomers. They are far removed form the experiences that younger generations have to deal with - from their perspective, their home value can go up 20% in 2 years and that will be rationalized as a normal market. They are not talking about it because they…

It won't change. After the boomers come the millennials, and I believe there's still a generation in between (generation Y?).

Many of them may have been just in time to snatch a house from the market, and they see their home value go up. None of them are going to advocate for super high taxes on their "unjust" gains nor will they give a discount to future buyers. They will maximize the return just like everybody else would.

It's not boomer behavior, it's human behavior. Boomers were just lucky to get in earlier. The only annoying thing about some boomers is that they don't acknowledge their luck, and insist it was all due to their hard work or brilliance.

The school going generation always wants a revolution, a redesign of society. To fix its flaws, to make it more fair. It's easy to want to change everything if you have no responsibility or anything to lose. But then they grow up and have skin in the game, and they'll be just like everybody else, protecting whatever wealth they have.

Consider that many boomers were hippies when they were young, rejecting even the notion of personal property. Now they own almost all property. The 21st century version of hippies are even better at managing progressive optics whilst taking in top 1% salaries.

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

#489

Post by BuckRogers »

bink wrote: post #401
lordnacho wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say number 2 is a long shot. Political risk is not terribly simple. Eg I worked for a firm that thought the Iraq war would mean oil would rocket and markets crater, didn't go down that way. Point is even if the thing you think will happen happens, the effect is not as obvious as you think. More examples are the monthly NFP figures, you might naively think job losses means economy is doing badly, thus market goes…

2 is not only a long shot but it's also not like if there were a third world war there would be some asset classes that escaped unscathed. If China went to war and that somehow crashed real estate prices, it's not like stocks would be soaring.

My scenario isn't meant to be WW3. It's just a conflict over Taiwan, presuming that it doesn't spiral into WW3. WW3 changes everything in such ways, my home ownership doesn't matter. Good chance my city is bombed and I die. What I'm focused on is the chance of a temporary dip in the market as I'm interested in buying in the short term (12-24 months).

How into the geopolitics of China-US relations are you? I ask because my reason that we're at high risk for a conflict and now low over Taiwan is that China just upgraded their navy, while we have a refresh going on right now. Once that investment is complete China will have essentially the window closed on any hope of winning the conflict. They have to move relatively quickly to have a realistic chance at taking over Taiwan, if US determination is resolute in stopping them at least. It could happen at any time.

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

#490

Post by jartelt »

BuckRogers wrote: post #272
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,…

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…

1) A large increase in evictions will mostly affect the rental market. There would be some single family home rentals affected, but mostly it would affect apartments.

A lot of homeowners who needed help during the start of the pandemic were able to get a forbearance on their mortgage. Thus, there was not a huge increase in foreclosures and instead people just had extra payments tacked onto the end of their mortgage.

3) If anything, wealthy homeowners are getting a tax break. Congress is considering a repeal of the SALT deduction limit, which helps homeowners.

5) The number of people who were fired or quit due to mandates has been very small.

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