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How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

fullstackeconomics.com

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Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#391

Post by dragonwriter »

gnicholas wrote: post #117
paxys wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Heck I know several people who prefer to keep their condos/houses empty rather than rent them out at market rate because of 100% tenant friendly city and state laws. Someone can move in and refuse to pay rent, refuse to leave, use your house as a drug den, destroy your property and lots more, and you can do nothing about it. At that point the city is just incentivizing homeowners to contribute to the housing…

A friend bought a duplex in Berkeley. Due to the tenant-friendly laws there, she will only rent to international university affiliates whose roles/visas will require them to leave after a year or two. Interestingly, she is very YIMBY and liberal, and even has a PhD in urban planning. But no one wants a forever tenant!

> Interestingly, she is very YIMBY and liberal

Do you mean “liberal” the way progressives use it (i.e., center-right pro-corporate capitalist) or “liberal” the way conservatives use it (i.e., left of the Republican Party, with more liberal = more left)?

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#392

Post by missedthecue »

MiroF wrote: post #199
Cederfjard wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious as an outsider, what laws are she breaking by doing that?

Civil Rights Act of 1968, Unruh Civil Rights Act, ... there are a few other California specific legal statutes around civil rights/housing discrimination.

What part of the civil rights act does it violate?

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#393

Post by cellis »

schrijver wrote: post #274
cellis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a potential landlord who is doing this very thing right now, it isn't really "throwing money away", because of asset appreciation. If you get stuck with a bad tenant it's way more hassle than if you had just let it sit and AirBnB'd it every once in a while. Especially for properties where the rent is less than the appreciation per month.

How do you feel about the ethical aspect? Now the home is not useful, except as an investment to you, but if you sold it there’s lots of ways you could make money instead (and in ways that provide value to others!). And the place would be someone’s home. Seems weird to let it be stay empty like that.

I had hoped to not wade too deep into this discussion for privacy reasons, but essentially I have quasi-rented it to someone close to me who I trust, and isn't in need of the place. They cover the utilities they use, and I don't charge them rent. Still, you have a valid point. I honestly don't like the AirBnBification of neighborhoods across the world. But, the time commitment I need right now to get licensure and then to interview rental candidates/hire a management just isn't worth the time commitment. Besides that, I like the optionality of visiting the city, and I did live in the house last year ( saved a ton on rent by buying in another state and working remotely there for my employer in California during the pandemic ). Hope that adds some clarity. I'm not part of the global elite!

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#394

Post by dragonwriter »

nebula8804 wrote: post #389
MiroF wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not a liberal if you're casually violating fair housing law :) Everyone wants to call themselves a liberal or progressive nowadays, it's bizarre. These things are about actions, not self-assigned labels.

>Everyone wants to call themselves a liberal or progressive nowadays, it's bizarre. Thats just the scam the corporate left likes to play. They love to be super "progressive" while actually performing nothing progressive other than performance art. It costs nothing to call yourself "progressive". Hell I bet Trump has probably called himself "progressive" ha ha. Like you said, its actions that matter. If you look at th…

> the corporate left

This thing does not exist.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#395

Post by xenadu02 »

jjav wrote: post #336
MiroF wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like no one could agree on happy medium between "landlord can eject you whenever they want for whatever reason" and "no one can make you leave, ever, for any reason". No place in the US actually has the latter unless you've been letting them squat for half a decade or something, the issue is court delays and landlord's wanting to make their lot out to be worse than it is.

> > "no one can make you leave, ever, for any reason". > No place in the US actually has the latter Not technically, no. But there are areas (e.g. San Francisco) where getting a non-paying tenant out is close enough to impossible that it might as well be.

AFAIK that's not actually true. There are some crazy edge cases but for the most part if a tenant stops paying rent you can absolutely evict them in SF. Most of the horror stories from landlords are attempts to evict for reasons besides non-payment - which SF does make somewhat difficult.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#396

Post by cma »

ramesh31 wrote: post #186
cuteboy19 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That would have fixed much of this, it's point blank illegal to run a bed and breakfast out of your home. Why? It's your home, you can do anything in it. Why should you need a license to rent out your own home for a few days? Does it physically destroy neighborhoods or just your perception of it? If so, why should anyone care?

>Does it physically destroy neighborhoods or just your perception of it? Yes, it does. People buy homes for more than financial reasons. Living in a community of homeowners with neighbors you've known for years is a completely different experience than living in a revolving door community of renters. There's been a whole decade of news reports about Airbnb ruining neighborhoods and condo buildings, to the point that…

Isn't this like saying Walt Disney World shouldn't be able to sell tickets to out-of-staters? State residents who know each other could have a higher chance of running into each other at the park if it wasnt full of out-of-staters, and that could build valuable community.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#397

Post by dragonwriter »

MiroF wrote: post #199
Cederfjard wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious as an outsider, what laws are she breaking by doing that?

Civil Rights Act of 1968, Unruh Civil Rights Act, ... there are a few other California specific legal statutes around civil rights/housing discrimination.

The Fair Housing Act (the part of the 1968 Civil Rights Act you are referring to) exempts owner-occupied buildings with less than five units, so it wouldn't apply to the other unit in an owner-occupied duplex.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#398

Post by giraffe_lady »

endisneigh wrote: post #370
giraffe_lady wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do landlords labor?

Yes? Do you think the house magically takes care of itself?

This comment made me see red, seriously the maddest I've been in weeks. You couldn't have known that and I'm not upset at you.

_I_ take care of the house in this situation. The landlord doesn't shovel snow or mow grass, I do.

They do carry some of the burden specifically in taxes and liability, yes I know. I also know the maintenance responsibilities aren't inherently and legally mine, and so I can be blamed for entering a contract that requires me to do this.

Anyway though it even more shows that landlords don't inherently do anything. If they stopped maintaining it, the tenant is the one who has to live in the shitty house and will wind up fixing it.

What the landlord does is control access to housing. I don't respect or value that and you're not going to change my mind about it today.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#399

Post by conanbatt »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #9

The scary thing is that it's easy to see how something how like this could drive a market boom and bust cycle. I'm imagining a scenario where two iBuyer companies try to outbid each other algorithmically, driving the prices further and further out of reach of people who are looking for a primary home. Tangentially related, I talked to a friend who works on geospatial data for one of the big vacation rental companies,…

> rther and further out of reach of people who are looking for a primary home.

This happens to all assets all the time. When it rains, umbrellas go up in price. Companies competing with this and failing is only a transfer of wealth between VC's and homeowners. You don't need to ascribe a moral sentiment to that transfer, its just what it is.

If the prices then bust afterward, then homeowners that sold won, the ones that stayed didnt take advantage of the opportunity, and home buyers lost at the high and will win at the bottom. Like in any other price fluctuation!

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#400

Post by londons_explore »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #277
londons_explore wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations like this are common. Usually you need to get a special license, have home inspections annually, pay various fees, etc. if you want to do so.

Regulations where you'd specify minimum floor size, or rooms per person make sense for me. It's about straight up saying you can't live with people without state sanctioning the relationship.

In my region, the rules are so incredibly precise. Things like washing up areas must have at least 3 bowels in. Toilets must have flush handles above a certain height and below another height. Radiators must have 6 heat settings... Etc.

The entire aim seems to be to make running such a house not illegal, but very difficult and very expensive.

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