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Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

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Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#41

Post by didgetmaster »

itake wrote: post #15
thatguy0900 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not an investor in that situation? The person who wants to own a house to actually live in is the only one not being an investor.

I think the concern is local investors keep the money in the local economy, whereas 'foreign' investors are extracting value from the local community.

I think the concern is that rents are being controlled (and increased) by investors unfairly. There is always a market for rental properties (who wants to own when they know they will move in less than a couple years?); but there is concern that investors wield too much power.

I think this is only possible when large scale investors 'corner the market' by buying up a large percentage of homes in a given area. They can then control the rents because there is little competition.

On the other hand, if nearly every rental home is owned by a separate investor then each owner is competing with all the other small investors for tenants. They have competition and might be forced to keep the rents lower.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#42

Post by ethanbond »

JamesBarney wrote: post #24
sillystuff wrote: post #12

In 2012 I was looking at investing in REITs. One REIT's pitch was that they owned such a large percentage of the rental housing in Tampa Florida, that even though vacancy rates were high, and rents were going down throughout the nation and other areas in the state of Florida, they were able to keep rents high in Tampa. Disgusted, I realized the harm that REITs and private equity are doing to housing markets, and want…

We just need to remember that banning housing investment means banning rentals which is problematic for people who don't have good credit and a down payment.

There are ways to disincentivize toxic forms of investment (especially speculation) without banning it. A high land value tax, for example, would simultaneously increase investment and decrease speculation.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#43

Post by Finnucane »

sillystuff wrote: post #12

In 2012 I was looking at investing in REITs. One REIT's pitch was that they owned such a large percentage of the rental housing in Tampa Florida, that even though vacancy rates were high, and rents were going down throughout the nation and other areas in the state of Florida, they were able to keep rents high in Tampa. Disgusted, I realized the harm that REITs and private equity are doing to housing markets, and want…

Apparently some of these operations have become pretty sophisticated in being able to quickly sort and evaluate listings. Individual buyers don't stand much of a chance against buyers who can write a check as soon as a property hits the market.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#44

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

epistasis wrote: post #32

I'm sure the percentage is much much higher in supply constrained cities, because those cities are where there's much more opportunity for speculative real estate growth, and the local political structures are dedicated to keeping the supply constrained, and the speculative real estate asset price growth unchecked. At the core of a lot of this is the NIMBY behavior and downzoning that started in the 1970s. It's hyper…

And it’s just as much the fault of people who demand we don’t build for SFHs, only high density housing that’s highly undesirable to a large fraction of the home buying population. You don’t get to just blame NIMBYism for constraining the supply of the most desirable homes.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#45

Post by hardtke »

didgetmaster wrote: post #5

What constitutes an 'Investor' in this article? If I see a distressed home for sale in my neighborhood and decide to buy it, fix it up, and rent it out; this article seems to put me in the same category as institutional investors who come in and buy or build entire communities of homes.

The details of what constitutes an investor are unclear. It's possible they made the mistake of labeling purchases by trusts as investor purposes when many individuals buy houses directly into their trusts for estate planning purposes. I've seen that error made in these analyses, either inadvertently or deliberately for purposes of embellishing the problem.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#47

Post by toomuchtodo »

JamesBarney wrote: post #24
sillystuff wrote: post #12

In 2012 I was looking at investing in REITs. One REIT's pitch was that they owned such a large percentage of the rental housing in Tampa Florida, that even though vacancy rates were high, and rents were going down throughout the nation and other areas in the state of Florida, they were able to keep rents high in Tampa. Disgusted, I realized the harm that REITs and private equity are doing to housing markets, and want…

We just need to remember that banning housing investment means banning rentals which is problematic for people who don't have good credit and a down payment.

You can crowd out usury private investment (which this specifically is an example of) with government investment. Have the Fed buy treasuries, use federal funds to build and manage affordable housing.

Capital is make believe, a fiction, rows in a database. Physical laws are mandatory, everything else is a shared delusion or a suggestion. The rules can change at anytime with enough will.

Broad strokes, if Capital is primarily serving a small minority while the majority suffers for it, the tool (capital allocation) is broken and it is time to reevaluate the implementation.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#48

Post by brianwawok »

yardstick wrote: post #35
JamesBarney wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just need to remember that banning housing investment means banning rentals which is problematic for people who don't have good credit and a down payment.

Imagine if housing was cheap enough that paying the mortgage was around the same as what it now costs to rent. There definitely needs to be some rentals, but I believe that there needs to be controls over how many and the rental price.

In much of the US (read, in the Midwest where I am right now).. mortage monthly payment is indeed cheaper, sometimes a lot. And this is after taxes / repair issues.

Renting is very much a poverty trap where the poor with bad credit get poorer and worse credit.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#50

Post by NotYourLawyer »

ddevault wrote: post #33
didgetmaster wrote: post #5

What constitutes an 'Investor' in this article? If I see a distressed home for sale in my neighborhood and decide to buy it, fix it up, and rent it out; this article seems to put me in the same category as institutional investors who come in and buy or build entire communities of homes.

Correct. Landlords are reprehensible, including small ones.

>Only people who have good enough credit for a mortgage and can afford to buy deserve a place to live

Sounds worse when you put it that way though.

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