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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

#81

Post by criddell »

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 need legislation that discourages housing as investment if we are to maintain housing as shelter.

I'm looking forward to hearing how Vancouver's vacant house tax affects their market the next few years. It sounds like a good idea and I'm glad they're running that experiment. It's hard to predict how these things go over time.

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

#82

Post by mercy_dude »

Don’t forget also the anticipation of inflation - many use housing as a hedge of high inflationary environment.

If there is more damage the Fed could have done to GenZ since the bailout, that was reckless Covid spending. I sincerely wish these agencies are shut down someday. But alas we are going the other way.

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

#83

Post by JamesBarney »

aprdm wrote: post #69
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.

The concept of credit score isn't something that has always existed in humanity. It's something that we can go on without, even more so given the ridiculous profitability of banks

If banks stopped lending based on creditworthiness they'd be doing a lot less lending causing far more people to not be able to afford a house.

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

#84

Post by pishpash »

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.

That's never going to be the case because of equity. Of course government-owned housing can be sold for use rights only with no equity, but that's 'socialism' which Americans have been viscerally conditioned against.

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

#85

Post by Test0129 »

geodel wrote: post #31
staindk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious sure, but also sad and concerning. I'm tentatively alright with the idea of renting forever and never owning property... but with rent increasing and investors buying up more and more property, it looks like things will get uglier and uglier. I am not alright with paying absurdly high rent.

Well, the idea that owner will be saddled with serious repair and maintenance whereas renter on virtue of being a renter will just move out to house on next street risk free seems unsustainable to me. Increasing rents are a kind of distributing risks of costly maintenance that renters doesn't want to care about.

I have no data for this but I'd imagine rents have increased substantially to make up for the eviction moratoriums. Several friends of mine who own an extra house (usually their parents) ran into the problem of being unable to evict a tenant, and also having the tenant refuse to pay (because the government told them it was ok). The only solution here is to raise rents to compensate and unfortunately this drives out would-be good tenants.

But yeah in general rents being more expensive than mortgages is a function of risk. Renting is generally less risky for renters are more and more risky for the owners, so it's only fair that the owners be compensated for the risk. The question is where do you draw the line on fair risk compensation vs outright usury. In states like California and New York it's getting to be insane. Even in the low CoL area I am in I have no idea how people pay $1000 for a shoebox studio.

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

#87

Post by jaywalk »

davidw wrote: post #62
slg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have spent decades telling American families that homeownership is the safest investment. We then spent decades enacting policies to ensure this is true. Do we think investors were going to just sit that out and ignore a safe and government protected investment? Of course the more attractive we make home ownership as an investment, the more investors will flock to the market. We need policies specifically benefiti…

This article, speaking to your point, is pretty convincing in terms of the data: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22524829/wall-street-housin... > The role of institutional investors is still being studied, but the popularity of the narrative strikes at something dangerous: People want a convenient boogeyman and when they get it, they often ignore the structural problems that are harder to combat. Housing undersupply…

No post body was provided.

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

#88

Post by thepasswordis »

I'm so frustrated by some of the conversations people get in around housing. They want to live in the most desirable places on planet earth, and seem to think that we should just abolish the concept of property ownership to accomplish this.

What do you guys think happens when you get what you want, and nobody can "own" property anymore? Do you think there is an unlimited amount of single family 3000 square foot homes in San Francisco and that you will all be able to live in them?

Go on zillow and look at cities you've never heard of in that awful "flyover" part of the country. There are scores of homes for less than $200k, and plenty of homes around $100k. Go look at Parkersberg, ~~OH~~ WV.

Here's a house in Indiana for $125k. The payment on that is going to be like $450/mo. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/51-S-Main-St-Laketon-IN-4...

It's just absolutely insane to me the places that peoples minds go when this topic comes up.

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

#89

Post by vel0city »

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.

My mortgage + insurance + taxes is a lower monthly payment than what my rent was at the time I bought my house. Compared to that same unit renting today, its several hundred dollars a month cheaper. It has over twice the square footage and a private garage. This is in a pretty big metro area, not the middle of nowhere.

One of the biggest benefit of owning is a hedge against housing inflation. Its not a perfect hedge, I do acknowledge. As property values increase my taxes go up, as housing materials increase in cost the cost to repair it goes up. But the amount my taxes will go up in a year is far less than how much I've been seeing rents shoot up.

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

#90

Post by welder »

causi wrote: post #49

Owning homes you can't live in is as perverse as claiming domain over a patch of the ocean or a chunk of the sky. The very concept ought to be attacked with every legal method.

Do you own the home you live in or are you renting? Renting is enabled by doing just that, someone owning a home they don't live in. So you want to outlaw renting?
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