Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

pewtrusts.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 691 posts

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

#101

Post by dqv »

_fat_santa wrote: post #38
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.

Seems everyone that bought a home for anything other than living in it. In the article they even mention: > The CoreLogic data shows that what it calls “mega” investors, with a thousand or more homes, bought 3% of houses last year and in 2022, compared with about 1% in previous years, with the bulk of investor purchases made by smaller groups. So most of the percentage increase is done by mom-and-pop investors rather…

>I get the hate against institutional investors going in and buying up entire neighborhoods. But the sentiment that we should just abolish landlords is rather dumb IMO. There's a massive gap between someone being able to afford $1200 in rent and being able to afford a home with all of the added costs.

As opposed to... being able to afford the rent with the same added costs? Take my area for example: rent in my neighborhood has increased to $2000/month. My mortgage remains at $1500/month (taxes, insurance, HOA included). What added costs amount to $500 extra/month? It's not water, sewage, trash, electricity, or gas! Those costs exist for renters just as much as owners. It's not basic maintenance... that has not cost me anywhere near $6000/year. So what are the added costs that landlords are "saving" renters from?

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

#102

Post by toomuchtodo »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #94
toomuchtodo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

You realize that we are already running trillions of dollars in deficit for the programs we already have in place? The first step, should be to lower the deficit and actually fund the programs we have in place. We cannot just keep printing money without worsening the deficit and worsening the inflation. Yes, consumer sentiment is all hopes and dreams, but monetary policy is not. There are real world implications.

We’re going to inflate that debt away, like all developed nations with a declining fertility rate will do (Japan leads the way for us). Extend and pretend. Again, it’s not real! It’s just numbers in a database.

For those concerned about sovereign debt, that should’ve been thought about before running it up on unnecessary conflicts (which there have been many!) and other unproductive efforts (tax cuts for the wealthy). Real needs coming up, and no excuses because of previously suboptimal governance. Lots of assets and wealth in the US to tax for those who really want the debt line go down, but if debt line doesn’t go down, nbd.

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

#103

Post by pishpash »

Finnucane wrote: post #43
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.

You mean Zillow's $880M house-flipping fail? AI isn't smart enough yet.

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

#104

Post by pwinnski »

welder wrote: post #90
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?

There is a large and growing number of people who support the idea of outlawing renting from anyone other than the government (public housing).

I don't think I agree, at least under current conditions, but then, I own my house.

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

#105

Post by jaywalk »

boringg wrote: post #67
brianwawok wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depends on where you live - this "renting is a poverty trap" only applies to certain places and depends on home values constantly increasing. If home values crash where you live then you spent years putting money towards a worthless asset.

> If home values crash where you live then you spent years putting money towards a worthless asset.

It's still a roof over my head regardless of how much it's worth. And more importantly, how much it's worth is completely irrelevant unless/until you want to sell. And if you do want to sell, and home values have crashed, then the next house you buy will also be cheap!

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

#107

Post by davidw »

tshaddox wrote: post #97
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…

> 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? So one group wants to maintain a financial investment that was sold to them as a sure-fire way to make money with little work and little risk, and anoth…

Show up at any kind of planning commission or city council meeting and you will hear people absolutely UP IN ARMS that building some, say, apartments or townhomes or whatever will "destroy their property values". Even in markets when said property has like doubled in price over the last 10 years with no work from the owner-occupants.

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

#108

Post by safety1st »

themitigating wrote: post #80
aeternum wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many housing incentives (tax-breaks, etc.) designed to encourage home ownership a very simple solve would be to ensure those only apply to owner-occupied housing and limited to a single home per household.

Then people would decry socialism, big government, or excessive regulation.

Who are "people?" Is this where we hate for a few minutes on libertarians? Republicans? The unwashed American majority? Emmanuel Goldstein?

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

#109

Post by nikanj »

criddell wrote: post #81
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.

They’ve had it for a few years. It hasn’t done squat.

Turns out having 10 people and 9 homes remains a problem, even if you enact more policies.

They’ve tried everything, except build enough homes. I’m under the impression this is the popular modern across North America

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

#110

Post by carom »

didgetmaster wrote: post #41
itake wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

I disagree, landlords are price takers. There is not much I can do to drive my rents up if no one wants to pay it. If my rents are below market, I can get them up to market. But pushing it beyond that is competitive based on location and how nice the unit is.

Honesty the best thing I can do is to build more units on the land I own. That is challenging though so it takes time and capital.

You can thank single family home zoning and how difficult the city makes it to build for the rising rents. The landlords I know are very pro building. 14 units is more income than 4.

Post reply on HN