Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #87

davidw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quoted post unavailable.

> And there are good reasons for that.

What are these reasons? What makes them "good"?

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

#142

Post by anon291 » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

sebhook wrote: post #2

It would be interesting to see the "investors" segmented by assets under management (AUM). I'm sure some "investors" are mom and pop rental situations while other institutions, such as BlackRock, are purchasing single-family homes at scale. I'll also be curious to see what happens when remodels need to happen. Many trade labor markets are hyper localized and difficult to scale across a property portfolio, this is whe…

BlackRock, for all the flack it gets, ultimately is purchasing these homes on behalf of large institutional investors, like retirement plans, pensions, social security programs etc.

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

#143

Post by Aunche » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #87

davidw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quoted post unavailable.

Mid and high density housing for the high-income earners get opposed across the entire economic spectrum. On one hand, you have NIMBYs that place strict zoning restrictions and mandate bullshit environmental reviews to stall the development that does occur. On the other, you have affordable housing advocates opposing gentrification by blocking cement trucks and refusing to be leave their apartment that got bought out unless if they get paid $1 million. At the end of the day, developers can pull through by simply throwing enough money and time at the problem, but that's a cost that ends up being passed to the future renters.

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

#144

Post by geodel » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

yardstick wrote: post #52

geodel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not all renters are renting because they want to. For some of us it’s the only option. I would have bought a home years earlier than I did if house prices were more affordable.

I mean you make fair point. But that's in general story of life. I also do not want expensive day care, expensive home therapies for my sick kid that insurance does not pay for, or exhausting commute to work with no option to work remote. Still here I am doing things I do not want to.

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

#145

Post by davidw » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #131

davidw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, the investors are the symptom and not the cause. They are going where the money leads them. However a big problem with institutional investors is that they also institutionalize NIMBYism. They won't just block housing in a select neighborhood, they will block housing everywhere and they put more pressure on the federal government to ensure that housing is protected as an investment class. Both will contribute to…

Investors do not at all have the votes or weight at a local city level in most cases, especially large ones from out of town.

Go to a planning meeting about some housing that people are pissed off about because reasons ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32569768 ) and you'll find a whole bunch of your neighbors. It's not institutional investors blocking this stuff, by and large.

> they are worried about the value of their own home going down. They are treating their home primarily as an investment because that is what they have been told to do their whole lives

Yes, that's much closer to what I've observed in person fighting these fights.

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

#146

Post by notch656a » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

nikanj wrote: post #115

thepasswordis wrote: post #88

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…

Abolish propery ownership? I’d settle for ”let the newcomers also build homes, the same way the previous generations did”.

Every single time I've posted allowing newcomers to build houses the same way their great-great-grandaddy built a shack I've gotten an army of people up in arms complaining they're afraid the lack of safety regulations will result in their town burning down.

Where I live zoning laws are decent and land cost next to nothing. But you still have to contend with the universal housing codes, which means you're absolutely fucked because grand-daddy built a house that is basically irreplaceable (you can't permit that anymore) that grandson can live in, but fuck you if you want a house like that for yourself because that's all you can afford to build.

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

#147

Post by kasey_junk » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

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…

How did they back up that assertion? If I ran an onion fund I’d put a slide deck in my pitch that suggested I controlled the onion prices too.

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

#148

Post by carom » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

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.

There is huge value in subdividing land and building, creating housing for people who cannot afford to buy and build. You're stuck in a suburbia mindset.

Not everyone can afford a SFH, there isn't enough land. Not everyone can afford to build. Not everyone wants to have massive switching costs when they need to move.

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

#149

Post by idontpost » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #87

davidw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quoted post unavailable.

That's just a lie. People oppose new SFH subdivisions all the time.

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

#150

Post by KennyBlanken » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

thepasswordis wrote: post #88

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…

> seem to think that we should just abolish the concept of property ownership to accomplish this.

This is a funny comment given the article is about corporations converting massive swaths of housing in the united states into rental properties.