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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

#151

Post by jjoonathan »

davidw wrote: post #107
tshaddox wrote: post #97

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? 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.

YIMBY organization is the answer, but we have a long way to go.

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

#152

Post by staindk »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #17
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.

> I am not alright with paying absurd rent. Then you should either: 1) Buy a house to live in 2) Buy a house to hedge against rents going bananas The 30-year fixed rate mortgage at negative real rates is the biggest handout the world has ever seen.

Yeah this probably is the best bet. Will be keeping in mind as I save up money and figure out where I want to settle down.

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

#153

Post by daenz »

anoonmoose wrote: post #122
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…

> Here's a house in Indiana for $125K Laketon, IN, population 606, had its post office closed in 2010 and, from a quick perusal of Google Maps, probably doesn't have a single traffic light. Doubt there's much public transit out that way. Only 30 miles to a town I might be able to get a job in, though...

There's a post office 5 miles away[0], where there are plenty of businesses that you could work at. Let's not be dramatic.

0. https://goo.gl/maps/y3dERcUkD7wMLzEW8

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

#154

Post by wiradikusuma »

"but many Republican lawmakers oppose such controls." — I'm not American and not in in the US, so I'm wondering, why in many articles I read, "Doing Good Things For People™" tend to be opposed by Republicans?

1. Are there a scheme to vilify them? Bcoz it's not even mentioned why they oppose (maybe they see Bad Things™ far ahead).

2. Are they not elected by the people?

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

#155

Post by mancerayder »

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…

Just to hammer home the point: NYC has rent stabilization, which applies to about 50 percent of the rental stock. The rent can't go up more than a certain amount, one must renew with the tenant with few exceptions, etc. Now, not surprisingly these units are offered by real estate brokers who demand steep fees, and guess who gets first dibs, but brokers and their friends/families.

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

#156

Post by idontpost »

pwinnski wrote: post #66
boringg wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how a high land value tax increase investment & decrease speculation? If your talking about flipping homes that's one thing but REIT ownership isn't home flipping for the most part...

A very high real estate tax with huge discounts for a single primary homestead makes investment less profitable.

That's just a less efficient, and less accurate land tax.

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

#157

Post by currydove »

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.

This is definitely not the case.

Example: a .1% increase in shadow over Dolores Park in SF almost stopped a new 19 unit development - https://twitter.com/sam_d_1995/status/1415839145386196993/ph...

It was approved years later after adjustments - https://sfyimby.com/2022/04/supervisors-approve-shortened-pl...

Granted...this particular situation was unique as the development was market-rate units, not low-income, in a communal living layout. There were other concerns on part of neighbors (some real, some silly, and others just simply obstructive). This, along with CEQA in California have been constantly used by existing members of a town/city/neighborhood/etc to reduce additional development of any kind, not just low-income.

This is at a point where NIMBY isn't even the only acronym anymore, BANANAs is the new one the kids use these days - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

Some more links - - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/how-san-fr... - ugh i know, the Atlantic, but its good - https://missionlocal.org/2021/07/developments-in-development... - https://www.ocregister.com/2022/03/16/berkeley-case-proves-c...

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

#158

Post by anon291 »

How about we just make 20% down the minimum on home loans? That'll pull the price down pretty fast. We can slowly increase the minimum until we're at a reasonable point above 50%. And also reduce the maximum allowable term to below 30 years (should be 10-15). If done over a long enough time period, we can still give some appreciation to home owners (at least to match inflation), while also making the market saner in the long term. Otherwise, we're just encouraging rampant price growth and making homeownership exceedingly difficult for normal people.

Soon, banks will prefer to give a 100 year loan for $3 million for a modest home to an investor than the same loan to an individual (because who can pay a 100 year loan, or make the monthly payment on so high a principal).

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

#159

Post by davidw »

jjoonathan wrote: post #151
davidw wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

YIMBY organization is the answer, but we have a long way to go.

Doing some of this work locally is one of the more rewarding things I've ever done. "DC level politics" tend to be long, drawn out fights, but a few people can make a big difference locally. I've seen homes get built that I showed up to say 'yes!' to. These are both great groups:

* https://yimbyaction.org/

* https://welcomingneighbors.us/

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