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

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

#191

Post by slg » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #145

slg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

Yes, the institutional investors aren't going to be in your local council meeting. They will be meeting with your state assembly members. They will be meeting with your Congresspeople. They won't be literal NIMBYs focusing on anyone's "backyard". However they will be working towards the same goals at NIMBYs, just at a larger scale.

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

#192

Post by NoraCodes » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:29 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.

> people generally oppose [...] high-density, low-income housing. And there are good reasons for that.

Are there, other than "I don't want to live near the poors" and "I don't want to see people who have problems"? That's not a good reason.

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

#193

Post by throwaway22032 » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:29 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #189

throwaway22032 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK social housing has a bad reputation because poor people are far more likely to just be nightmares to live nearby. I lived in one throughout my entire childhood. Around half of people were OK, the other half just generally dickheads. That has 0 to do with racism. Many UK towns have trivial populations of non-"White British". The problem is mostly that over time (years or generations) poverty gradually turns…

You can make a decent argument that concentrated poverty does cause some problems. Which is why you should do your best to spread all kinds of housing throughout a city, including plenty of upzoning in wealthier areas.

I'd rather just live next to well off people to be honest.

We do it on a national scale in most countries (visa policy). That's far harsher.

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

#194

Post by koolba » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #145

slg wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How would they vote at all? I’m not aware of any local council that grants votes based upon tax dollars paid or acreage. It’s one person one vote for actual residents.

Now lobby dollars are another story. But renters can fix that by actually voting.

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

#195

Post by jeffbee » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

currydove wrote: post #157

jaywalk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The funny thing is we would all love to have more shadows. All American cities need more shade.

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

#196

Post by boringg » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #126

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...

High LVT means you pay a high tax on the land itself and little or no tax on what you do on top of that land. It encourages highly efficient land development which means increased supply of commercial and residential units (thus reducing rents), and it makes lots of speculation prohibitively expensive. Since holding undeveloped land is just as expensive as holding developed land, you’re going to want to put it to pro…

Thats sounds a solution for undeveloped land in urban areas though REITs are buying up the housing stock which is different.

If I understand your solution correctly it also puts a higher burden on the rest of the population who then have to pay higher land taxes each year (politically unpalatable) and I would argue that REITs probably have more capital to be able to pay off higher taxes where cranking up land taxes on the population makes home ownership more challenging.

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

#197

Post by anon291 » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

danenania wrote: post #168

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…

I think the core of the problem is that we're losing the middle class of housing. Obviously the nicest areas of the country, with the best weather, most opportunities, low crime, elite schools, etc. are going to be expensive. But it's getting to the point where it's prohibitively expensive for a middle class family just to live in a place without high crime/drug addiction/homelessness, reasonably good schools, reason…

Part of the problem is the middle of housing was often in towns anchored by one or two factories or other local businesses. With businesses being hyper-centralized today due to the internet and technology decoupling business from land, employees are now located much more centrally (we'll see how remote work changes this). For example, Google has hundreds of thousands of employees in the Bay Area alone. That's crazy. In the past, this would have formed several towns all across the country (because Google would need such a footprint to be able to deliver services nationally).

Now that anyone can start a large company without barely any land investment, it's no wonder people are increasingly concentrating in small portions of the country, while large portions are incredibly cheap, and in some places, depreciating.

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

#198

Post by ryukafalz » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:30 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #123

davidw wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are reasons for that, but they are generally bad ones involving people not wanting to live near other people who look like the author of the article, even if they won't say that part out loud. Higher density housing is a massive component of building lower carbon footprint cities, as well as making our cities more financially resilient. It's also something that can increase equity a lot by giving people with lo…

You're never going to win anyone over with the tired "if you disagree with me, you're a racist" BS. Low-income, high-density housing attracts problems. It has literally nothing to do with race. You could guarantee that the high-rise apartment building you want to construct down the street from me would be 100% filled with people who look like me, and I'd still oppose it. Keep your YIMBY nonsense IYBY.

Even if you ignore the racist roots mentioned in a sibling thread (and I maintain that you shouldn’t), we will need low-income housing as long as there are people with low incomes! And it’s best for everyone involved if that housing is commingled in every community rather than being concentrated in one place. It’s well documented that the neighborhood you grow up in has a huge impact on how upwardly mobile you’ll be if you’re in a low-income family.

Look to Vienna’s social housing program for an example of this done very well. That doesn’t look like it attracts problems, now does it?

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

#199

Post by standardUser » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC

pishpash wrote: post #103

Finnucane wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They mean skilled professionals who make boatloads of money spotting and leaping on every decent property that hits the market, or is about to, while the rest of us - those seeking a home to actually live in - get to fight over the remains.

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

#200

Post by nineplay » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

danenania wrote: post #168

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…

I think the core of the problem is that we're losing the middle class of housing. Obviously the nicest areas of the country, with the best weather, most opportunities, low crime, elite schools, etc. are going to be expensive. But it's getting to the point where it's prohibitively expensive for a middle class family just to live in a place without high crime/drug addiction/homelessness, reasonably good schools, reason…

Housing values in and around Silicon Valley have gone up extraordinarily since I was young for reasons that were not easily predictable. It's not a good model for housing costs in the rest of the US.

I grew up in uninteresting towns in Monterey County and San Bernardino County and both could check off points of 'acceptable places to live' which are affordable to the middle classes. No one talks about them because no one cares.