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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

#251

Post by surfpel »

desperadovisa wrote: post #164
paxys wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a twisted framing of the issue. No one wants to "abolish property ownership". In fact housing proponents want the exact opposite – give everybody the opportunity to own a house rather than a select few large corporations and investors. Let me build my own house on a piece of land in or near the city, just like my grandparents did just a couple of generations ago. Remove years worth of excessive permits,…

Sorry but with all due respect, "too bad, go live in the middle of nowhere" is absolutely an acceptable answer. You're acting like you're entitled to live where ever you want, but the simple reality is that this is not possible. You need to come to grips with that objective fact.

Thank you so much for this beautiful insight. I just purchased a 100 sqft plot of land in the Alaskan wilderness where I will hire 20 employees and start a manufacturing business... oh wait, that's ridiculous.

Your argument contributes nothing because it fails to address the real negative consequences of unaffordable housing. After a point (which we most certainly have crossed), it affects society in strongly negative ways.

I don't know what kind of society you want to live in, but I don't want any part of that.

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

#252

Post by giantg2 »

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…

... and pricing out existing residents in low density housing by taxing them to oblivion.

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

#253

Post by ethbr0 »

giantg2 wrote: post #215
ryukafalz wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"And it’s best for everyone..." How exactly is it best for the well-off? I'm curious what pros and cons it would have for them.

Social cohesion and avoidance of class warfare.

Historically, the decline of most late-stage empires was triggered by spiraling economic bifurcation.

Sometimes, it's better to be less wealthy but on top of an ordered country vs more wealthy and without the rule of law as society breaks down.

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

#254

Post by [deleted] »

totony wrote: post #227
desperadovisa wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but with all due respect, "too bad, go live in the middle of nowhere" is absolutely an acceptable answer. You're acting like you're entitled to live where ever you want, but the simple reality is that this is not possible. You need to come to grips with that objective fact.

You are acting like owning a home entitles you to dictate how other people get to live. It does not. Owning a home shouldn't allow you to dictate that someone cannot build a home near you. Unfortunately it does in some places, but this is fixable.

[deleted]

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

#255

Post by undersuit »

nineplay wrote: post #170
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'm with you friend. Posters throw out lines like "property shouldn't be an investment" as though the idea that property has intrinsic value is something invented in the last 50 years or so, not something that has been true for millennia. I've been told that "housing is a right" which, if conceded, still runs into your point - housing may be a right, housing in the most expensive and populated areas in the US is not…

How about housing in the most expensive and populated ares in the US is a necessity? If there can't be housing available for all the workers in an area then there needs to be a change. Whether it be higher wages, changes in zoning, or public housing depends on the area, but doing nothing doesn't fix things. Having all the low paying workers commute 2 hours to work every day to make frappes and burgers for the rich locals is not a viable option.

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

#256

Post by rngname22 »

idiotsecant wrote: post #19
rngname22 wrote: post #8

I really hope that battery technology, EV technology, and self-driving technology lead to a tremendous boom in full-time RV / vanlife popularity and make it a better quality of life than traditional fixed housing and all the people who bought up housing as an investment vehicle see their money go poof. It's like using potable water or the air we breathe as an investment vehicle.

Living in a van is only possible if a small percentage of people do it. The infrastructure for sewage, parking, trash disposal, utilities, etc are all designed to handle a bunch of houses that stay in one place.

These are all solvable problems.

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

#257

Post by hotpotamus »

furyofantares wrote: post #213
hotpotamus wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not able to work remotely? Or is that too much remote?

Over satellite internet?

I've got a coworker who's looking into this and he seems to bounce around the idea of Rural New Mexico or Colorado, then another week he's got his eye on some 3K square foot house in Ohio for $125K or something like that, but just as rural. Every place he's looked at has fiber available.

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

#258

Post by haroldl »

jimbob45 wrote: post #46

This is why I can't take the "we just need more supply!" crowd seriously. Building more supply is just sacrificing more stock to the investor class.

A large enough increase in supply could cause property values to level off while also increasing the vacancy rate for rental properties. I think the idea is that those circumstances would make real estate no longer attractive as an investment.

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

#259

Post by giantg2 »

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 won't fix the current problem. That would only potentially prevent it from reoccurring to the current levels. Landlords pass tax onto renters. Renters may seek to buy a home, but if supply is locked up by landlords, they may just be stuck.

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

#260

Post by Dracophoenix »

nineplay wrote: post #170
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'm with you friend. Posters throw out lines like "property shouldn't be an investment" as though the idea that property has intrinsic value is something invented in the last 50 years or so, not something that has been true for millennia. I've been told that "housing is a right" which, if conceded, still runs into your point - housing may be a right, housing in the most expensive and populated areas in the US is not…

> I've been told that "housing is a right"

An easy reply to these same people is to ask if they think they have a right to wood, brick, concrete, sewer pipes, electrical wire, all the other materials that go into making a livable house, and, on top of that, if they think they're freely entitled to the labor required to construct a house out of these properties.

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