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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

#271

Post by ryukafalz »

jaywalk wrote: post #245
ryukafalz wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Famously all the rich people have moved out of Manhattan.

Manhattan is Manhattan. My nice, quiet suburb is not Manhattan.

And your nice, quiet suburb is unlikely to get many high-rises if it’s actually far enough away from the nearest city center, because it doesn’t particularly make sense to build towers in the middle of nowhere.

By contrast if your suburb is nice and quiet despite being right next to a city because decades of policy have locked it in place and it’s pricing people out… too bad? Other people need housing too and outward from an already dense city is where it makes the most sense to build them.

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

#272

Post by waffle_ss »

ryukafalz wrote: post #209
jaywalk wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is not Europe. It will never be Europe. Things that work in Europe may not work in America, and vice-versa.

This always strikes me as an unsatisfying response. What about America is so fundamentally different than Europe that would make the same policies that work there not work here? Every time I’ve seen this type of argument brought up, it’s fallen flat when the same infrastructure is built here because it does end up working . We’re really not so unique.

> What about America is so fundamentally different than Europe that would make the same policies that work there not work here?

The amount of violent criminality? Look at any major light rail network in America and they are nowhere near as safe as the European equivalents.

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

#273

Post by jaywalk »

NoraCodes wrote: post #192
jaywalk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#274

Post by giantg2 »

slg wrote: post #191
davidw wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Likely under the guise of safety, environment, etc like building codes and conservation zoning.

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

#275

Post by ddevault »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #50
ddevault wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Landlords are reprehensible, including small ones.

>Only people who have good enough credit for a mortgage and can afford to buy deserve a place to live Sounds worse when you put it that way though.

There are more than two options.

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

#276

Post by daenz »

noahtallen wrote: post #261
daenz wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And no, "too bad, go live in the middle of nowhere" isn't an acceptable answer. As someone who grew up in a small town, do you understand how condescending this is? People have homes there, have families there, work hard and live decent lives. Just because they live at a pace you're not accustomed to, doesn't make living there some kind of hellish existence. Many would say the same about a filthy, overcrowded, crime…

I grew up in a very small town (under 5k pop) and did not find this condescending. There are very clear and obvious drawbacks to living there. It’s really not for everyone, evidenced by the fact that 80% of the US population lives in urban areas despite small towns being incredibly cheap.

It's not condescending for someone to imply "I live somewhere important, you live somewhere unimportant" ?

Phrased another way, if someone came in for an interview and said "I'm from Laketon, Indiana", do you think it would be appropriate for the interviewer to say "Oh, you're from the middle of nowhere." ? I don't think that would be appropriate at all.

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

#277

Post by sleepdreamy »

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.

Can you elaborate on your last sentence a bit more? Just trying to get a more thorough explanation. I just got my first 30 year mortgage so, trying to make myself feel better I guess.

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

#278

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

notch656a wrote: post #238
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been making this argument since 1990. The Federal Reserve MANDATES that consumer prices go up 2% per year. If house prices ever go down, they'll be there - waiting - to pump them up. Prices will rarely ever go down substantially for a long period of time unless the Fed completely changes (I doubt it). You can either: 1) try to time the market (difficult in housing, I'd argue not as impossible as equititie…

Housing prices exploded to compensate for the negative real interest rates. The people who got the handouts were rich people who owned multiple houses and sold them off. For the most part others didn't get that hot of a deal. In effect it was a regressive tax that the poor paid for the rich by paying in inflation the cost to make multi-home owners rich.

> For the most part others didn't get that hot of a deal.

How? Dollars are worth $0.5 in 1990. Yet your mortgage payment is unchanged. Your house payment is much less.

Rents are much higher.

You won.

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

#279

Post by jonnydubowsky »

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…

Thanks for introducing a new (to me) term, i.e BANANAS. Upon searching i discovered a few others:

NIABY: Opposition to certain developments as inappropriate anywhere in the world is characterised by the acronym NIABY ("Not In Anyone's Backyard"). The building of nuclear power plants, for example, is often subject to NIABY concerns.

NAMBI: ("Not Against My Business or Industry") is used as a label for any business concern that expresses umbrage with actions or policy that threaten that business, whereby they are believed to be complaining about the principle of the action or policy only for their interests alone and not for all similar business concerns who would equally suffer from the actions or policies.

BANANA: is an acronym for "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything" (or "Anyone").The term is most often used to criticize the ongoing opposition of certain advocacy groups to land development. The apparent opposition of some activists to every instance of proposed development suggests that they seek a complete absence of new growth.

NOPE: (Not On Planet Earth)To leave an uncomfortable situation, usually quickly.

LULU: Locally Unwanted/Undesirable Land Use planning.

NOTE: Not Over There Either (meaning is same NIMBY)

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

#280

Post by mebreuer »

paxys wrote: post #187
thepasswordis wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>just let me build a house where somebody else already owns the property where I want to build that house. How does that work out in your mind without abolishing the concept of property ownership? What happens when somebody wants to build their house where you already have yours?

I'm not talking about building in someone's front yard. If you sell me a piece of land that you own, and it is now legally mine, should I be able to build a house on it? That itself is practically impossible to do in 99% of cases in most major cities in the US. A city like San Francisco approves like 7-10 shovel-ready housing projects a year , and fewer actually get completed.

I agree that in SF it has gotten out of hand. But the concept that communities can establish rules for what you can build in those communities seems acceptable?

If I moved to a a suburb because I wanted a smaller scale, and my neighbor wanted to build an apartment building next door, I'd probably push back against that. It feels like what is happening in SF is some extension of that.. projects getting caught up in community board reviews that happen slowly and unpredictably, and are staffed by old-timer SF residents who want to keep the city small. Frustrating for sure, but hard to fault them for that, if that's why they moved there pre-tech boom?

I personally live in NYC and appreciate that you can build whatever you want here!

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