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…
Picking nits, but Parkersburg is in West Virginia, not Ohio (source: born there).
Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year
311–320 of 691 posts
Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO extra properties should be heavily taxed. Say you have more than 3, it should basically not be profitable anymore. No one wins if people are hoarding houses
Would a duplex count as one property or two? How about a 4-plex? Would this apply to apartment complexes as well? As in, it won't be profitable to own more than 3 complexes? Would that result in most capital going into megacomplexes and fewer people wanting to buy small apartment complexes with only, say, 10 units? Not disagreeing with you, but there are nuances involved.
Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year
#313Earlier 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.
Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year
#314What's nuts is not just that investors get to buy homes, but that its tax advantaged to do so. Between prop 13 in California, to 1031 exchanges, there are plenty of reasons to invest in RE over even say the stock market. I don't get to do a 1031 exchange for my Meta stock into AAPL or something...
You forgot the biggest one – cheap mortgages backed by unlimited money printing. Ever since 2008 loading up on as much <3% housing debt as you can afford has been a no-brainer investing strategy.
Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year
#315"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
#316In 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…
But housing is an investment, and a shelter. Discouraging housing as an investment discourages investment in housing. What I think you are trying to say is that it is preferable that the investment in housing be made by the people who are going to live in the house (or by the government) and not by entrepreneurs.
Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
They didn't "win." They broke even. The people that sold them won. The people with no house but inflated away cash/salary lost.
Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 con…
thanks for digging
Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year
#320In 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…