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

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

#321

Post by djbebs » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:08 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #81

sillystuff wrote: post #12

In 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…

> We need legislation that discourages housing as investment if we are to maintain housing as shelter. I'm looking forward to hearing how Vancouver's vacant house tax affects their market the next few years. It sounds like a good idea and I'm glad they're running that experiment. It's hard to predict how these things go over time.

Next few years? These are policies with effects impacting decades...

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

#322

Post by alexb_ » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:08 PM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #233

aprdm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO they need to change their model. If someone has been affording rent at 2k for many years, then they can afford a mortgage at 1.5k, that's not the case nowadays.

Renting on a yearly basis at $24k/year is very different than committing to the deed transfer on land + house at $18k/year on a 30 year term.

For one, rent can get more expensive, vs a fixed rate mortgage which doesn't.

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

#323

Post by pickovven » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:08 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #306

Now, it's about 25%. In the future it will be 50%, the 100% - the trend is going in that direction. Millennials and the generations after will look at era of home ownership like the "good old days" while coughing up 75% of their income for rent. There is so much to be said for this problem, but...its exhausting. I give up.

If only there was a way to reduce the return to landlords...

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

#324

Post by djbebs » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:09 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #54

ISL wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One REIT's margin is another REIT's opportunity.

This is less true in a world where zoning and other process roadblocks prevent you from building new housing, i.e. competing.

Sounds like the problem is the roadblocks...

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

#325

Post by mikestew » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:10 PM UTC

alexb_ wrote: post #297

giantg2 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sure, many object to new housing for reasons like "it will change the character of the neighborhood". But many others object because they are worried about the value of their own home going down." At least in my area, it's all about people wanting the area to remain semi-rural. They generally aren't opposing low density SFH in independent builds. The people in my area are against many development and medium density…

A lot of what I've seen is people worried about "low quality tenants" (read: people who don't look just like me)

The two tenants within a few houses of us in either direction would fit my definition (and likely that of many other folks) of "low quality tenant": don't bother picking up the beer can out of their yard, don't mow (at all), loud-ass exhaust on their shitty cars, etc. More of an eyesore than a contribution to the local community, and causing me to realize why HOAs come about.

But, yeah, it's all because they have brown skin. Oh, wait, the tenants in question are whiter than I am.

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

#326

Post by JamesBarney » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:10 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #47

JamesBarney wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just need to remember that banning housing investment means banning rentals which is problematic for people who don't have good credit and a down payment.

You can crowd out usury private investment (which this specifically is an example of) with government investment. Have the Fed buy treasuries, use federal funds to build and manage affordable housing. Capital is make believe, a fiction, rows in a database. Physical laws are mandatory, everything else is a shared delusion or a suggestion. The rules can change at anytime with enough will. Broad strokes, if Capital is p…

Getting the federal government to manage all rental properties sounds awful. I sent a request the IRS last September and they still haven't replied yet with anything but letters saying they're backed up.

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

#327

Post by game_the0ry » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:10 PM UTC

VirusNewbie wrote: post #226

What'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...

This was by design - the real estate industry lobbies hard.

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

#328

Post by wizofaus » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:11 PM UTC

chollida1 wrote: post #205

wizofaus wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia at least there's a substantial gap between affordability for millennials and us Gen X'ers, reflected in homeownership rates. The trend only seemed to have been getting worse throughout covid (governments threw a lot of money into economic recovery, combined with super low interest rates, driving up house prices despite near zero immigration and absence of foreign students etc., though they're coming down…

No idea about the US, I'm in Canada and housing has only gone off the rails in the past 4-5 years. So those 3 generations all had legit chances to buy a home at a reasonable price. I'd assume every country is its own special mess:) In Canada last year we had a stat released that said 1 in 5 Millennials that own property own more than one. This was inline with both GenX and Boomer stats. Millennials are just as much a…

"Speculators" sure, but most people who own multiple properties I wouldn't think fall into that category. We own a rental property - it's very much a long term investment, and we charge rent below market rate (it's still positively geared!). I don't believe our purchase locked out any first home buyers, it's a tiny 1BR flat, and priced at a point those just getting onto the property ladder could've afforded it (and outbid us). If we do sell the property it'll be to help my Gen-Z son buy a house. Having had assistance from my own parents (a smallish interest free loan that I paid back within 5 years) that seems fair enough.

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

#329

Post by jeromegv » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:11 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #219

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…

I don't know what to tell you. I just don't want to be surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings. I didn't buy a nice house in a nice suburb to stare at giant cement buildings. It's that simple.

You're building a straw man.

The reality is that in a suburb far from infrastructure, investors won't want to build a 30 stories building.

But they might want to build a 3-4 units building, something 2-3 stories maximum. But this is currently ILLEGAL. Only a single house is possible and ANY densification is impossible.

You go to the downtown of older cities and you don't see giant cement buildings. But you do see livable neighbourhood with buildings that are just slightly higher than the norm and can house multiple families.

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

#330

Post by allemagne » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 8:11 PM UTC

boringg wrote: post #196

ethanbond wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

They are fundamentally the same problem -- profiting off of owning something fundamentally scarce that you did not produce, i.e. rent-seeking. When the taxes are proportional to the most productive use of the land you own it is less profitable or sustainable to manipulate the housing market.

The strictest Georgist philosophy would hold if you happened to homestead in the heart of Manhattan your family will eventually have to choose between paying the price for holding that piece of land hostage from the rest of society or letting someone else make use of it.

In practice, places like Denmark and Estonia make exemptions for owner-occupied dwellings.