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

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

#411

Post by bombcar » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:05 PM UTC

lastofthemojito wrote: post #373

jaywalk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Definitely not the case. In my middle- to upper-middle-class mill town there's a proposal to turn a disused historic mill building into luxury apartments and residents are fighting hard against it. The main stated reason is traffic, although it's unclear to me if having a bunch of apartments will generate noticeably more rush-hour traffic than when the mill was operational. I think some folks are also put off by the…

> I think a lot of people just don't like change, so they fight it

This is it, hilariously. Locally the railroad started building a rail yard, and everyone got up in arms and the city and county was howling and a meeting was called and the rail company politely explained that they're regulated federally and are building a nice berm around the rail yard, but there's nothing you can do to stop it.

And everyone stopped complaining, the yard got built, and nobody cares.

We need more of the straight bribery that used to happen around nuke plants - if the plant is approved, everyone gets $1k off their property taxes for X years or whatever.

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

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Post by r00fus » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

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…

A related anecdote. 15 years ago, an investment advisor was pitching us on investing in water funds. Yes, the move to privatize water was well underway a quarter decade ago because the people with money KNEW we would have a world where rivers in multiple continents running out of water in the future.

That it's come sooner than most predicted is likely making those ghouls salivate even more.

Needless to say, we turned him down and just plunked our money into index and sustainable funds and chose handpicked stocks instead.

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

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Post by desperadovisa » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:06 PM UTC

weo3dev wrote: post #235

desperadovisa wrote: post #164

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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.

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I empathize for you, I do, but nothing you've said here means you deserve to live in San Francisco and a) not somewhere else or b) more than anyone else.

You do not deserve to live in San Francisco. Sorry.

What's probably a bit more toxic about your attitude is the implied belief that you deserve "better" than everywhere else in the US, that San Francisco is "yours* and not anyone else's.

And not for nothing, but I do have children (two) and am entirely capable of empathizing with others.

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

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Post by ravivooda » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:07 PM UTC

driggs wrote: post #286

I have considerable experience in the Real Estate backend software industry, and so am occasionally contacted by headhunters hiring for Real Estate Investment startups. Here's a typical reply that I give to them: I am philosophically opposed to "investing" in real estate, as your industry exists entirely to snatch up affordable housing from actual homeowners as a get-rich-quick scheme, benefiting those who are alread…

I do something similar for Amazon Recruiters.

Hi there!!

You seem to have contacted me even though I explicitly told Amazon that I'm not interested in pursuing opportunities at this time. It's been very bothersome the number of mails I get (2+ on certain weeks). I've patiently requested earlier to be removed from your reach-out list, but alas here we are again!

Sent from an auto-drafted template that I've set up for specifically Amazon Recruiters.

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

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Post by ryukafalz » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:07 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #404

jeromegv wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 liv…

I'm not building a strawman at all. Let me make my position even more clear: I don't want to live near multi-family housing. I want it to remain illegal for it to be built near me. Leave the suburbs alone. Every single place you people infect with your ideas turns to hell.

People need to live somewhere and the population is growing. Where do you suggest that the kids of current residents live?

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

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Post by bombcar » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

survirtual wrote: post #304

slg wrote: post #40

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We have spent decades telling American families that homeownership is the safest investment. We then spent decades enacting policies to ensure this is true. Do we think investors were going to just sit that out and ignore a safe and government protected investment? Of course the more attractive we make home ownership as an investment, the more investors will flock to the market. We need policies specifically benefiti…

I sold my houses in a booming market for a $70,000 loss intentionally. It has a nice effect of lowering the value of all my neighbors homes and housed a deserving family. Little did I know when I went to claim the loss on my taxes: I could not claim the loss at all. Since it was an owner occupied house and not a house owned by a corporation, it did not count as a loss I could deduct from my income nor from my capital…

Was it a paper loss or an actual loss?

I.e, did you buy for $200k and sell for $130, or had you bought for $200k and sold for $330 which was $70k under the current market value?

The latter isn't a loss; and likely wouldn't be even for a corporation. You'd have to sell at full value and donate the $70k or something to get it to "work".

Amusingly enough, if one of the 87k IRS agents hears about it, they could go after the deserving family for taxes on the $70k windfall they got (though this one is really hard to prove, they will do it on forgiven loans).

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

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Post by ghaff » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

ryukafalz wrote: post #287

ethbr0 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land area and population density? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_depend...

Which doesn’t mean much as a comparison point in the US because much of that land has zero or approximately zero residents, and nobody’s talking about building high-density housing in the middle of nowhere anyway. Upwards of 80% of the US population lives in urban areas and those places certainly are comparable to much of Europe.

>Upwards of 80% of the US population lives in urban areas

Look up the US Census definition of "urban." In the town where I live, three houses around me are on 100 acres collectively--not to mention even more adjacent conservation land and that's classified as urban because it's near a smaller old mill town and only about 50 miles from a major city.

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

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Post by _vdpp » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

NoraCodes wrote: post #192

jaywalk wrote: post #87

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> 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.

There’s a difference between people who have problems and people who cause problems for themselves and others.

A good neighbor who has fallen on hard times will have plenty of sympathy.

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

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Post by bombcar » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #159

jjoonathan wrote: post #151

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YIMBY organization is the answer, but we have a long way to go.

Doing some of this work locally is one of the more rewarding things I've ever done. "DC level politics" tend to be long, drawn out fights, but a few people can make a big difference locally. I've seen homes get built that I showed up to say 'yes!' to. These are both great groups: * https://yimbyaction.org/ * https://welcomingneighbors.us/

This is entirely possible and worthwhile; few people who are happy with how things are going bother to show up at all, so the only people who do are the people with a gripe or a grudge.

Even just a note to the city council saying "thanks" when you notice a new development is way more than most will ever do.

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

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Post by 3qz » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

sleepdreamy wrote: post #283

chollida1 wrote: post #53

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Yep Millennials, Gen X and Boomers have all been handed a once in a lifetime gift here. Each of those generations made out like bandits with low housing prices until the last few years and low interest rates. Gen Z and the generations to come have a real reason to be pissed at the rest of us.

What gift would that be? Genuine question - I don't see what gift I received that is comparible to my in-laws purchasing their first home for 30k and flipping it for 100k not long after. I haven't had a gift close to that.

> purchasing their first home for 30k and flipping it for 100k not long after

In a lot of markets here (I’m Canadian) average people who bought average homes in the mid 2010’s (millennials) have already made over a million dollars. Most home owners make way more money from their home than their job. This will never happen to my generation.