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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

#511

Post by notch656a »

quantified wrote: post #499
notch656a wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But renting also guarantees you will never have negative equity.

Negative equity with a roof over your head is better than on the street. Your equity going to zero is still cheaper than raising a family to adulthood in a rented place.

I agree there are lots of upsides to having a house. I definitely get some used car salesman vibes whenever someone tries to sell up the upsides of negative equity, though. Having no chance to have negative equity is pretty much unequivocally one of the few absolute advantages of renting. The other being (typically) lower transactional costs for short term occupancy.

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

#512

Post by giantg2 »

akamia wrote: post #400
giantg2 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

One practical benefit for the well-off is having people in close proximity who can staff their local restaurants, shops, schools, etc. It's much easier to hire and retain staff for your business when your pool of potential employees isn't a 30+ minute bus ride away. For the well-off residents, it means better and more consistent service at their neighborhood grocery, coffee shop, restaurant, pharmacy, etc.

That can be good. I guess many of the cities I've lived in or near had cheaper housing within 30 minutes of most areas.

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

#513

Post by to11mtm »

missedthecue wrote: post #429
slg wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's people accurately recognizing that their home is the biggest purchase they will ever make in their life, it's almost completely done with debt, and most don't want to end up underwater. What is those people's second biggest purchase which is also usually done with debt? Does anyone believe that the government should enact policies to ensure that car prices always increase so they would be a better investment?…

Resale value is probably one of the number one things car buyers look at when shopping.

There's two groups of people I can think of that do this:

- People who like to frequently change cars, not so frequent as to lease but still prefers to let it go between 50-100KMi. (Contrast folks who sell past 100k or drive cars into the ground, they care more about long term repair cost.)

- People who are using resale value as a proxy for reliability.

I suppose 'lease-e' may fall into this category, also by proxy (as high resale value means lower depreciation, lower lease cost.)

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

#514

Post by giantg2 »

davidw wrote: post #366
giantg2 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Where I live, the hospital is struggling to hire nurses due to the lack of housing options. That's not even the 'low income' bracket. Teachers struggle to find housing as well. Those are both things that high income people need, especially the former. Restaurants are shutting down for want of workers. Because they can't afford it. Low income workers provide valuable services in our communities. Telling them they can'…

Especially along the restaurant line, it seems the rich people would rather be stingy than pay people enough to perform those services and live in the same community. It seems that being able to pay the lowest possible is still a benefit to the rich, even if it's detrimental to society.

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

#515

Post by giantg2 »

kritiko wrote: post #370
giantg2 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering why that is. I would think that with the growing movement against NIMBYism that there would be enough people fed up with those sorts of policies to start moving out of the areas they don't agree with.

And move where? Most of the cities that are growing have a housing crisis. Most of the cities that are shrinking can have major safety issues - see @pontifier's misadventure in Pine Bluff, AR[1] for a particularly extreme anecdote. 1. https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-man-who-bought-pine-bluff...

There can be a vicious cycle driving safety concerns. If people being jobs to the area (pontifier didn’t) then things can get better. There are countless other towns and cities and they don't all have a safety problem. There are plenty of smaller cities in Appalachia that could be good candidates.

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

#516

Post by ethbr0 »

ghaff wrote: post #483
ryukafalz wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing exactly which town you’re talking about, I would posit that that’s likely still dense enough to have some pretty direct comparison points somewhere in Western Europe. It’s not like all of Western Europe is a city. Which doesn’t mean that the same infrastructure you’d see in a dense European city would make sense in your town, mind you. I just think that Europe and America aren’t as incomparable as som…

Well, it's a typical more rural New England town. There is zero public transit of any sort. Essentially no businesses in town except barely when they merge with an adjacent small old mill city. So even in the town center where there are some sidewalks basically nowhere to walk to other than the library or post office. About 7K population total. About an hour drive from a major city. Though not that different really f…

That's one thing that fascinated me about CT when I was up there.

It seemed bizarre that even "one strip mall" towns didn't have certain categories of business. Down in the south, you can't measure a mile without hitting two serviceable Tex-Mex restaurants.

Up north? The nearest Tex-Mex is often 30 minutes away, and the nearest pizza place (which often isn't great) is 20 minutes.

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

#518

Post by giantg2 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #355
giantg2 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering why that is. I would think that with the growing movement against NIMBYism that there would be enough people fed up with those sorts of policies to start moving out of the areas they don't agree with.

* people find the stability of the known more compelling than the danger of the hypothetical. Employers want to be where their clients and employees will be, residents want to be in a place with decent shops and services. This kind of chicken/egg problem is usually the failure of most planned towns, and the only successful ones are usually a new capital or something because the government doesn‘t care as much. And ev…

"And those are the relatively straightforward problems, to say nothing of places with high crime, bad schools or other complex societal issues."

It seems every city has areas within it with these issues. So this shouldn't affect the possibility of moving to areas that have decent schools. And there are solutions to many, like private schools can be a good option especially if the yearly cost is less than the property tax in a HCOL area.

"It doesn‘t take that many people to tighten up the housing market in a town of 10,000."

It doesn't have to be a huge influx, nor all at once. The point is that zoning is less restrictive and land is cheaper, so people can build. The depressed areas have relatively high vacancies anyways.

"Employers want to be where their clients and employees will be, residents want to be in a place with decent shops and services."

Some people want nature. Shops aren't as much of a concern today with internet delivery. I find it highly suspect that people all want exactly the same thing. It might be more likely that the people in one group are just being left behind.

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

#519

Post by pickovven »

noasaservice wrote: post #485
pickovven wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh so you'll always sell your house for the same price you bought it for and never do anything wild like take out a home equity loan?

Did I not say that the primary thing should be TO LIVE IN? If the market goes up or down, I cant do shit about that. But you pick on the fact that I'm talking about a primary (and in my case, sole) residence, and this article is talking about parasites that buy hundreds or thousands of homes to then turn back around and gatekeep living spaces. Id say tax those vultures out of a company. They do nothing good, and caus…

You're responding to a thread asking who is and who isn't an investor. Are you agreeing that you're an investor but that's ok because you also live in your house? Or are you saying your not an investor because you live in your house?

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

#520

Post by ndesaulniers »

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...

1031 exchange?
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