191–200 of 200 posts
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If they locked in the rates for 30 years, then they can be leveraged and probably be fine. Anyone know if investment properties are eligible for the same 30-year fixed that primary homes are?
Not eligible
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"Buying apartments" is not something that happens for most places in the United States, so no. Condos and townhomes exist, but are not what I call the norm compared to houses and apartments for rent. I know people can rent single-family homes, but I am also against institutional home-ownership. My point is that living-quarters ownership should be more universal. >Nobody's trying to "take away homeownership" When hous…
30 million Americans own apartments; 40 million rent them. So yes, buying apartments is absolutely something that happens in the United States, and will happen more if the prices come down.
I know of no one in my life, acquaintance or otherwise, who has equity in a unit of housing in a building with a large number of units. And if someone does, that's typically called a condo, which at least in my 2 million person city is not common compared to houses or rental apartments.
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30 million Americans own apartments; 40 million rent them. So yes, buying apartments is absolutely something that happens in the United States, and will happen more if the prices come down.
What are you calling an apartment? I know of no one in my life, acquaintance or otherwise, who has equity in a unit of housing in a building with a large number of units. And if someone does, that's typically called a condo, which at least in my 2 million person city is not common compared to houses or rental apartments.
Source: https://archive.is/eFvQJ , under the heading, "Condos of all kinds, everywhere"
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What are you calling an apartment? I know of no one in my life, acquaintance or otherwise, who has equity in a unit of housing in a building with a large number of units. And if someone does, that's typically called a condo, which at least in my 2 million person city is not common compared to houses or rental apartments.
Your anecdotes aside, "About 30 million Americans live in co-owned homes, including 1 in 5 homeowners in metropolitan areas." Source: https://archive.is/eFvQJ , under the heading, "Condos of all kinds, everywhere"
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Your anecdotes aside, "About 30 million Americans live in co-owned homes, including 1 in 5 homeowners in metropolitan areas." Source: https://archive.is/eFvQJ , under the heading, "Condos of all kinds, everywhere"
Ah, so "condos". Like I was asking you. Thank you for the source.
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Dunno why anyone downvoted you, it is an interesting question. It also has an interesting answer - turns out we get a much more complex and pleasant society if we cram everyone in tightly in a city. The is a lesser-known branch of economics called economic geography that studies what happens when you have big concentrations of people. Turns out you get much better services and it is cheaper to support everything (eg,…
This is at least a real answer to the question. Understanding that there is a mutual dependence between the countryside and the cites, it seems like in the past the limit on city growth has always been sanitation and the ability of the agricultural base to support the urban population with the labor that is available in the country. I'm curious if you know any good entry-level or popular books on this topic.
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An interesting question to ask is why do we always seem to grow by increasing density rather than establishing new small towns? Leon Krier's Drawing For Architecture contrasts over-expansion both with excessive density and excessive sprawl and by duplication. It seems to me that if it were legal to do so there are plenty of tiny towns that could grow to the size of a small city like Arlington or Buffalo.
> why do we always seem to grow by increasing density rather than establishing new small towns? By "establishing small towns" I assume you mean suburbs. It seems to be the opposite. Cities with tons of flat land around them (e.g. Houston) tend to expand their footprint and maintain density. It's mostly areas that cannot (e.g. SF, LA, NYC) that increase density. Once you hit natural limiting boarders, you have to buil…
Every suburb I've ever lived in has been prone to ever-increasing low-density sprawl and resists building even a 2nd story for anything other than residence. I can drive past miles of 1 story strip-malls in virtually every suburb in America, and only rarely do I see an 2 story doctors office, or maybe a 3 story apartment or office building.
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I see it as a form of a stand-alone complex. There are multiple companies engaging in this behavior, independently, but resulting in what resembles a concerted effort. However, for renters (and their representatives in government), the concern isn't so much that it's an accident of spookily aligned intent/incentives as it is that 1) it's clearly pushing up rents (beyond affordability), and 2) the companies engaging i…
The percentage of landlords using it is likely too small to have the ability to engage in price fixing. They drive prices up, but only because the market clearing price in a lot of cities is higher than where they're currently priced. Do you have a source for property managers warehousing housing inventory? It doesn't ring true, at all.
I wonder what your interest is in handwaving these issues which are well-known and being acted on. You seem knowledgable except where it would tend to hurt your argument that everything is as it should be.
What say you on rent specials?
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The percentage of landlords using it is likely too small to have the ability to engage in price fixing. They drive prices up, but only because the market clearing price in a lot of cities is higher than where they're currently priced. Do you have a source for property managers warehousing housing inventory? It doesn't ring true, at all.
I did a check of my municipality. 80% of the apartment complexes in the area use 3rd-party software of the like in question for their property management. Their capture of the market is likely sufficient to drive prices, which is why at least one company (RealPage) is facing multiple lawsuits alleging price-fixing. As for warehousing, it is a known issue in NYC and likely used in other places. I wonder what your inte…
When you say 80%, what are you using to find those/take that survey? I’d just keep in mind that a lot of sites only show listings from buildings that are willing to pay, and there’s a high correlation with professionally managed buildings. This is also why you should never trust stats sourced from those sites, they don’t have a representative view of the market (a lot of news stories cite them uncritically when talking about rent trends).
Warehousing, care to cite something so I can read about it?
Rent specials are an easy way to adjust rent downward, without adjusting rent downward. If they rent to someone at a lower rate, then it’s a long term rather temporary discount. What are you wondering about it?
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I did a check of my municipality. 80% of the apartment complexes in the area use 3rd-party software of the like in question for their property management. Their capture of the market is likely sufficient to drive prices, which is why at least one company (RealPage) is facing multiple lawsuits alleging price-fixing. As for warehousing, it is a known issue in NYC and likely used in other places. I wonder what your inte…
I don’t have any interest in it, it’s just not my understanding of the market. If I can help people avoid an inaccurate understanding of the world, I’ll try to help that, and if I’m the wrong one, then maybe I can learn and change my mind. I could certainly be wrong, it’s been a while since I worked on this stuff. When you say 80%, what are you using to find those/take that survey? I’d just keep in mind that a lot of…
I'm just going to say that I don't think you're being completely honest, and leave it at that.
>I’d just keep in mind that a lot of sites only show listings from buildings that are willing to pay, and there’s a high correlation with professionally managed buildings.
We are talking about professionally-managed properties, so this isn't a problem. I don't think basement apartments, ADUs, etc. are representative of most people's experience with renting 1-3 bedroom apartments, particularly in my area, and I would be very surprised to find that they had a significant effect on the rate set for units in the large buildings and complexes where most renters live.
>Warehousing, care to cite something so I can read about it?
I will not. It has been written about extensively. It is suspicious that you would want to avoid an "inaccurate understanding", but have yet to look it up yourself. I would expect someone truly and dispassionately interested to have heard of it prior to this conversation, as it is evidently a significant issue wrt the nature of the contemporary rental market. A simple search will return many articles about it.
>Rent specials are an easy way to adjust rent downward, without adjusting rent downward. If they rent to someone at a lower rate, then it’s a long term rather temporary discount.
So, for example, a unit is rented for effectively $1300/m, discounted off a $1500/m base rent. The next year, there is no discount, and the unit renews at 5%-10% over the base, not discounted rent - potentially a $300 difference monthly. You don't think that this potentially distorts prices in the market?