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19% of California houses are owned by investors

ocregister.com

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Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#41

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

jimbokun wrote: post #29
mandevil wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming at the top makes me wonder if their definition of "investor-owned" is actually picking up vacation houses/second homes? Just those are all small states with significant vacation housing markets, wonder if that is driving things here.

Well obviously those would be included. Anything that’s not owner occupied.

The article does state they were included, but is it "obviously" true that they should be? Who is more of an "investor", someone who purchases a primary residence to build equity or someone who purchases a second home to vacation in, spending large amounts of money to maintain it and allowing it to sit empty for long periods of time?

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#43

Post by nikanj »

koolba wrote: post #34
nikanj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of tax adjustments can fix not having enough homes for the population. Focusing on those is a red herring

> No amount of tax adjustments can fix not having enough homes for the population. If you raise property taxes then people will leave because it’s not affordable. Not just leave their homes, they will leave CA. That will both lower demand and raise supply.

"We don't have to build enough homes for people if we just force the poorest people to leave the state"

Yikes

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#44

Post by fortran77 »

rtkwe wrote: post #27
ashdksnndck wrote: post #14

I’m interested in the methodology they use to identify investor-owned homes. Are they comparing known resident addresses to the names on property tax records? How does it work when multiple members of the same family have different last names? It seems fairly common for members of different generations of family (including in-laws) to live in a house that one person owns. How are you distinguishing an investment from…

Easy first step is anything not listed as owned by individual people. Investors will have some type of business ownership arrangement in 99%+ of cases and individuals will rarely have an LLC or similar setup for their purchases.

My house is owned by an LLC that I own. I live in the house and don't rent it. If you count this way you will overcount by quite a bit!

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#45

Post by whimsicalism »

taeric wrote: post #39
arcticbull wrote: post #26

I mean someone has to rent, to renters right? Not everyone plans to live in the same place forever, and not everyone wants to put up the capital to buy a place. Some percentage of housing needs to be owned by investors to make that capacity available for short-term living. What's the delta between 19% and neutral? California has a massive housing problem, which is just not building enough houses. Doesn't matter much…

This kind of cuts to the problem of conflating housing to houses. Most short term living is almost certainly better served by things other than stand alone houses. Is why colleges are dominated by dorms.

I prefer to rent whole homes and would appreciate that not being legislated away.

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#46

Post by kamikazeturtles »

taeric wrote: post #39
arcticbull wrote: post #26

I mean someone has to rent, to renters right? Not everyone plans to live in the same place forever, and not everyone wants to put up the capital to buy a place. Some percentage of housing needs to be owned by investors to make that capacity available for short-term living. What's the delta between 19% and neutral? California has a massive housing problem, which is just not building enough houses. Doesn't matter much…

This kind of cuts to the problem of conflating housing to houses. Most short term living is almost certainly better served by things other than stand alone houses. Is why colleges are dominated by dorms.

Students stay in dorms "for the experience".

I don't think any middle aged person is looking for any communal living type experience.

Also, what do you mean by "short term"? Usually it only makes economic sense to buy a house if you plan on staying there for 5+ years otherwise closing costs and realtor fees eat away any savings you made from not renting. The period of our life where we are the most mobile and willing to change cities due to job changes (20-40yrs) is also the period in our life when people start families and have children.

I think most people prefer houses

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#47

Post by deanmoriarty »

koolba wrote: post #32
nikanj wrote: post #17

California real estate is such a tragedy, as huge portions of the population are suffering from a housing shortage caused almost exclusively by not building enough homes. A majority of people own real estate, so they're happy with the status quo. Why would you put up with even the slightest personal inconvenience from added housing, if all it got you was a reduced value of your property?

> California real estate is such a tragedy, as huge portions of the population are suffering from a housing shortage caused almost exclusively by not building enough homes. The real issue with CA real estate is prop 13. It directly disincentivizes selling your home as you would be paying significantly higher taxes on the same house (same value etc) somewhere else. So if you do own a home, you’re much better off keepi…

Do you have any hope that either what you are suggesting, or an increase in housing supply, will ever actually happen?

It's clearly interesting to speculate the ideal solution on the Internet, but after having been here 10+ years I worry that it's just never going to get better.

I wouldn’t even be interested in a house. Just give affordable cookie cutter apartments in a 50-floor building somewhere.

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#48

Post by tims33 »

xoqem wrote: post #10

For anyone who didn't click into the article, the headline may be misleading without the sub headline, which currently is "Relatively speaking, California is not a hot spot for housing investors". The map graphic shows that 19% is lower than other large states (e.g. 22% in Texas, 21% in Florida, 20% in New York). And lower than other west coast states generally (22% in Washington and Oregon, 25% in Nevada, and 23% in…

But it is also the largest state with the most expensive home so on a $ weighted basis it is a big chunk of the national total.

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#49

Post by [deleted] »

taeric wrote: post #35
xoqem wrote: post #10

For anyone who didn't click into the article, the headline may be misleading without the sub headline, which currently is "Relatively speaking, California is not a hot spot for housing investors". The map graphic shows that 19% is lower than other large states (e.g. 22% in Texas, 21% in Florida, 20% in New York). And lower than other west coast states generally (22% in Washington and Oregon, 25% in Nevada, and 23% in…

It would probably be easier to understand if worded the other way? 81% of California houses are owner occupied.

[deleted]

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#50

Post by verteu »

From my cursory analysis, "# of new housing units authorized" is by far the strongest predictor of rent & home values decreasing: https://i.imgur.com/BMsPrKY.png (r^2 = 0.47, P-value 0.000)

Nothing else ("% of housing owned by investors"?) is even close.

edit: Yes, obviously I included a time lag (3 years).

[1] https://constructioncoverage.com/research/cities-investing-m...

[2] eg, https://www.zillow.com/home-values/10221/austin-tx/#/

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