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19% of California houses are owned by investors

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Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#81
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

+1 Prop 13 massively distorts the market and creates large disparities in what two neighbors may be paying. It essentially ensures that you cannot live where you were born, breaking up families and hurting communities.

> It essentially ensures that you cannot live where you were born, breaking up families and hurting communities.

Oh you can live where you were born if you never move out and eventually inherit your parents home. You just won’t be able to buy a place nearby (at least without some serious down payment assistance and two high paying jobs).

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#83
post #8
post #4

That 19% excludes buildings/subdivisions specifically built to be rental units.

Those aren't houses, typically

Depends. In the sunbelt these are quite common. Entire subdivisions being build of single family homes for a single investor to rent out.

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Why'd you set up an LLC for this?

There are a few reasons:

* Multi-ownership can be easier. I.e. you can "hide" who owns the house and it disconnects ownership from property records.

* People think it adds liability protections.

* It might make transferring the house at death easier to control(i.e. LLC rules apply, not state real estate rules)

In the case of owning the house you live in under an LLC, the chances of it protecting you from most liability is 0%. The only thing I can think og it maybe protecting you from is debt obligations, if the person trying to collect from you didn't bother to find out why you don't own your house on property records. This probably has a very low chance of working anymore, but low is > 0 I guess.

In order to have LLC liability protections you have to separate the LLC from your personal life, i.e. you have to treat the LLC as a real business, no mixing bank accounts, etc

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#85

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…

I live in the (relatively affordable) part of the “hills” in LA, and there are a LOT of houses (single family and some multi-family, not apartments) sitting unoccupied, prices not moving. I’m talking 1+ year on the market. The managing real estate agents do some Zillow dance moves from what I can tell to obfuscate how slow the market is, and avoid lowering the prices significantly, even to 2021ish levels. This indica…

Reminds me of the crisis Spain had not too many years ago where there'd be giant buildings never completed that banks apparently refused to devalue on their balance sheets. The buildings just sat empty, not being worked on because the money went dry.

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#87
post #62

People don't like being told that the problem is a housing shortage.

Huh. So, like, maybe if rents were not spiking and people were not bleeding money to predatory landlords, maybe, hear me out, maybe they would instead pay someone to build them a house.

Sorry but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of supply and demand.

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Why'd you set up an LLC for this?

In most cases: privacy and ease of sale. You don't sell the house, you sell the LLC. The owner doesn't change.

Re: 19% of California houses are owned by investors

#89

People don't like being told that the problem is a housing shortage.

A problem, not the problem.

Regulations block new supply. If this cannot be overcome, why not add another regulation that private equity cannot own houses? There's no reason they should not be subject to CAs extensive regulations too.

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