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US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

reuters.com

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Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#171

Post by em-bee »

roywiggins wrote: post #162
jay_kyburz wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, It should be expanded that no company can own residential property, and more importantly, each person can only own one property. People should go find something else to invest their savings in.

Would that not make rental properties entirely illegal? That seems... complicated

the owner could rent out their own house and rent someone elses.

it does make sense if you want to save a nice retirement home for yourself or a place where you want to raise your children while you work and live somewhere else.

Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#172

Post by iamnothere »

chasd00 wrote: post #156
iamnothere wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds backwards? Density means more units available, which should lower costs. Supply and demand. Rentals in a dense complex are cheaper than standalone rentals or duplexes, townhomes are cheaper than SFH, etc. I don’t think cities should force density, but there’s no reason to go the other way either as long as growth is managed properly in terms of traffic, transit, and infrastructure.

i can see what they mean. Another way to think about it is like how adding a lane to a highway doesn't decrease traffic it increases it. There's no shortage of demand in densely populated areas otherwise they wouldn't be densely populated. Adding more units will be met with more demand like adding a lane to a highway is met with more cars on that highway. Fix it by making the area less dense and prices will drop like…

True, but typically this also means fewer jobs, local economic contraction, and eventually neighborhoods full of decaying empty properties as in Detroit. They did achieve lower density, as many abandoned homes were forcibly demolished. Housing is cheaper now too.

It seems much more realistic to freeze growth than reverse it. Even then, growth in surrounding areas or other factors can quickly make the area more desirable and expensive as in SF.

Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#173

Post by guelo »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #151
cmxch wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically you want to give a loophole for Wall Street to cosplay as regular people. No thanks.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46532033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46532004 It costs relatively little to create an LLC. This is not an uncommon pattern for people in groups commonly targeted by hate-motivated doxing and similar attacks. This is not a "rich-person trick", and if you can afford a house, the cost of an LLC is a very tiny expense by comparison.

hate-motivated doxing? That doesn't sound like a real thing except for maybe famous people, so we're basically back to rich people.

Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#174

Post by sdenton4 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #138
OGEnthusiast wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> critical subsets of uses I don't consider rich people trying to hide their identity to be "critical" at all. Maybe having their address public will be a way to force them to act with consideration of the community instead of just themselves for once while they hide in some anonymous mansion.

> rich people What part of "people at risk of doxing" made you jump to "rich people" rather than, for instance, "people in groups commonly attacked"? > force them to act with consideration of the community By doing what, precisely? "Have you tried not being (commonly attacked group here)?"

Only rich people can afford houses in the US, ergo.

Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#175

Post by JoshTriplett »

roywiggins wrote: post #162
jay_kyburz wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, It should be expanded that no company can own residential property, and more importantly, each person can only own one property. People should go find something else to invest their savings in.

Would that not make rental properties entirely illegal? That seems... complicated

There are people who unironically seem to want to do that.

Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#176

Post by tptacek »

None of this has anything to do with "affordability", which is not about shifting rentals to owner-occupied properties, but rather reducing the monthly cost of residing in areas with opportunity. The notion of home ownership as an absolute good is a driver of unaffordability.

Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#177

Post by Analemma_ »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #142
roadside_picnic wrote: post #48

The key word here is "Wall Street". And this statement is playing off a popular misconception around corporate investors buying up American houses. There has been a bit of a panic around "Investors buying up all the property!!!" With people often citing Black Rock and Blackstone as the main culprits. But most of the "investors" buying up property are individuals purchasing investment properties. Here's an article on…

From the moment I saw this in the WSJ this morning, I was wondering what people were going to come up with in order to be against this obviously-good idea, just because Trump said it. Now I know.

I'm not against the idea per se, but "institutional investors are buying up homes" is an effect, not a cause. Boomers demanded that "house values are never allowed to go down, only up" and put all manner of construction-preventing policy in place to make sure this happened, so of course institutional investors showed up. If there's an asset class which is only allowed to go up, why wouldn't they?

Banning institutional investment doesn't remove the "can only go up" laws and mindset, so I think (assuming this even happens, which it probably won't: TACO) the actual effect on prices will be minimal.

Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#178

Post by anal_reactor »

only-one1701 wrote: post #123
chasd00 wrote: post #112

idk how this would work effectively. There's lots of affordable homes they're just located where no one wants to live. You'd have to focus on HCOL locations and make them not so high cost which seems something that should be done at the local level. You can increase supply but investors would just snatch them up. Maybe the feds could put a cap on the value of a single-family home that an institution can own and then…

Just tax non primary residences at a much higher rate. Housing crisis solved.

Capitalists hate him! Use this one weird trick to...

Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#179

Post by olyjohn »

xadhominemx wrote: post #101
seydor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they cannot be resold to other speculators their price can go waaay down

Nonsense. Do you think these landlords intentionally overpaid for the properties? They are sophisticated entities who like to pay at or below fair value.

It's pretty simple, you overpay for something if you suspect it will be worth even more in the future.

Re: US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes

#180

Post by compsciphd »

em-bee wrote: post #171
roywiggins wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that not make rental properties entirely illegal? That seems... complicated

the owner could rent out their own house and rent someone elses. it does make sense if you want to save a nice retirement home for yourself or a place where you want to raise your children while you work and live somewhere else.

that only works with a complete loop of landlord/renters and hence doesn't help anyone rent who can't own themselves....
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