US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by lewdev » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

rgmerk wrote: post #165

It will make very little difference in the end. Australia's land tax system makes it effectively impossible for large corporations to own large chunks of residential property, but our real estate is amongst the world's most expensive and landlords are still awful - it's just that the landlords are hundreds of thousands of dentists and, yes, software engineers rather than corporate entities. If you want housing to be…

> It will make very little difference in the end.

I feel like there will be a difference between a handful of large corporations owning a majority of properties vs thousands of dentists and software engineers. Are you saying that all of these property owners are also soulless profit-optimizers?

I remember watching some video of tenants being priced out of their rental apartments so when they tried to contact the property owner, they found layers upon layers of managers and companies. It just seems better when there are more thousands of owners than just a handful of corporations.

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

#202

Post by rick_dalton » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #126

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…

This is absolutely, violently, incorrect. Private equity has absolutely been buying up (and building ) U.S. residential stock, and this is addressing a real problem. The fact that Trump's doing it doesn't change my opinion at all, but it's absolutely the right thing to do and hopefully will be bipartisan.

Do you have any source? Googling it tells me otherwise.

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

#203

Post by websiteapi » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

They should go all out and nationalize zoning. Let it be challenged all the way to Supreme Court. Trumps developer buddies get paid, the grift continues and the housing crisis is eliminated.

Do it. Do it now.

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

#204

Post by Olympicene » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #152

georgeburdell wrote: post #52

This will help out home prices in a lot of lower priced markets, but do little in higher priced markets. In the Bay Area, many houses are bought up by non-occupying internationals. I've been in a couple of such houses. It's bizarre walking into a $5M+ hilltop mansion that's completely bare inside except for a token "student" living out of one room.

Kind of great to have someone paying property taxes and using minimal city resources.

Feel like that would be cancelled out by the opportunity cost of high network individuals not spending in the area.

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

#205

Post by Loughla » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

mandevil wrote: post #185

chucksta wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends where you are https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/henry-county/3-companies-ow... |“I’d say at least 60 percent of the homes around here are owned by corporations,” Clark said.

But is that Big Money Private Equity or "took a class from that Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy who said we should create a company and invest in real estate" corporation?

Is there a difference?

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

#206

Post by mellosouls » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

I wonder if we will one day look back and wonder at the morality of a society that considered homes suitable targets for investors of any stripe.

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

#207

Post by nospice » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

chucksta wrote: post #154

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…

Depends where you are https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/henry-county/3-companies-ow... |“I’d say at least 60 percent of the homes around here are owned by corporations,” Clark said.

"Corporations" is meaningless in this context. If you want to own a rental home in the US, you should set up an LLC, both for liability reasons and because it makes it easier to deal with taxes and expenses.

In the parts of the country I lived in, I've never seen big corporations own single-family rentals en masse. They usually go for apartment complexes, which are far more profitable if you have the capital to buy / build one. Commercial real estate too.

If you click around your neighborhood, a lot of single-family homes are owned by living trusts and "Bob & Kate" LLCs, but that doesn't mean there's any hedge fund money involved.

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

#208

Post by OGEnthusiast » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:50 PM UTC

mandevil wrote: post #185

chucksta wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends where you are https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/henry-county/3-companies-ow... |“I’d say at least 60 percent of the homes around here are owned by corporations,” Clark said.

But is that Big Money Private Equity or "took a class from that Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy who said we should create a company and invest in real estate" corporation?

Both are bad.

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

#209

Post by JoshTriplett » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:51 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #173

JoshTriplett wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are factually incorrect, and attempting to invalidate real people's horrifying experiences. "Existing on the internet" != "famous", and "famous" != "rich".

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

#210

Post by BobaFloutist » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 8:51 PM UTC

tbrownaw wrote: post #199

roywiggins wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think the idea is that nobody would prefer to rent if given a choice, and that everybody could afford to own if not for the presence of landlords in the market.

Which is obviously incorrect.