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

reuters.com

211–220 of 1001 posts

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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which side is TDS and why? I've heard both of these opinions expressed quite freely over the past few years, without any association with Trump. However, most instances of TDS seem to not "derangement" but "normal human emotion to me." > It seems obvious to most people that institutional investors should not be allowed near single family homes What is obvious about this? They have always invested in single family hom…

Homes are for people to live in, not asset classes for investors to play with. There, you have the apparently obscure principle that no one has ever heard of. I’d love to hear whatever economist inspired argument against it lol.

I have no argument really in favor of corporate ownership, but I don't find the arguments against convincing in terms of helping normal people.

Rental housing is an important part of housing, and giving access to the schools in suburbs through rental opportunities seems good to me. The people I know who have rented a SFH in my area have had better experiences with corporate landlords than home-owning landlords because the home-owning landlords frequently evict their tenants so that a relative can move in, which is super disruptive. California allows homeowners to evict people with very little warning that way, without cause. Corporations can't do that and also follow the law better.

As far as investing: Every home owner treats it as their primary asset. Which is the only reason that corporations are getting in on the game: people living in their own homes have changed regulatory structures so much that it's rigged in favor of owners.

Single family homes owed by corporations are rented out to people to live in them, giving access to neighborhoods that were not accessible before.

If you think that's "economist inspired" well it's no more inspired than your statements!

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

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 institutiona…

I don't know if you've noticed, but politicians aren't in the business of root-cause analysis or actual solutions. They are in the business of making things either slightly better or significantly worse for certain people. This would make the situation slightly better for people who want to buy houses. Perhaps it's the case I'm 100% for this mainly because my extremely low expectations for politicians have been met a…

How are you so sure this will be a definite improvement? Many well-meaning policies have had a measurable negative effect.

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

#213
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning people from other countries buying home is both more sensible and more practical than this, which is why very many countries do it.

"From" other countries is overly broad and I assume not what you intended. I am actually interested though in the idea of legislating how frequently home owners have to actually be within range of the home, for example. A friend has had a hell of a time with a landlord in Malaysia who's never seen the property.

Many countries prohibit non-citizens from owning any real estate or businesses at all, even if they have a long-term resident status. Thailand is one example. Ownership is limited to 49%, a local partner must own at least 51%.

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

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The material costs are high too because of regulations that require specific lumber for framing etc. It’s more complex than just reducing tariffs and inviting cheap labor. It’s systemic red tape put in by the large builders to prevent anyone but them to be able to build. When they do build, it’s never to code. The code they themselves help write. Ryan Homes for example…

This. They don't want the local septic man and the local roofer partnering up to GC a development of a dozen houses or even worse, an individual doing the bulk of the work of building anything, so they get it all saddled with requirements that amortize away nicely when vertically integrated but absolutely crush anyone else.

It’s a Ponzi scheme disguised as a monopoly. They’ll block everyone and just sit on the lots with a sign that says coming soon rather than let local contractors do the jobs.

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

#216

If I were renting a house, I would much rather deal with a business than an individual landlord. On another note, it’s amazing that in only a year, we accept a dictatorship where we are okay with the President setting policy that should require a law to be passed.

If I were a business whose interest in owning houses was banned by legislation, I'd sell my "services" to the individual landlords who now owned the rental property. Blackrock manages the financial part (taking rent, scheduled repairs) and the silent partner gets a cut.

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

#217

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.

"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 /…

Just to reinforce this, the last place I lived in was owned by a corporation...of one man, who lived a town away in a modest house and worked as a paper pusher by day.

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

#218

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…

If "Black rock isn't buying up all the housing" then how do you explain why Blackrock lost $17 billion in capital today?

https://xcancel.com/KobeissiLetter/status/200899449445747946...

It matters, you just dont want to know it matters.

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 institutiona…

I don't know if you've noticed, but politicians aren't in the business of root-cause analysis or actual solutions. They are in the business of making things either slightly better or significantly worse for certain people. This would make the situation slightly better for people who want to buy houses. Perhaps it's the case I'm 100% for this mainly because my extremely low expectations for politicians have been met a…

I have to admit, I'm very used to politicians tossing out non-fixes as a distraction when there's some problem, but your comment is the first case I've ever seen of a voter openly acknowledging that it's a non-fix, but being happy about it anyway. And not just that, but actually attacking the people pointing out that it's a non-fix, and casting sinister aspersions on their motives.

This isn't even shooting the messenger or the guy pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, I'm not sure there's an existing idiom for the thing you're doing.

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