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

reuters.com

241–250 of 1001 posts

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

#241

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?

The title of the article - "3 companies own nearly 38,000 metro Atlanta homes" Home many rich dads do you know with 12,500 homes?

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

#242

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.

Then expand the scope to include all interested parties in the chain, whether owners or service providers.

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

#243

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 /…

The title of the article - "3 companies own nearly 38,000 metro Atlanta homes"

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

#244

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…

> But most of the "investors" buying up property are individuals purchasing investment properties. Maybe they should clamp down on that as well, especially individuals who are only purchasing SFH in residential neighborhoods as a way to park their overseas cash.

Once you try to clamp down on investment properties, you have couples getting divorces so they can own two homes (this happened in China), and all your kids are going to have their own home as well.

It isn't a bad idea, people will game whatever. A singapore public housing system might work better, but I doubt it would work for SFHs.

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

#245

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…

While that’s true, even if “Wall Street” is only holding a few percent of homes, those being released to the markets (and future ones not being purchased) might help. Corporate entity creation in America is such that I don’t think this will be enforceable (“we don’t buy homes, our Gibraltar office’s subsidiary invested in its CEO’s LLC that bought the home”) but if I’m wrong, it could help somewhat. It’s binary think…

Not really, because the problem isn't investors buying homes, its a lack of supply of new homes. Big investors don't buy homes to keep them empty, they buy them to rent them out. An exception to this might be short term rentals but that is going to be significant in only a few markets and the problem there is still fundamentally a supply problem.

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

#246
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I think the simple answer is the tax rate is one thing for a primary residence and another for non-primary residences regardless of who owns it. For example in CA, Prop 13 stays in place for your primary residence, but properties are re-assessed every year like in Texas if it's not your primary residence. In addition, take away some (or all) of the tax deductions for SFH that aren't primary residences.

Rent would go through the roof and it would become even harder to get out of the rental trap. It's better to just have a very low hard cap on the number of properties anyone can own.

People being less likely to buy multiple houses is going to make it harder for people to buy a primary residence?

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

[deleted]

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

#248

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 /…

LLC may be a type of corporation but when people complain about corporations buying up homes they really mean C-corps, not LLCs owned by Uncle Bob who likes to flip houses.

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

#249
post #239

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.

Yup. Building wealth through home ownership directly implies homes becoming unaffordable for new buyers.

Right. There are good financial reasons to own a home even if you don't think it's going to be a great investment, just as there are very good reasons not to own a home even if you have the means. It's the absolute, which is the premise of this policy proposal, that's the problem.

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

#250

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…

> But most of the "investors" buying up property are individuals purchasing investment properties. Maybe they should clamp down on that as well, especially individuals who are only purchasing SFH in residential neighborhoods as a way to park their overseas cash.

Exactly. Nobody wants to hear this, because we're all Temporarily Embarrassed Landlords, but if a corporation buying 100 houses to sit on and extract rent is bad (or good), then 100 individuals each buying 1 house to sit on and extract rent must be equally bad (or good).
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