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

reuters.com

281–290 of 1001 posts

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

#281
post #7

Seems reasonable to me, a very anti Trump individual. Now deliver. And which of his buddies does this benefit? I'm trying to think if there will be ramifications to this... - Obviously forced divestment of all Wall St owned single family homes could impact housing prices which is both the point, but of course... also hurts many families borrowing power and net worth - I guess that crash could potentially have people…

Well, there's no explanation for how this will affect any currently owned properties. So maybe it won't do much of anything. And something important to understand about private equity owning homes, is that they tend to descend on specific geos where the supply allows buying in scale. If they are forced to divest, it very well could crash a few cities or towns. And given that the aforementioned supply was heavily bent towards distressed areas, the crash could be brutal.

It will likely have close to zero impact on high-demand areas.

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

#282

One additional important detail: if this gets implemented at all, hopefully it does not affect the common practice of having a self-owned LLC owning your home. This is common for the purposes of keeping your personal name out of public records; it is far too easy to link someone's name and address, and people at risk of doxing can do this to protect themselves.

Houses are also put into revocable living trust to avoid probate when kicking the bucket.

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

#283

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…

It's not that simple - the problem is that those institutions are market makers. They are a tiny portion of the market, but a huge driving force in setting and manipulating prices, because their properties get leveraged, instrumentalized, and securitized, with derivative products, speculation, and all sorts of incentives that you don't normally want operating in the arena of housing.

The things that they do have massively outsized downstream impact contrasted against their relatively tiny overall participation in the market, and they can afford to behave in ways that manipulate the behavior of the majority.

If you can decouple them from the housing markets, you also decouple the interests of the donor class, and you allow for policy that doesn't maximize the cost of real estate over the interests of the majority of the population.

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

#284

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…

I feel like this article is littered with suspicious statements

Like this one:

> In fact, institutional homebuyers (those who bought 100+ homes in a 12-month period) didn’t even reach 2.5% market share at the peak level in this data line, which goes back to the start of the century.

I don’t know how to evaluate this. I doubt this analysis rolls up subsidiaries. So what does it really mean for an entity to own 100+ units? Is that actually something we care about?

Imo only thing people need to give a shit about is whether a house is being bought to be lived in.

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

#285

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.

Many people register houses they purchase in LLCs for privacy protection purposes

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

#286

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 /…

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

There are well over a million homes in the metro Atlanta area. If the top three owners have less than 4% of a market, need if they act in a completely coordinated manner they have approximately zero market power.

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

#287
I don't actually know anything, but I've been wondering lately: is higher house prices simply a consequence of Baumol's cost disease? If so, then there is kinda nothing we can do about it, right?. Higher house prices is simply a consequence of improved productivity elsewhere, and thus it is necessary to spend a larger fraction of one's income on housing.

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

#288
post #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.

Now explain Tesla stock.

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

#289
post #260

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…

I propose two changes to (try) and broadly solve this: - Additional property tax if you do not live in your home fulltime. This includes vacation homes. - First time, US Citizen, non-corporate homebuyers can get a loan at the federal interest rate. If I were to try and buy the condo I rent, due to interest rates, taxes, and HOA's I would be paying $1000 more per month. At the end of my mortgage I would given the enti…

It depends on the state, but that is largely kind of already the case. At least in my state you get a significant deduction to your property taxes if it is your primary residence.

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

#290

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…

Perfect for a big splashy press release. Populist policy with no practical benefit to the average American.

I worked with these firms for several years when the business concept was in its earlier stages. The money coming in to buy these homes quickly went from family offices (2013-2019) to state pension funds (2019-present) to sovereign funds (2020-present).

Things like the largest pension fund in Sweden is invested in buying SFR. Or the sovereign fund of the UAE.

I’m not sure if that changed your opinion on this not having practical benefit for the average American.

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