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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

#851

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

6510 wrote: post #490

I have this idea where we pick a desert road as long as possible (maybe road 50 Nevada) then build a 50 000 metric ton machine that makes large rammed earth houses. Perhaps make a mold the shape of a Ferris wheel. Have it stamp out 200 homes per week (2 miles) Road 50 is 400 miles so 200 weeks. Rammed earth is a very decent building material but if you make the walls thick and compress it hard enough (maybe add steam…

There's a reason people don't live in that part of the world and it's not because there aren't any houses.

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

#852

Post by 34679 »

mycodebreaks wrote: post #261
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…

Controversial, but for affordability reasons, there even should be a cap on how many homes an individual can own for rentals. For the sanity in the housing market, members of society need to be driven to participate in other business activities for income/revenue, not rentals.

I'm in favor of a property tax multiplier that increases with the number of properties owned.

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

#853

Post by zzbzq »

alextingle wrote: post #595
gfaster wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gp used "rent seeking" correctly. The concept of "landlords do nothing while collecting passive income, therefore not creating any value but instead are just exploiting that they own the land" would be correctly described as "rent-seeking behavior".

You should read the wiki article. Criticising landlords is fine, but words (and phrases) have actual meanings, and the term "rent seeking" has literally no place in a discussion about landlords.

Your own wiki link disagrees with you, most of the article uses landlordism as the base-level example. You've just discovered how "rent seeking" is used as a more broad term to describe many phenomena, but they're still describing them essentially in the metaphor of landlordism.

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

#854

Post by helsinkiandrew »

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…

> "Resident experience is hurting as a result," said Jeff Holzmann, COO of RREAF Holdings, a Dallas-based real estate investment firm with over $5 billion in assets. "Instead of you calling your landlord to discuss a problem, you're calling a call center that gives you the runaround."

I'm not sure I understand the difference between "Wall Street" buying up all the property and real estate investment firms like RREAF doing the same, or come to that the guy down the street buying a few properties to rent out.

A small company or single investor can buy up a large percentage of local available property and be just as bad a landlord.

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

#855

Post by m4ck_ »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #708
crooked-v wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference here comes from the distinction between corporate landlords that actually want a sustainable business, and corporate landlords that know they will never make the money back for either rent control or market reasons and so only care about extracting as much money as possible before the building falls apart.

And that’s why rent control is bad. Why wouod I invest money to keep up a building where I knew I couldn’t get market rates for rent if I were a landlord?

Do you imagine rent control is ubiquitous, and landlords nationwide are crushed under the heavy handed regulation of big government?

Because that could not be further from the truth. I'd that bet without googling, you can't name more than one jurisdiction in the entirety of the US that has rent control.

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

#856

Post by like_any_other »

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…

> increase supply

There's a counterpart to supply in supply-demand. I wonder if we could also adjust that.

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

#857

Post by WackyFighter »

Noaidi wrote: post #512
WackyFighter wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hit in the stock price doesn't prove or disprove their claims. What would disprove their claims is the number of properties Blackrock is buying and if it is affecting pricing at the margin.

Let's say Blackrock, with all their wealth behind them, buys a home in your neighborhood. What do you think they will charge for rent? Market average? Ha! No way. They jack up the rental prices because they can. That makes rental prices rise everywhere in the area.

If they charged far more than the market average in a given area then people wouldn't rent from them. Even if they bought up the entire area, people would presumably move to cheaper areas where they weren't jacking up the prices.

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

#858

Post by snarf21 »

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…

I thought one of the big problem with Wall Street buying housing inventory is that they were turning them into AirBnbs because that is more profitable (generally) than renting. This pressure takes a lot of units off of the market for normal people to rent or buy and makes holding on to your last house a lot more profitable as a rental. I think if we get rid of these (basically) unregulated hotel exception and forced people who who AirBnb to live in that property as a primary residence 180 days a year, then the inventory could correct.

Obviously, the other factor in home prices is zoning and people who own wanting to keep supply down so their house is guaranteed to appreciate. Affordable housing (just like homelessness) in the US is only a problem because we lack the political will to solve it.

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

#859

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

m4ck_ wrote: post #855
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s why rent control is bad. Why wouod I invest money to keep up a building where I knew I couldn’t get market rates for rent if I were a landlord?

Do you imagine rent control is ubiquitous, and landlords nationwide are crushed under the heavy handed regulation of big government? Because that could not be further from the truth. I'd that bet without googling, you can't name more than one jurisdiction in the entirety of the US that has rent control.

I was a landlord in GA - definitely not a liberal utopia - and if you do everything right, it still takes 5-6 steps in sequence and around 60 days to evict someone for non payment and it’s another long process to get any money out of someone for unpaid rent and damages once you evict them.

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

#860

Post by gadders »

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…

>>If you want housing to be cheaper and renters to be better treated, increase supply. Everything else is window-dressing.

You can also look at reducing demand due to mass migration.

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