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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

#221

Post by rgmerk »

lewdev wrote: post #201
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 prop…

You would feel that, but you would be wrong.

Small businesses are often just as ruthless as large ones, just less competent. In any case, most rental properties are managed through agencies, who are soulless profit-optimisers.

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

#222

Post by bell-cot »

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.

THIS. If Supply & Demand just feels too complex, then spend a day watching kids play musical chairs.

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

#223

Post by dstainer »

cmxch wrote: post #183
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…

Cover those individual investors too.

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.

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

#224

Post by epistasis »

program_whiz wrote: post #103
Aurornis wrote: post #42

Even if this goes through without a mountain of loopholes and exceptions, I doubt it will have a significant impact. "Wall Street Investors" implies they're targeting large institutional ownership, which is only around 0.5% of housing ownership as cited in the article. That number is also flat-ish or maybe decreasing depending on the chart you look at, from what I recall. Outside of a few metro areas where institutio…

It seems like in some areas (the good ones) its much higher (12%): https://econofact.org/factbrief/do-private-equity-firms-own-... It also seems like it might be important to determine what share of _new_ development is being created for investment. The share of existing homes being owned isn't as important. There's also the 2nd order effect. The price of property might go down if there weren't investors with tons of…

All housing is investment due to the way it's owned, regardless of who owns it. For most people, it's by far their biggest investment, resulting in extreme political activity.

We must confront that fact, or negate it, for example by taxing away the investment opportunity.

Investors buy housing to rent it out to others, that's the investment. People who own their own home implicitly pay themselves rent, by choosing to live in what they own versus renting instead.

Getting non-resident owners out of housing only means that renters have been banned from an area.

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

#225

Post by jay_kyburz »

roywiggins wrote: post #162
jay_kyburz wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, It should be expanded that no company can own residential property, and more importantly, each person can only own one property. People should go find something else to invest their savings in.

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

I figure many couples would live in one home, rent a second.

The children could have one each too, perhaps only once they reach 18.

I think there would be plenty of rental stock still.

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

#226

Post by BeetleB »

nospice wrote: post #207
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.

"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 /…

Indeed. This was discussed about a month ago. My prior comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46208561

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

#227

Post by sgc »

xp84 wrote: post #74
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…

That sounds right. And, I have to admit, it's pretty good politics to ban a mostly imaginary thing that is a popular talking point. Since it's barely going to affect anyone, it'll be easy to pass. And it may win votes for Republicans in swing districts, since the "BlackRock bought all the houses!" line is heard much more often from the Left, meaning this is something you can show an on-the-fence voter to signal how y…

He's in real estate. Of course he has an angle. Hopefully they can get something worthwhile into the eventual bill anyways.

I would hard cap how many houses anybody can own to something like 4 - whether through an LLC or otherwise. Many countries do not or did not allow foreign ownership of residential real estate. It's definitely not in the interest of any people to have their very land taken from them. In the current climate that would likely take an extremely nasty turn so it's not the best time for it, but I would be very supportive of such a measure with an exception for permanent residents and spouses of US citizens.

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

#228

Post by sgc »

dstainer wrote: post #223
cmxch wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cover those individual investors too.

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.

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

#229

Post by foobarian »

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…

And part of the problem may be people like my cousin, who bought a house without selling the old one, choosing to rent it instead.

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

#230

Post by BeetleB »

silisili wrote: post #110
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…

In raw numbers of ownership, sure. But make no mistake, during the housing boom post 2019, in a lot of 'hot' metro areas, "wall street" was buying way more homes than individuals. Especially in the south. In the area I lived in, Invitation Homes, some weird shell company of Blackstone, was buying up every piece of tract housing they could get their hands on. At one point, they were making agreements with builders bui…

Here's a report where you can see which areas have a high percentage of big investors (not just people who own 2-3 homes):

https://go.lincolninst.edu/whoa-mapping-corp-ownership-repor...

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