Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

fullstackeconomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 684 posts

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#291

Post by anchpop »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #260
dijonman2 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very difficult to evict folks in Colorado, according to someone I know who buys and rents homes for a living. I think most landlords are pro tenant until they find someone who knows how to work the system. It costs them so much that they are skiddish to all renters.

Landlords have chosen to enter an inherently adversarial relationship with the goal of profiting from the other party. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to their personal pains here, but I don't believe "pro tenant" has a useful meaning except in a context where you need to support them in opposition to some force or entity. And that entity is landlords.

As a widget maker, I'm pro widget-users even though I technically have an adversarial relationship with them. In particular, I'm pro widget-users because without them I would be without money and without me they would be without widgets, so we're both supporting each other against the harsh forces of nature that would leave us all destitute if we didn't work together.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#292

Post by notahacker »

javert wrote: post #85
thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #9

The scary thing is that it's easy to see how something how like this could drive a market boom and bust cycle. I'm imagining a scenario where two iBuyer companies try to outbid each other algorithmically, driving the prices further and further out of reach of people who are looking for a primary home. Tangentially related, I talked to a friend who works on geospatial data for one of the big vacation rental companies,…

It's because US monetary policy has created an enormous transfer of wealth to the wealthy and out of the general economy. They do this by extending credit at low interest rates with the collective understanding that the value of the dollar will continue to be printed away. The wealthy (like me...) buy stuff on credit now and pay it back later with much cheaper future dollars. COVID threw a wrench in the scheme tempor…

Ah yes, nothing says egalitarianism quite like the distribution of Bitcoin. Why allow one percenters to borrow money they actually have to reinvest in giving people jobs when we can just give them the printing press?

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#293

Post by giraffe_lady »

anchpop wrote: post #291
giraffe_lady wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords have chosen to enter an inherently adversarial relationship with the goal of profiting from the other party. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to their personal pains here, but I don't believe "pro tenant" has a useful meaning except in a context where you need to support them in opposition to some force or entity. And that entity is landlords.

As a widget maker, I'm pro widget-users even though I technically have an adversarial relationship with them. In particular, I'm pro widget-users because without them I would be without money and without me they would be without widgets, so we're both supporting each other against the harsh forces of nature that would leave us all destitute if we didn't work together.

only comparable if the widget you make is a necessity for life, really straining the meaning of the word "widget" imo.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#294

Post by MiroF »

closeparen wrote: post #241
MiroF wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a tenant protection environment, landlords cannot just decline to renew leases. Unless we're talking about some rent controlled context, where in the US is this law?

For example, the entire state of California, including municipalities that don't have rent control and properties that aren't covered by existing rent controls. https://sfrb.org/article/summary-ab-1482-california-tenant-p...

I think the large majority of units in CA are not covered by any sort of just cause eviction law. This law has several very large exemptions.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#295

Post by tshaddox »

anchpop wrote: post #281
tshaddox wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the population rises and we refuse to build more houses Building more houses is generally good too, but it's a bit of a cop-out to blame the whole situation on that. Totally independent of supply concerns, I would argue that it's not great that in so many areas the value of homes seems to be almost entirely divorced from the fact that people need homes to live in . Imagine if a bunch of very wealthy people just…

In areas where home prices are high, the vast majority of homes have people living in them. So the idea that home prices are inflated by people buying homes and not doing anything with them seems a bit suspect to me. Additionally it kind of strains belief that people are buying homes, paying property tax, etc. just because they like collecting them the way a kid likes collecting pokemon cards. More likely they'd buy…

My point isn't that people don't use their collectible homes to live in. There are undoubtedly some vacant homes used as collectibles, but that's not the whole problem. The point is that the value of the homes are largely divorced from the fact that people need homes to live in. The fact that home prices have skyrocketed recently (and certainly not simply due to population growth or a reduction in supply) ought to make this fairly clear.

> Additionally it kind of strains belief that people are buying homes, paying property tax, etc. just because they like collecting them the way a kid likes collecting pokemon cards. More likely they'd buy a home because they expect home prices to rise and they'll be able to sell the home for more in the future.

That second sentence is, of course, precisely what I'm talking about. Although that is also the same motivation, at least in my experience, of a lot of Pokemon card collecting. When I was in middle school, you could buy a Charizard for $100, and it wasn't because you could win back that $100 by playing that Charizard in a tournament, and it wasn't because you got $100 of value admiring the aesthetics of the card. Also of note, those Charizards now sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and it's still not being of their value in competitive play or their aesthetic value.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#296

Post by programmarchy »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #275
programmarchy wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a family home, you probably don’t want 8 college students moving into the house next door to you. This was a restriction in my college town. As a student, I didn’t like it, but as a homeowner with a family, I completely understand.

Most people in the world live and raise families in the conditions where they don't control what happens behind the floor, walls and ceilings. This seems like very strong entitlement.

Most people in the world don't have time to post on HN, or even have the privilege of knowing it exists. You posting a reply here is a very strong entitlement.

But if they did, they would probably come here and reply that they don't want 8 drunken college bros constantly partying next to their house either.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#297

Post by endisneigh »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #260
dijonman2 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very difficult to evict folks in Colorado, according to someone I know who buys and rents homes for a living. I think most landlords are pro tenant until they find someone who knows how to work the system. It costs them so much that they are skiddish to all renters.

Landlords have chosen to enter an inherently adversarial relationship with the goal of profiting from the other party. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to their personal pains here, but I don't believe "pro tenant" has a useful meaning except in a context where you need to support them in opposition to some force or entity. And that entity is landlords.

How exactly is it inherently adversarial? Isn’t what you’re saying also true to literally any for profit transaction?

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#298

Post by mistrial9 »

tshaddox wrote: post #286
paxys wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is if people start hoarding medicine then new companies can pop up and fill in the gap, or existing ones can increase production, making the whole thing pointless to do. Same goes for every other "necessary to life" product. Temporary disruptions will be handled by the market in the long term, and in the worst case government can step in and regulate. Housing is probably the only sector where all the laws and r…

Okay, but how deep is the appetite for buying medicine as collectibles? What if doubling the production of medicine just means that now the wealthiest 2% collects all the medicine instead of the wealthiest 1%? Not to mention, how long will it take to ramp up all this medicine production?

no, no - this is a real-estate Zillow thread BUT.. search for "pharma bros" and you will see this is not a fanciful example

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#299

Post by boring_twenties »

rank0 wrote: post #141
alistairSH wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every city, sure, but cities are expensive. Even cities that used to be affordable, like Portland and Austin. But between the cities? Not much. Some small towns might work if you’re the town lawyer or MD, but a town can only support so many of those. And if you’re an engineer or banker? Not much employment.

Portland and Austin are the very essence of "trendy city" those places are very expensive. I'm not arguing that people move to small towns. There are hundreds of cities in the US with 100,000+ populations (not even including the metro areas). The idea that each of these cities is unaffordable and without a job market is just wrong. Everyone wants to live in NYC, SF, DC, Miami...etc because the other areas aren't cool…

Not for long. Salt Lake City was one such city just 3-5 years ago. Now everything has doubled and it's almost as expensive as the trendier cities, without the higher-paying jobs.

Re: How Zillow's homebuying scheme lost $881M

#300

Post by Aunche »

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #9

The scary thing is that it's easy to see how something how like this could drive a market boom and bust cycle. I'm imagining a scenario where two iBuyer companies try to outbid each other algorithmically, driving the prices further and further out of reach of people who are looking for a primary home. Tangentially related, I talked to a friend who works on geospatial data for one of the big vacation rental companies,…

We need a land value tax or at the very least higher property taxes. That would disincentivize people from speculating into housing. It's no surprise that cities with the highest home prices have some of the lowest effective property tax rates.
Post reply on HN