291–300 of 646 posts
I am excited and optimistic that we appear to be applying economic principles to housing! Now that we're getting rid of centralized price controls / collusion, next can we do supply/demand?
On the demand side it would be nice to keep PE firms from hoovering up all the single family homes. https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the demand side it would be nice to keep PE firms from hoovering up all the single family homes. https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...
Would be interesting to see what would happen if renters had the option to buy the underlying property/unit somehow after being a tenant for a certain time. The goal should be ownership for folks who want it, not a nation of renters.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the demand side it would be nice to keep PE firms from hoovering up all the single family homes. https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...
You can't just ban them. Where there is profit to be made, they will find a way around any regulation. You have to change the structure of the market so they no longer see these investments as profitable. One way local areas do this is by "homestead tax exemption" which reduces property taxes if you live in your own home, but this is binary and punishes small landlords equally as big ones.
My town is experimenting with allowing this exemption if anybody claims the address as their primary residence, whether it is the owner or not. The main purpose is to cut down on people keeping vacation homes, but it should also make things more expensive for flippers and speculators.
Small landlords are no better than big ones if they’re keeping properties empty.
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the demand side it would be nice to keep PE firms from hoovering up all the single family homes. https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...
You can't just ban them. Where there is profit to be made, they will find a way around any regulation. You have to change the structure of the market so they no longer see these investments as profitable. One way local areas do this is by "homestead tax exemption" which reduces property taxes if you live in your own home, but this is binary and punishes small landlords equally as big ones.
[flagged]
This is just collusion/price fixing through an indepedent 3rd party, not competition.
Or, perhaps it is put better by a RealPage exec: "there is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the demand side it would be nice to keep PE firms from hoovering up all the single family homes. https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...
You can't just ban them. Where there is profit to be made, they will find a way around any regulation. You have to change the structure of the market so they no longer see these investments as profitable. One way local areas do this is by "homestead tax exemption" which reduces property taxes if you live in your own home, but this is binary and punishes small landlords equally as big ones.
Once an area reaches a certain % of landlords (no idea the actual %, but it's low), it leads to a general decline of the neighborhood. These landlords are buying starter homes (apartments and houses) whether they are PE companies or individual landlords, driving up the cost of "cheap" housing.
Curious where the line is supposed to be for gathering market information and making pricing decisions. Surely it would be legal if I had an employee scour all the rental listings in my area and use that to give me price distributions for similar units to the ones I’m advertising. But according to the DOJ if I hire a company to do this, it’s not? What if I have two units to list and it wouldn’t make sense for me to h…
(1) 95% (say) of landlords secretly meet somewhere, conspire, then set their new rent rates together
(2) 95% of landlords secretly meet somewhere, conspire, then all set their new rent rates based on the "individualized" advice of Rent, Loot, & Pillage Consulting Co.
(3) 95% of landlords listen to marketing pitches from RealPage, understand the between-the-lines message that using RealPage's software would be a great "all the added profits, but none of the legal exposure" alternative to a price-fixing conspiracy, and decide to buy & use the software.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would be interesting to see what would happen if renters had the option to buy the underlying property/unit somehow after being a tenant for a certain time. The goal should be ownership for folks who want it, not a nation of renters.
All they have to do is offer the owner an adequate price.
Curious where the line is supposed to be for gathering market information and making pricing decisions. Surely it would be legal if I had an employee scour all the rental listings in my area and use that to give me price distributions for similar units to the ones I’m advertising. But according to the DOJ if I hire a company to do this, it’s not? What if I have two units to list and it wouldn’t make sense for me to h…
The main differences is that RealPage collects and digests nonpublic information among competitors.
The DOJ also has a lot of evidence that RealPage knew that this would increase prices and prevent competition.
RealPage itself is also a monopoly. There are strong network effects with the service, and RealPage's willingness to allegedly anticompetitively raise prices means a another more scrupulous competitor is unlikely to succeed.