US will ban Wall Street investors from buying single-family homes • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by kccqzy » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #122

londons_explore wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making it hard for cities to deny all permission to build new housing through impossible zoning laws should also be on the cards.

Yeah, all the politicians talking housing— the actual net governmental effect on housing is to massively constrain supply (quantity) in service of rather arbitrary qualitative standards. I’m all for “the building shouldn’t spontaneously collapse” standards, but … two acre lots? Restrictions on casting shadows? Accessory dwelling units? Nah. If the government wants to make a difference it should ban Euclidian zoning a…

These qualitative standards are subjective. Everyone has something that they deem essential and others not so much. A lot of zoning regulations is the amalgamation of preferences by different people, because they try to satisfy the aesthetic preferences of too many people.

For example in New York City go take a walk in the streets next to hundred-year-old skyscrapers in downtown. It’s miserable to me. Now go walk alongside midcentury skyscrapers in midtown. It’s much better. The difference is entirely because of shadows cast by the skyscrapers. The visceral reaction from shadows is so strong to me that I am wholeheartedly supporting restrictions on casting shadows.

Now on two-acre lots. That’s not something I care about. Even 0.1 acres of land is too much maintenance for me. But it will be non-negotiable for someone else.

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

#292

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

bs7280 wrote: post #260

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 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…

> Rich investors and companies effectively get to buy homes at a discount vs average joes.

Suppose you had $100,000 in cash, and buy a house for $100,000. You'll not be paying 5% interest on a mortgage. But if you did not buy the house, you would be investing that $100,000 for a 5% return.

So, you're either paying 5% on the mortgage, or foregoing 5% return for investing that money.

The rich person is not getting a discount.

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

#293

Post by bs7280 » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

iknowstuff wrote: post #269

bs7280 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Opportunity cost means makes purchasing with a mortgage wiser than buying cash. $1000/month more for a few years is nothing compared to the property value increase of a $1M property

Where I live, condo's do not increase in value much due to HOA fees and taxes.

I just plugged in some numbers using (estimated) purchase price, taxes, HOA for the unit I'm in now, and it would cost me a little over $1M over 30 years to own a $300,000 1br apt.

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

#294

Post by skissane » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

bs7280 wrote: post #277

sharpy wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds nice, but I think that increased tax will just be passed down as higher rent.

That is a good point, and this tax would need to be well thought out. I specifically would increase the tax rate the more properties an entity owns (Not a lawyer so IDK how to treat one guy owning 10 companies as 1 entity the right way). That way smaller local landlord's can still exist (and keep rental prices competitive), but massive orgs will be forced to sell properties. The idea is to create a disincentive for h…

> I specifically would increase the tax rate the more properties an entity owns (Not a lawyer so IDK how to treat one guy owning 10 companies as 1 entity the right way).

Very hard to make this work, people find complex ways around it; e.g. “I don’t own that property, it is owned by an LLC which is owned by a trust whose beneficiary is an LLC owned by another trust of which I’m one of the dozen individual beneficiaries”. Close that loophole, someone will cook up an even more obscure one.

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

#295

Post by tootie » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

Headline is very misleading. Reuters prefaces this with "Trump says" which is weaselly enough.

Quote from the article: "In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was immediately taking steps to implement the ban which he would also call on Congress to codify in law."

The president can't do this. His EO will likely be some kind of statement of intent or request to the FTC to see what can be done. Really, this is an exhortation for Congress to do something. A bill has yet to be written.

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

#296

Post by indymike » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

bs7280 wrote: post #260

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 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…

> Additional property tax if you do not live in your home fulltime.

In states I've lived in with property tax there is a homestead exemption for the house you live in. In my current state that's about twice the tax.

The effect: Rent goes up to cover the tax and margin is added, so the rent goes up more than the tax.

>Rich investors and companies effectively get to buy homes at a discount vs average joes.

Usually the difference is that the big investor bought the property at lower price, and your rent is based on the lower valuation. Annual rent increases are usually are much lower than market increases - there's a lot of value in keeping a tenant year over year.

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

#297

Post by epistasis » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

chucksta wrote: post #241

mandevil wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is that Big Money Private Equity or "took a class from that Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy who said we should create a company and invest in real estate" corporation?

The title of the article - "3 companies own nearly 38,000 metro Atlanta homes" Home many rich dads do you know with 12,500 homes?

Having personal experience here, I'll take the company owning 10,000 homes over the rich dad any day. That rich dad is desperate, incompetent, and breaks tenant law all the time, ie chaotic evil. The corporation is lawful evil instead which can at least be planned for.

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

#298

Post by RegEx » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

jspaetzel wrote: post #272

sharpy wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds nice, but I think that increased tax will just be passed down as higher rent.

Higher rent means more people will opt to buy. That's not necessarily a bad thing in perspective. Assuming the other side effect is a decrease in costs due to a lower profit margin.

I believe your comment is operating under the assumption that people are merely choosing to rent over buying because it's the more economically wise choice. That's not how things work in reality. Many people want to buy but cannot put up the initial costs.

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

#299

Post by lbarrow » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

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.

Why would this help affordability? If you restrict who can operate rentals, that will inevitably shrink the supply of rentals, which will raise rents.

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

#300

Post by FarmerPotato » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #250

oceanplexian wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But most of the "investors" buying up property are individuals purchasing investment properties. Maybe they should clamp down on that as well, especially individuals who are only purchasing SFH in residential neighborhoods as a way to park their overseas cash.

Exactly. Nobody wants to hear this, because we're all Temporarily Embarrassed Landlords, but if a corporation buying 100 houses to sit on and extract rent is bad (or good), then 100 individuals each buying 1 house to sit on and extract rent must be equally bad (or good).

The complaint, real or imagined, is that young individuals aren’t building up capital. Home ownership was the bedrock of middle class assets.