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Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

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Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#301

Post by jason0597 »

spoonjim wrote: post #139
davidw wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are reasons for that, but they are generally bad ones involving people not wanting to live near other people who look like the author of the article, even if they won't say that part out loud. Higher density housing is a massive component of building lower carbon footprint cities, as well as making our cities more financially resilient. It's also something that can increase equity a lot by giving people with lo…

Quoted post unavailable.

The level of crime in Rotterdam is lower than in San Francisco though

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#303

Post by jaywalk »

ryukafalz wrote: post #271
jaywalk wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manhattan is Manhattan. My nice, quiet suburb is not Manhattan.

And your nice, quiet suburb is unlikely to get many high-rises if it’s actually far enough away from the nearest city center, because it doesn’t particularly make sense to build towers in the middle of nowhere. By contrast if your suburb is nice and quiet despite being right next to a city because decades of policy have locked it in place and it’s pricing people out… too bad? Other people need housing too and outward…

Too bad? Hilarious.

Stay in your concrete hellhole, and stop acting like you know what's best for everyone else. If I wanted to live like you, I'd live where you do. And no matter how much you want my area to change (because you clearly can't stand for people to live in ways you don't agree with) it's not going to.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#304

Post by survirtual »

slg wrote: post #40
sillystuff wrote: post #12

In 2012 I was looking at investing in REITs. One REIT's pitch was that they owned such a large percentage of the rental housing in Tampa Florida, that even though vacancy rates were high, and rents were going down throughout the nation and other areas in the state of Florida, they were able to keep rents high in Tampa. Disgusted, I realized the harm that REITs and private equity are doing to housing markets, and want…

We have spent decades telling American families that homeownership is the safest investment. We then spent decades enacting policies to ensure this is true. Do we think investors were going to just sit that out and ignore a safe and government protected investment? Of course the more attractive we make home ownership as an investment, the more investors will flock to the market. We need policies specifically benefiti…

I sold my houses in a booming market for a $70,000 loss intentionally. It has a nice effect of lowering the value of all my neighbors homes and housed a deserving family.

Little did I know when I went to claim the loss on my taxes: I could not claim the loss at all. Since it was an owner occupied house and not a house owned by a corporation, it did not count as a loss I could deduct from my income nor from my capital gains.

Houses are meant to trap and enslave common people. It decreases their mobility and roots them in areas they otherwise would want to leave. When you gain money from a house, there are all kinds of benefits. When you lose money as an owner, there are no protections for you.

The system is a racket designed to continuously inflate home prices.

Everyone participating in it should be ashamed for making their children serfs & homeless while they live in castles.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#305

Post by ROTMetro »

davidw wrote: post #98
jaywalk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

There are reasons for that, but they are generally bad ones involving people not wanting to live near other people who look like the author of the article, even if they won't say that part out loud. Higher density housing is a massive component of building lower carbon footprint cities, as well as making our cities more financially resilient. It's also something that can increase equity a lot by giving people with lo…

I don't want higher density for the same reason I don't go on vacations on cruise ships and don't use public transportation. People are gross and assholes. The more people the more chance of tragedy of the commons, and once it sets in it is hard to stop. Most college educated Americans lived in college dorms, and went on to NOT want to live in shared building environments. It's not about racism, it's about not wanting to live in high density areas, hence buying homes with ZONING LAWS that guarantee me I can live how I choose. If I want high density, that is what cities are for. Stop trying to TAKE my (property) rights away(that is what zoning laws are, guarantee of my RIGHTS as they related to THE LARGEST INVESTMENT I WILL EVER MAKE IN MY LIFE). It's great to have an opinion, but to project onto others in order to make yourself feel superior and manipulate power dynamics is why this country is falling apart. Every action you take should BUILD and add value, not simply tear some 'other' down. But that would be hard, and BUILDING society is hard, and you would have to endure others having a right to their opinion. To quote Julius Caesar “It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”. You are a fine soldier for your cause, but your argument shows signs of a poor citizen.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#306

Post by game_the0ry »

Now, it's about 25%. In the future it will be 50%, the 100% - the trend is going in that direction. Millennials and the generations after will look at era of home ownership like the "good old days" while coughing up 75% of their income for rent.

There is so much to be said for this problem, but...its exhausting. I give up.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#307

Post by plonk »

1autodev wrote: post #72
staindk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious sure, but also sad and concerning. I'm tentatively alright with the idea of renting forever and never owning property... but with rent increasing and investors buying up more and more property, it looks like things will get uglier and uglier. I am not alright with paying absurdly high rent.

"I'm tentatively alright with the idea of renting forever and never owning property" This sounds akin to feudal peonage.

Renting for life isn't the same thing as being indebted for life. You can move out at any time and the landlord doesn't have any hold over you. Doesn't sound much like peonage to me.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#308

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

carom wrote: post #148
ddevault wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Landlords are reprehensible, including small ones.

There is huge value in subdividing land and building, creating housing for people who cannot afford to buy and build. You're stuck in a suburbia mindset. Not everyone can afford a SFH, there isn't enough land. Not everyone can afford to build. Not everyone wants to have massive switching costs when they need to move.

I think most people who are against the rentier economy would agree that there is great value in all of those things, but that they shouldn't be a for-profit enterprise. One way to obtain that value without landlords is for the state to buy land, subdivide it, and build dense housing units available to citizens who live in them at a reasonable, or even subsidized, cost.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#309

Post by ROTMetro »

davidw wrote: post #129
jaywalk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're never going to win anyone over with the tired "if you disagree with me, you're a racist" BS. Low-income, high-density housing attracts problems. It has literally nothing to do with race. You could guarantee that the high-rise apartment building you want to construct down the street from me would be 100% filled with people who look like me, and I'd still oppose it. Keep your YIMBY nonsense IYBY.

It's a pretty well document fact that it has a lot of its roots in racism. https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten... If that makes you feel uncomfortable, so be it. Americans spend zillions of dollars every year visiting Europe, which is full of high density housing. And come home raving about how much they love it. It does not 'cause problems'.

I love Costa Rica therefor I want all my food drenched is Salsa Lezao according to your powerful logic.

Re: Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year

#310

Post by epistasis »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #44
epistasis wrote: post #32

I'm sure the percentage is much much higher in supply constrained cities, because those cities are where there's much more opportunity for speculative real estate growth, and the local political structures are dedicated to keeping the supply constrained, and the speculative real estate asset price growth unchecked. At the core of a lot of this is the NIMBY behavior and downzoning that started in the 1970s. It's hyper…

And it’s just as much the fault of people who demand we don’t build for SFHs, only high density housing that’s highly undesirable to a large fraction of the home buying population. You don’t get to just blame NIMBYism for constraining the supply of the most desirable homes.

In supply constrained areas, more SFHs are physically impossible. And the more people who are allowed to live in their preferred multi family units, the more SFHs available to those who prefer them.

We don't block SFHs anywhere, there's no minimum density. However we block higher densities nearly everywhere.

So blaming the people wanting higher density makes zero sense.

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