Investors bought a quarter of US homes sold last year • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by giantg2 » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

alexb_ wrote: post #297

giantg2 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sure, many object to new housing for reasons like "it will change the character of the neighborhood". But many others object because they are worried about the value of their own home going down." At least in my area, it's all about people wanting the area to remain semi-rural. They generally aren't opposing low density SFH in independent builds. The people in my area are against many development and medium density…

A lot of what I've seen is people worried about "low quality tenants" (read: people who don't look just like me)

I think that's less of a concern right near me. This is basically farm land or woods being turned into medium and low density developments. I think that comes into play with cheaper or higher density housing (either the legitimate low quality or the racist low quality version).

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

#422

Post by _vdpp » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #339

icelancer wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like IQ tests, the credit score has egalitarian roots, but modern day activists think they're discriminatory and should be abolished.

Credit score is hilarious. Until I was like 30 I paid for literally everything with cash. Everything. Never missed a bill. My credit report/score came back "unreportable." Not a shred of data to go off of. I was unable to obtain any credit card. I ultimately had to go to a bank and place $1500 in what was basically a 0% CD for the duration of my credit card, with the agreement my bank would just take it if I didn't p…

Dave Ramsey talks a lot about that - to have a good credit score you’ve got to take on debt, which is counterproductive for a lot of people.

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

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Post by cycomanic » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #241

ryukafalz wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This always strikes me as an unsatisfying response. What about America is so fundamentally different than Europe that would make the same policies that work there not work here? Every time I’ve seen this type of argument brought up, it’s fallen flat when the same infrastructure is built here because it does end up working . We’re really not so unique.

Land area and population density? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_depend...

Well Sweden has a lower population density than the US and there is still plenty high density housing, so your argument is?

I think it would be good to do away with these simplistic this or that doesn't work here because... The US society was remodelled quite dramatically to be very car centred over a very short time and now people say that it can't be any other way because of the geography? The US was literally different 70-80 years ago.

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

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Post by bombcar » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #94

toomuchtodo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can crowd out usury private investment (which this specifically is an example of) with government investment. Have the Fed buy treasuries, use federal funds to build and manage affordable housing. Capital is make believe, a fiction, rows in a database. Physical laws are mandatory, everything else is a shared delusion or a suggestion. The rules can change at anytime with enough will. Broad strokes, if Capital is p…

You realize that we are already running trillions of dollars in deficit for the programs we already have in place? The first step, should be to lower the deficit and actually fund the programs we have in place. We cannot just keep printing money without worsening the deficit and worsening the inflation. Yes, consumer sentiment is all hopes and dreams, but monetary policy is not. There are real world implications.

That money (or some portion of it) is currently flowing into the housing market via Freddie and Fannie and the loan guarantees provided for 30 year fixed.

You could imagine other programs that could encourage renting, for example (no thought has been given to this, just an example/idea) - federal guarantee that you would pay NO capital gains tax if you could prove that you continued to rent out the property and never increased rent more than 1%, say.

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

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Post by giantg2 » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #391

giantg2 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and pricing out existing residents in low density housing by taxing them to oblivion.

Only residents who own tons of land they aren't doing anything productive with.

That might be how it starts, but history shows rates balloon over time. We already have senior being kicked out because of property tax. Your definition of "tons" of land is vague and may be used against people who have moderate amounts of land (.5-1ac).

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

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Post by ryukafalz » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #417

ryukafalz wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which doesn’t mean much as a comparison point in the US because much of that land has zero or approximately zero residents, and nobody’s talking about building high-density housing in the middle of nowhere anyway. Upwards of 80% of the US population lives in urban areas and those places certainly are comparable to much of Europe.

>Upwards of 80% of the US population lives in urban areas Look up the US Census definition of "urban." In the town where I live, three houses around me are on 100 acres collectively--not to mention even more adjacent conservation land and that's classified as urban because it's near a smaller old mill town and only about 50 miles from a major city.

Without knowing exactly which town you’re talking about, I would posit that that’s likely still dense enough to have some pretty direct comparison points somewhere in Western Europe. It’s not like all of Western Europe is a city.

Which doesn’t mean that the same infrastructure you’d see in a dense European city would make sense in your town, mind you. I just think that Europe and America aren’t as incomparable as some people seem to think.

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

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Post by Salgat » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #24

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 just need to remember that banning housing investment means banning rentals which is problematic for people who don't have good credit and a down payment.

Apartment complexes are for more economically efficient compared to single family homes. We need to incentivize these instead of letting them buy up homes meant for a single family.

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

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Post by davidw » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

lastofthemojito wrote: post #373

jaywalk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Definitely not the case. In my middle- to upper-middle-class mill town there's a proposal to turn a disused historic mill building into luxury apartments and residents are fighting hard against it. The main stated reason is traffic, although it's unclear to me if having a bunch of apartments will generate noticeably more rush-hour traffic than when the mill was operational. I think some folks are also put off by the…

Traffic from housing is generally fairly minimal. Traffic and parking are the big NIMBY fears and are generally unfounded.

"Luxury" apartments are, 9 times out of 10, just brand new apartments that happen to be in an expensive location.

It's kind of like cars - a brand new Toyota Corolla is not the cheapest car out there. A 20 year old used one is going to be a lot more affordable. But you don't get old ones unless you build and sell the new ones to people who have the money to buy new cars. If there are not enough new cars, those people will drive up the price of the used cars.

Indeed, this is exactly what happened during the pandemic.

As someone who lives in a former mill town myself, feel free to write if you're curious about organizing in favor of housing. It's a lot of fun!

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

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Post by missedthecue » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #377

missedthecue wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They are treating their home primarily as an investment because that is what they have been told to do their whole life." It's not some psyop that has duped an entire nation, it's people accurately recognizing that their home is the biggest purchase they will ever make in their life, it's almost completely done with debt, and most don't want to end up underwater.

> it's people accurately recognizing that their home is the biggest purchase they will ever make in their life, it's almost completely done with debt, and most don't want to end up underwater. What is those people's second biggest purchase which is also usually done with debt? Does anyone believe that the government should enact policies to ensure that car prices always increase so they would be a better investment?…

Resale value is probably one of the number one things car buyers look at when shopping.

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

#430

Post by bombcar » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #356

JamesBarney wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just need to remember that banning housing investment means banning rentals which is problematic for people who don't have good credit and a down payment.

IMHO cities need to limit how many large multi-national conglomerates are allowed to build huge rental complexes. A large % of the high density housing being built around Seattle is rental only, all that does is funnel money out of the city. Residents don't get to build equity, and rental prices keep going up year over year, vs mortgage payments that, except for the property tax portion, stay the same over 30 years.…

Most small landlords don't do the accounting properly and are losing money; this is disguised by the favorable depreciation and the rapid property price appreciation.

For example, many small-time landlords would have been better off just buying a much more valuable property to live in themselves, than buying one to live in and one to rent. Eg, buy a $400k house instead of two $200k houses and renting one.