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

#421

Post by Someone1234 » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:35 PM UTC

rgmerk wrote: post #165

It will make very little difference in the end. Australia's land tax system makes it effectively impossible for large corporations to own large chunks of residential property, but our real estate is amongst the world's most expensive and landlords are still awful - it's just that the landlords are hundreds of thousands of dentists and, yes, software engineers rather than corporate entities. If you want housing to be…

The problem with "increase supply" is that existing property owners rarely want that.

In almost all cities land has run out, so the only way to actually increase supply is to increase density. That means fewer single-family-homes, and more townhomes, multi-family, condos, and apartments.

The "American Dream" is a single-family-home, surrounded by other single-family homes, but even with urban sprawl we simply run into the limits of a commute and prices skyrocket.

Ironically we actually solved this problem: Indefinite Telecommuting. But then decided to take our solution that reduces property prices, reduces air pollution, and improves quality of life and then just threw it away because commercial property owners were losing money.

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

#422

Post by fn-mote » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:35 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…

> 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 mo

... and you would be building equity.

So you pay less and get less, right?

You're thinking this is a sign that you are being cheated. It seems to me that it's a sign you're getting a better deal by renting so that's beneficial to you.

You lumped a bunch of factors together (interest rates, HOA, taxes) that don't do much for your argument. You would pay less taxes than the landlord in most jurisdictions, because the unit would be owner-occupied. Do you think the landlord isn't paying HOA assessments? Sure they are. The landlord has a loan at 3% because they bought in 2021. You're offered 6.5% because you're buying in 2026. I'm not convinced it's worth my pity.

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

#423

Post by tencentshill » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

mellosouls wrote: post #238

tbrownaw wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unless we decide that personal mobility is evil, and start just assigning people to plots of land when they reach adulthood.

Eh? I'm not talking about investing in your own home, but buying them simply as profit vehicles with no intention of living in them.

They're also buying risk. It's just during the last 10 years buying a home has happened to be a fantastic investment, an easy way for an individual with the ability to get a 200k loan to turn that into 400k+ with 0 effort, especially during COVID. The market could crash and purchasing would become a risk for everyone but the wealthiest once again.

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

#424

Post by Ifkaluva » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

jspaetzel wrote: post #278

They should just increase the taxes on rental income to make it less profitable. It's too easy to be a bum landlord.

The landlords would raise the rent to pass the tax along? If all landlords have this tax, all landlords will be raising rents.

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

#425

Post by gowld » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

chucksta wrote: post #154

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…

Depends where you are https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/henry-county/3-companies-ow... |“I’d say at least 60 percent of the homes around here are owned by corporations,” Clark said.

"Clark" is an arbitrary commenter.

The actual data provided was:

> For example, corporate landlords own more than 12,000 homes in Paulding and Henry County, accounting for 11.2% and 9.9% of all single-family homes in the counties.

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

#426

Post by orangecat » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #350

mycodebreaks wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For affordability reasons, just build more housing. It doesn't matter how many houses anyone owns if you just build. more. housing.

This is obviously correct. Somehow people just can't accept the pigeonhole principle that if X people are trying to buy Y houses and X>>Y, a lot of them are going to be disappointed regardless of what laws you pass.

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

#427

Post by derangedHorse » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #375

kiba wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlord, or property management, is a job, same as any other job you might have. The problem is not owning multiple properties, but not paying enough taxes on land. Otherwise, landlords benefit from the free lunch that comes with economic growth and real estate price appreciation, which is true for every homeowners in this country. IF you want affordability? Tax land. Doesn't matter who owns them. Your grandma or wa…

> Landlord, or property management, This is literally not true. A landlord owns the property. Property managers operate the property. Sometimes these are the same people (in mom and pop scenarios), but typically and at scale they certainly are not. Property management is a job. Landlording is not. It is simply owning an asset. +1 on taxing land though.

Landlords have to allocate capital to fixing and improving the house, as well as taking care of insurance and taxes. Also, assuming that they're not living in the house and the value of the home goes up, they're taxes will rise whenever an appraiser reassesses their home value.

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

#428

Post by caditinpiscinam » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #335

AstroBen wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it not also lower house prices, causing would-be renters to buy instead, reducing demand for rentals?

This kinda reminds me of student loans, why not get as many people as possible into 6 figure debt? Yes mortgage is often cheaper than rental, but the whole tradeoff is the commitment, just like all kinds of services, if you pay 40 years up front you can get a good deal, but do you really want to take out a loan to do that? Limiting landlords ability to buy property is reducing demand for construction, you want to inc…

That "less commitment" argument assumes that renters are content to be paying higher-than-mortgage costs for a property they'll never own. If they are, then it's true that the rental system is benefiting them. If they'd rather own their homes and be paying a mortgage, then the rental system is a hindrance.

My intuition is that the majority of renters would rather be owners paying mortgages. This is less true of certain demographics (young people, students) and more true of others (older people, families).

I also wouldn't characterize being a renter as low-commitment. Say you're renting a place for 1.2k a month. When you sign a year lease, you're committing to pay 1.2k x 12 in rent, plus (at least) a month of security deposit, for a total of 15.6k. That may not be a down payment, but it's still a huge commitment, especially given how hard it is to assess potential problems with a living space before you've actually lived there.

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

#429

Post by packetlost » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

fc417fc802 wrote: post #419

estearum wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is extremely silly. Prices are high because we don't build enough houses which is mostly because it's really expensive to build houses, then the houses we have built are all owned by empty nesters and people with 1 - 3 investment properties. Everything else you're describing is completely ridiculous.

> which is mostly because it's really expensive to build houses, Assuming you're referring to the typical high CoL areas, the shortage has very little to do with the expense of building. The zoning laws don't permit sufficient supply in those areas. And that's quite unlikely to change (at least quickly) because anyone pushing such reform would be obliterating the average Joe's net worth.

In areas with low CoL the cost of building houses and the cost of selling a house has a massive impact on the number and type of homes that get built. If it's not profitable for a builder to build a home they simply won't, whether it's because of bureaucratic red tap or economic conditions. There's very strong incentives for builders to take the path of least resistance and highest margin.

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

#430

Post by observationist » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #367

WalterBright wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are a tiny portion of the market, but a huge driving force in setting and manipulating prices, because their properties get leveraged, instrumentalized, and securitized, with derivative products, speculation, and all sorts of incentives that you don't normally want operating in the arena of housing. Raising prices when you only have a tiny portion of the market does not work. People won't buy them when there's…

Define "tiny portion of the market", especially "market". There are many houses in the US. Not all of them are for sale. There's a difference between having a "tiny portion of the market" when you define "the market" as all houses in the US, and "tiny portion of the market" when you define "the market" as the houses that are actively being bought and sold. I would not be surprised if corporate involvement was a signi…

The market meaning all real estate, residential and commercial, and tiny, as in under 3%, with regards to what is owned by the institutional investors. That's probably higher with regards to properties that are or have been on the market in the last ten years or so. From what I can tell, the other ~97% is owned by individuals and smaller funds and mom&pop companies, with fewer than 20 properties involved.

In some dense urban areas, up to 10% of the local residential properties are owned by funds or investors. There's also overlap with investment networks where you're not getting to BlackRock levels, but you'll have a web of companies with mutual interests and a network of private debt and collateral, and these make up around 20% of the whole. For the most part, though, the majority of single family homes are not institutional. Even multi-family units, apartment complexes, and other rental properties are only in the ~10% range of institutional ownership, with the remainder owned by individuals, mom&pops, and small investment networks.

The conjunction of capabilities and incentives in combination with a huge buffer of wealth allows institutional investors to manipulate things in ways that aren't healthy for private home ownership, and the downstream social and economic impacts of being forced to rent, or hold debt that's not properly reflective of the value of the property.

We should impose reasonable policies that serve the interests of the people, and not simply maximize wealth building at the expense of citizens and families that would benefit from home ownership.