Earlier quoted context omitted.
No ban, just huge property taxes for non-primary residences.
Doesn't this just trickle down to the renter, who has few alternative housing options?
Costs trickle-down... Profits don't.
Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
501–510 of 634 posts
Re: Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
This framing feels backwards to me - I thought the reason institutional investors see it as a valuable asset is because of NIMBYs constraining supply for them via local policy and obstruction. The institutional investors are a symptom of that policy, but the NIMBYs (and incentives that exist for existing owners like prop13) are the cause. Real Estate scaling supply to meet demand is in direct conflict with old proper…
I've seen this argument touted frequently in housing related threads and it always confuses me. Housing prices have soared over the majority of the developed world - dozens of countries[1]. Is NYMBYism and prop13 driving the housing crisis in Luxembourg? Chile? Estonia? Do you think the entire world property market, taxation and legislation is structured exactly like in the California bay area? The whole "just zone m…
I agree. Here in the Netherlands, NIMBYism isn't really a thing. If you don't own the land, you as existing resident have very little say in new developments around you, exceptions aside.
Even in this situation where almost every development is approved, it doesn't lower prices at all. The reality is that when demand is continuously high, you can never keep up with supply. It just keeps coming.
Which is what happened to my town. A small, quiet, rural town. That was 20 years ago. Now it's packed. Every inch used. Traffic jams just to get to the center. Agricultural and nature areas transformed into concrete.
Quality of life is down whilst prices just keep rising regardless. Do these people have a right to live here? YES. Do I have a right to forever preserve my old town? NO. I'm just saying NIMBYism isn't some roadblock standing in the way of an actual solution.
Re: Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
#503Since this is unlikely to be the end of Zillow's ambitions in this area, I foresee an arms race between Zillow and local sellers & their agents: Just like with SEO, algorithmic home buying will open up the opportunity for people to infer from the algorithms behavior which metrics or keywords it's triggered off of and respond accordingly.
How do you see that? Zillow uses local agents and their sellers to sell houses. There's no battle there. In fact, the sellers get more money from this transition because the artificial price increase positively impacts them.
I don't think Zillow points their agents at it without their own analysis first: I'm assuming Zillow leverages their data set to identify a large portion of opportunities. A local agent on the ground can sort through things with some judgement, but if a lot of their leads are directed to them by Zillow's algorithm for identifying worthy investments then there could be room to game that system.
Re: Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In less than 3 years the rent in our working class city went up 45%. I sympathize with that but I want to make sure people understand the dynamics. Prices are driven by supply and demand. If there's only one empty apartment in the city and you're willing to pay $2000/month, I am gonna have to pay $2100 month if I want to live there instead of you. That's sort of separate (though related to) prices of houses. What w…
You're omitting a major component of the demand side: investors and speculators. If the market was just made up of the people who are looking to live in those homes, the market would be reasonable for those people. But we have a massive amount of investment funds looking for returns in an uncertain market, plus near zero interest rates for the near future. The number of investors who are buying houses they have no in…
Investors and speculators don't live in houses, renters do. If there isn't renting demand, than it doesn't matter how much speculation there is, prices will fall. Blaming investors is directing the anger at the wrong place. Blame regulations and building restrictions that prevent housing supply being built where people want it.
Re: Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would you ban?
No ban, just huge property taxes for non-primary residences.
Since institutional owners like this make up a tiny percentage of ownership, your solution would have a huge impact on small landlords, which would be passed along to the tenants.
Basically you're asking renters to pay for this behavior...
Re: Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like they have in Houston. So you get scenes like the ones in this article: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Wei...
Yes, and housing is massively more affordable than elsewhere. And there's less homelessness, because people can more easily afford homes. Not to say that it's necessarily a model to follow: there's a lot of sprawl involved. Just saying that "abundant housing has some real benefits".
> and housing is massively more affordable than elsewhere.
Compared to NYC and SF? Sure. Compared to everywhere else, no:
https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2020/06/23/rents-and-home-...
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/...
But then that's just saying you'll find more affordable housing in cities that people don't want to live in, which would then go along with your point.
> Not to say that it's necessarily a model to follow: there's a lot of sprawl involved. Just saying that "abundant housing has some real benefits".
I've heard it isn't a nice place, but I've never been before so can't judge.
Re: Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
#507Re: Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
This, this will be actual result. "Just add more taxes" === the renters pay that delta. Scale it per property === take the average of taxes / homes, pass it along to the renter. About the only way I can the cost not getting passed to the renter is for a "the government" to set the rental prices as if the home was under a rolling 30-year mortgage, taking into account PITI. Adding a property tax on top of that ONLY to…
Well, up until renters can't afford it. Raising property taxes on SFH rentals, but not apartments will make apartments more attractive. Sure, renting a house has advantages, but those advantages have a price, and how many renters are going to be willing to pay 40% more per square foot for a SFH over an apartment. At some point, even an expensive mortgage is a better deal. Apartments are great, we should incentivize a…
Apartments are great, unless you want a yard, a large family, to let your parents[-in-law] move in so you can take care of them, a large dog, more than two cats, more pets than the property owner has arbitrarily decided to allow, equity, a barbecue, frequent parties, or the ability to not have to pay rent or a mortgage someday. Buying apartments is not the norm, nor are ones large enough for a family with more than 1 or 2 kids.
Re: Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
People use all kinds of accounting tricks to convince themselves that some purchase or other makes financial sense. Trading in their perfectly good 2 year old car for a brand new one, buying on finance when they could buy a cheaper one outright. I'm sceptical that it ever pays off that way.
It's not an accounting trick; it's historically low rates. At the beginning of 2021 would you rather have paid 350k cash for a house or taken a 30 year mortgage and invested the remaining 80% (after a 20% down payment) into the sp500? Your house might be up around 10-25% depending on the market making your 20% stake worth more. and your 280k cost-basis that you invested would be worth 350k. You'd have already earned…
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Re: Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt
#510Former real estate finance professional, here. If you were hoping this was a sign of the real estate market falling and perhaps its your chance to get a bargain, think again. > The company is seeking roughly $2.8 billion for the houses, which are being pitched to institutional investors, according to people familiar with the matter. Institutional investors (Blackstone, Blackrock, Colony, et al) will be being in bulk,…
Every person or corporation that owns more than one residential dwelling should pay increased property taxes based on the number of residential dwellings they own. This is an easy problem to legislate away, our politicians are just too cowardly to decommodify housing.
This is an interesting idea! Some graduated tax rate for the number of dwellings + properties that way a second home or small time landlord can own say a dozen properties before the marginal taxes take too much of the marginal profits. What efficiencies are we giving up in this model?