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

reuters.com

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

#681

Post by pixelatedindex »

nerdponx wrote: post #614
pixelatedindex wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMO it's a crooked notion that landlords are rent seeking and nothing else - they do create supply and maintain housing. They don’t create supply in any way, the only ones who do that are builders. But sure they maintain houses. Although just the bare minimum, they will never fix it nicely - just enough to rent it out.

The actual value of landlording is offloading financial risk. The tenant pays a stable rent including a premium in exchange for maintenance, repairs, and not having to sell a home in order to move to a new one. I just can't bring myself to agree with the hard-line socialists who think landlording is fundamentally a bad thing. There are a lot of problems with it, but it does have a legitimate place in the world.

I don’t think it’s fundamentally a bad thing. It has its place. But it’s an industry that’s easily exploited - I rented over a dozen places and like 80% would try to do things that the tenant handbook would not allow. I sued one of them, and settled out of court for another. And surprise surprise a lot of them don’t want to rent in areas that are pro-tenant rights.

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

#682

Post by rascul »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #589
jazzyjackson wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically a maximum wage for landlords, bound to start a secret society. IMO it's a crooked notion that landlords are rent seeking and nothing else - they do create supply and maintain housing. Issue is when they want to politically and artificially raise the value of their property by preventing more housing from being built, so, if you're going to ban something, ban artificial regulations on construction! N…

> IMO it's a crooked notion that landlords are rent seeking and nothing else - they do create supply and maintain housing. They don’t create supply in any way, the only ones who do that are builders. But sure they maintain houses. Although just the bare minimum, they will never fix it nicely - just enough to rent it out.

> But sure they maintain houses. Although just the bare minimum, they will never fix it nicely - just enough to rent it out.

Depends a lot on the landlord. Many will fix it up nicely because they can charge a higher rent. Much of my work is repairing rental properties and I've seen all types of landlords. I try not to work for the cheap ones if I can help it because I don't want my name associated with the crap they want me to do.

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

#683

Post by kelnos »

brightball wrote: post #617
tptacek wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're telling a just-so story, and you can tell because there isn't a simple schematic 1-2-3 story you can make from this about how these people exert control over home prices. Words mean things; wielding scarcity requires you to control enough inventory to manipulate scarcity, and REITs and corporate buyers empirically don't. I get why people like telling stories like this: it suggests there's a single boogeyman th…

About 2 miles from my house, a housing development recently went up. No homes for sale. Rent only. Stuff like that is becoming a big problem.

I don't think you can say that universally. Some people prefer to rent instead of own. Some people would like to own, but would probably still only be afford to rent even if home prices were more affordable.

Sure, you can absolutely make the argument that for some specific region there are too many rental properties and not enough owner-occupied properties, by looking at the supply, demand, and pricing for each type in that region.

But you absolutely can't say that as a general statement. There is demand for both sorts of housing.

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

#684

Post by spiritplumber »

indymike wrote: post #327
nospice wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Corporations" is meaningless in this context. If you want to own a rental home in the US, you should set up an LLC, both for liability reasons and because it makes it easier to deal with taxes and expenses. In the parts of the country I lived in, I've never seen big corporations own single-family rentals en masse. They usually go for apartment complexes, which are far more profitable if you have the capital to buy /…

> e never seen big corporations own single-family rentals en masse. I just sold a house to a big corporation that owns about 12,000 homes. There's a whole industry for enabling these buys, opendoor, offerpad, etc... It's usually a wash selling your home as is to a wholesale deal vs. prepping your home and selling it, the difference being done about 60-90 days faster than via retail. The company I sold to already owne…

no offence but this kind of makes you part of the problem

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

#686

Post by reactordev »

Aurornis wrote: post #515
potato3732842 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single and few number family residential and owner stuff gets all sorts of exemptions in just about every town's zoning code because if not the townsfolk would revolt. This is why everyone on the internet screeches "well I put up a deck and it wasn't so hard". Try and do a new build of literally any structure and get back to me. Or worse, a construction type that is not the regional default for whatever it is you're…

I've worked in new construction previously. It's so much easier than the renovation work I'm doing. > Try and do a new build of literally any structure and get back to me. Or worse, a construction type that is not the regional default for whatever it is you're doing. Please don't be so condescending. I'm talking about my experience with home building in a thread about building homes. I'm sorry you had a bad experienc…

Old home renovations are expensive because of these stupid codes. You have to bring a house up to code in many cases which increases the costs. You’re right that home renovations are more costly.

For new homes it’s easier just to start “at code” and go from there. However, there are places that have strict building codes on the type of lumber you use for the roof, the frame, interior walls, exterior, etc. Lumber yards who sell this in bulk know this and charge a dozen percentages more for it.

For example, in Virginia, lumber has to be graded for use for certain applications. If you happen to mill your own boards, your SOL. You’ll never be to code. The only way is to grease an inspector.

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

#687

Post by crooked-v »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #435
m4ck_ wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've dealt with both; anecdotal but I had a much better experience with the individual landlord than corporate. Ex: AC went out in both cases; Individual land lord showed up with a replacement window unit the next day after I reported it. Corpo landleech ignored my ticket and calls for 3 days while I slept in a house that was nearly 90F inside past midnight. Corpo landleeches nickle and dime you (base rent + rent pay…

The two times I’ve stayed in an apartment complex, they had staff onsite and repairmen and someone on call. The individual landlord doing this on the side is likely undercapitalized and operating on thin margins and not budgeting for repairs

The difference here comes from the distinction between corporate landlords that actually want a sustainable business, and corporate landlords that know they will never make the money back for either rent control or market reasons and so only care about extracting as much money as possible before the building falls apart.

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

#688

Post by QuarterReptile »

pepperball wrote: post #376
jazzyjackson wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically a maximum wage for landlords, bound to start a secret society. IMO it's a crooked notion that landlords are rent seeking and nothing else - they do create supply and maintain housing. Issue is when they want to politically and artificially raise the value of their property by preventing more housing from being built, so, if you're going to ban something, ban artificial regulations on construction! N…

[flagged]

If you would like, I'll explain why you should care and value starter homes.

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

#689

Post by crooked-v »

alecco wrote: post #215

More like the housing bubble peaked and with this fund managers have a way to save face while fleecing investors.

There's no bubble, there's a massive housing shortage. The only "peak" will be when prices are so high that even the rich can't pay any more, which point it'll just stay there.

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

#690

Post by tptacek »

rambojohnson wrote: post #677
tptacek wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're telling a just-so story, and you can tell because there isn't a simple schematic 1-2-3 story you can make from this about how these people exert control over home prices. Words mean things; wielding scarcity requires you to control enough inventory to manipulate scarcity, and REITs and corporate buyers empirically don't. I get why people like telling stories like this: it suggests there's a single boogeyman th…

you’re treating narrative completeness as a prerequisite for legitimacy. that makes any systemic issue unfalsifiable unless someone can account for every market, municipality, and incentive simultaneously. this is an impossible burden of proof. requiring a perfectly schematic, end-to-end causal story before acknowledging harm is a convenient way to dismiss any structural concern. pointing out that housing markets are…

I'm treating narrative coherence as a requirement, not completeness.
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