Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

731–740 of 1001 posts

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#731

Post by richiebful1 »

ipaddr wrote: post #679
vladgur wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if that development was walking distance to transit? I live in SF Bayarea suburb in a SFH with a wife and a elementary school aged kid. We have 1 car that is parked in our driveway(on our property). For everything else there is a commuter train within 10-15minute walk and uber within reach. Limited parking does incentivize non-car-oriented lifestyle. Im all for it.

I'm all in for subways everywhere but do you feel as comfortable getting in a rush hour car after covid? I'm starting to think subways and megacities might not be the safest way to live.

I feel perfectly safe using public transit. 36,120 people died in traffic in 2019 in the United States. When there isn't a pandemic going on and I'm getting the annual flu vaccine, I feel pretty darn safe compared to driving

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#732

Post by adventured »

viscanti wrote: post #707
Drunk_Engineer wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California and NYC have a declining population.

If you cherry pick data during COVID that's true. But it was the first year since 1900 with any decline and state forecasters say it's more to do with over 50,000 COVID related deaths and less migration from other countries (the largest source of population growth for CA for many years now) because other countries were locked down. As far as I know, no one expect that decline to be anything more than a very temporary…

California's population expansion clearly hit a wall back in 2017-2018, pre-pandemic. 2019 saw their population expansion de facto stop. The rate of growth has been dropping rapidly toward zero for much of the past decade, and they reached that line before the pandemic hit, it's not a new trend due to Covid.

This decade it'll go negative. The exodus - a desperate flight from California's particularly horrible governments and epic mismanagement - will get worse yet, not better.

Fewer people want to live in California and it's very obvious why.

2010 to 2020, California saw a 6% population expansion. The slowest decade of population growth in a century for the state. Year to year, it went from very slow growth at the beginning, to zero by the end. Next is a contraction.

Texas by contrast saw 16% expansion in that time. It's booming and it's also very obvious why.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#734

Post by oh_sigh »

_greim_ wrote: post #578
oh_sigh wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never appealing to make a long time member of a community leave because they can no longer afford the land they've owned for years, because other people say "I want that" I move to a cheap, small town. I embed myself in the community and help build it up over decades. And then, at the peak popularity, in part due to my presence, I am forced out, because someone who has never been here says that they would like t…

I guess I'm confused; how is this not a description of the current system? How are LVTs supposed to make this kind of thing worse?

It may be in some areas, not in others - depending on how their tax system works. Prop 13(which has massive flaws and abuses) in CA is an example, as well as states which just generally have low property tax rates because they derive their revenue from other sources like income tax.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#735

Post by NegativeLatency »

epistasis wrote: post #552
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you're someone who thinks building stack-and-pack residences is the incorrect response for an investor-manufactured housing shortage?

I think if you are using derisive terms like "stack and pack" for apartments then you are probably precisely the investor that is manufacturing the housing crisis. Apartments create greater affordability, they allow for designing cities with lower carbon impact than single-unit homes, they allow better community, more connections, cradle-to-grave living, they allow people to survive without having to get in a car to…

Your points are true, and I’m in favor of building more housing, however the single family home has traditionally been a financial boon for lots of Americans, and having to pay for rent every month vs keeping some of that value in your mortgage is hard to discount.

I guess I’m just saying there should be cheap smaller houses and condos in cities too, not just rental places.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#736

Post by mixmastamyk »

zamfi wrote: post #721
davidw wrote: post #125

Here's why investors buy up houses: they know your neighbors will do the dirty work of artificially constraining the housing supply, which makes it a good investment. Here's one who comes right out and explains this: > Meanwhile, local opposition to building is so commonplace and the approval process so cumbersome, time consuming, and expensive, even when a proposed project complies entirely with requirements, approv…

> they know your neighbors will do the dirty work of artificially constraining the housing supply, which makes it a good investment ...until your neighbors are all renters, at which point the tide turns?

A lot of renters are nimbys as well, due to misconceptions, or other factors such as rent-control affecting their outlook.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#738

Post by [deleted] »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #673
SavantIdiot wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then your thoughts are incorrect. Portland, Ore. is facing a huge housing crisis because single-home zoning prevented increasing density. Without the ability to create more housing on existing land, there is a shortage. It's that simple. They recently passed a law allowing more dense developments, and that will create more supply. There are currently 10 apartment projects in flight in the city, so there is no cabal c…

Yes, I’m familiar with that narrative. Perhaps it is reality in _Portland_and_handful_of_other_places. In that case, you’re actually specifying the different case of solving a real housing shortage, not a manufactured shortage. I routinely take 3-mile walks through my neighborhood in NE Los Angeles. There are at least two homes on each block that are unoccupied. The nearby stack and pack developments don’t offset the…

[deleted]

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#739

Post by jdhn »

Retric wrote: post #478
Justsignedup wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that density means more people, more homes, more availability. That means more jobs open up and makes the place more lively. More desireable. That means the house property value will go up. They are thinking "will this make the property value go down in the next 5 years"? vs "will this make the property value skyrocket in the next 10 years". We are catering to short-term gains at the expense of long-term…

That’s only true up to a tipping point when poor people move in. Parts of Detroit are a great example where poor people are diving down the value of houses around them. People essentially want to be surrounded by people of almost exactly their economic class to somewhat richer. To rich and stores they can’t afford to stay ie gentrification, to poor and you have to move ie white flight.

Honestly, Detroit had nowhere to go but up. The city was so poor that even a decade ago downtown was a hot mess where there was virtually nobody there after 6 PM.

Re: If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund

#740

Post by tick_tock_tick »

offsky wrote: post #691
dragonwriter wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve ranted about this before but CA Prop 13 not only makes housing a good investment, but one that you’re extremely incentivized to hold onto forever and never move. Not “never move”, just never sell . When you are ready and able to upgrade to a new home, you convert the existing one to a rental property with rents to cover costs with a suitable risk premium (but don’t worry about additional profit), and then bene…

This assumes that you don't need the equity in the first house to get the mortgage on the second house.

No, the price has gone up so much you remortgage and get cash out to buy the next place.
Post reply on HN