If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pension fund • Hacker News Board

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

#741

Post by svachalek » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #710

nostrademons wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of this is changing - I've heard that Redfin agents (who are employees - they don't split commissions the way other brokerages do) get paid a bonus structure that's tiered based on list price. So at the time they show you the house, the bonus they get if you buy it is already set, regardless what you pay for it. They still do have an incentive to show you more expensive homes, but they don't have an incentive to…

See, I used to think that maybe with the different compensation structure, Redfin agents' interested might end up being more in line with the buyers. I ended up working with one, and realized that is absolutely not the case. First, yes, Redfin agents don't get commissions the way traditional real estates agents get commissions. However, Redfin agents do still want to close as many deals as possible. Also, while real…

Yes, I have seen this too. It works against sellers too, in a cooler market; they are more incentivized to close quickly than to find the best price. Considering it's relatively trivial to list and find just about any kind of good these days, I just don't see the added value that agents bring to either side being worth much at all.

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

#742

Post by sagarm » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #518

sagarm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it a joke? Your property value went up significantly, you are in fact a winner. Why should you get to shirk your responsibility to your community?

re-pasting from an earlier comment of mine: I say it is unjust for a fixed income senior citizen or disability insurance recipient to have their property tax base grow to a point where they must flee their home of decades. The callus answer is to force the person to sell and take their gains and move so a younger person with higher wages can afford their once-home. I think it is unjust to remove an older, less abled,…

They could take an loan against the unrealized gain on their asset if they'd like to continue living there. If they'd rather sell and keep the cash, that's their choice. Letting them both keep the windfall and shortchange their community doesn't make sense.

In addition, California (and I suspect other states) have a means tested property tax postponement program that allows low income homeowners to defer taxes until they move out, sell, refinance, or die as a substitute for obtaining a private loan.

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

#743

Post by svachalek » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

nopeNopeNooope wrote: post #583

ta1234567890 wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, at least in California, realtors will always push prices up. It’s pretty much never in their best interest to lower the price. Even the buyer’s agent gets paid a percentage of the sale price, so if they try to lower it they’d be essentially working against themselves. And this is without even accounting for all the schemes realtors create (like listing below market to get a lot of offers and create artificially…

That sounds insightful, but there's no point in screwing a buyer for a tiny today payday. Those agents work on volume, so if you think they're pushing you to not get the lowest price, it's so they can close the deal, not because their incentives aren't aligned with yours. If they're telling you to offer more, it's because they have better knowledge of the market and the game than you. They're banking on many commissi…

The fact that they're focused on volume is exactly why their incentives are not aligned with yours.

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

#744

Post by lelanthran » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #482

brightball wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just experienced something similar to this and it makes me wonder if much of this is just perception. We recently dealt with an out of state builder pushing to have a property that was zoned Neighborhood Commercial to be rezoned to something more flexible so that he could build 49 town homes with 49 parking spots on 5 acres of land. Everybody opposed the rezoning and fought to defeat it. The project would have been…

I had to laugh at “the most dense development”. 400sqm is absolute luxury in Europe, and plenty of space for a massive detached house with a garden and garage. A house on the high end here sits on less than 150m2 (northern europe).

> 400sqm is absolute luxury in Europe, and plenty of space for a massive detached house with a garden and garage. A house on the high end here sits on less than 150m2 (northern europe).

Just how "massive" can that house be with a garden (say, 35sqm) and a garage (36sqm)? You can probably build a fine house in the remaining 330sqm, no doubt, but I'd hardly call it "massive". Maybe "generous".

OTOH, it might be a point-of-view problem: I'm in South Africa, with a 700sqm building on a 2000sqm plot, in a nice area near the train/bus stop, near all amenities.

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

#745

Post by FireBeyond » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

Justsignedup wrote: post #461

JamesBarney wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. If you believe that no town homes should be built in the U.S. than you might not qualify as NIMBY. But if you believe that town homes shouldn't be built next to you that's the definition of NIMBY. Of course every instance has a long list of reasons why next to them is especially bad, character of the neighborhood, parking issues, infrastructure, etc.... But the end result of everyone fighting increased density i…

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…

> 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".

Not even. Near here, there was a proposal from the city to increase middle-density housing.

They hired economic forecasters. Their projection, that property values would "decrease" from 13% YOY increases (we are in one of the highest increasing cities in the country) to 9% YOY.

In other words, you'd still see your home value _increasing_ 53% in five years (versus 84%), not decreasing...

... and people still acted like the city wanted to shoot their first-born in the streets.

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

#746

Post by 1123581321 » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

bityard wrote: post #145

A.k.a. The Carvana model. This is what Carvana and other "no-haggle, no-test-drive" startups are doing with the whole used car market in many areas. They aggresively buy up all the used cars in an area (or at least as many as they can) from dealerships and private sellers in order to make themselves the only entity with used cars for sale. Which they happen to be selling at 20% above true market value. But hey, you c…

I shop for used vehicles fairly regularly and don’t see evidence of this. Prices are high right now but not because any one entity has a lot of inventory. Keep in mind that a healthy market for used cars encourages more owners to sell and get something new. Local and regional markets can only become tight to an extent because cars and buyers move around the country when it makes financial sense.

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

#747

Post by sagarm » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #319

sagarm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Towns normally set the property tax rate to meet their budget, so appraisals increasing across the board would not increase you property taxes. Prop 13 leads to perverse outcomes like subsidizing slums and trust fund kids while penalizing new homeowners and people improving their property. It's also simply unjust for two neighbors with similar properties to pay different rates based on their age or even ancestry.

I say it is unjust for a fixed income senior citizen or disability insurance recipient to have their property tax base grow to a point where they must flee their home of decades. The callus answer is to force the person to sell and take their gains and move so a younger person with higher wages can afford their once-home. I think it is unjust to remove an older, less abled, and less employment-opportunitied person fr…

I replied elsewhere: nobody is having to flee anything. If they would rather sell and keep gains rather than spend them to continue living there, that's their choice.

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

#748

Post by oh_sigh » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

kaibee wrote: post #388

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 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 to live here. Why would you be forced out? Yes, taxes on the underlying land would increase because it is more valuable, but you would be able to move into a new property in t…

So I would need to sell the 2 BR single family home I've lived in for 30 years, and move to some other part of town to live in a 1BR apartment, because someone from some other part of the country can pay more in tax for the property I've lived on?

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

#749

Post by s17n » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:10 PM UTC

plank_time wrote: post #209

seanp2k2 wrote: post #170

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. Two people can be living in houses next to each other valued around 1.5m, and one of them will be paying 1/10th the tax. If anyone wants to buy a house, they have to first be able to afford the property, so the barriers to entry are so much higher for t…

You’re saying that old people should be driven out of their houses because younger, richer people deserve to live in their houses. I’m sure your feelings will change as you get older.

Except that prop 13 tax rates can be inherited.

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

#750

Post by masklinn » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #682

p_l wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan not so much scrapped various regulations as their regulations are just different - and nationwide. One of the effects of how their zoning classes work is that you don't have "residential-only" zones with no shops or other amenities - instead you have zones defined along the lines of maximum nuisance and with overlapping uses. You have a total of 12 zones, which start from "exclusively low rise residential" that…

Every now and then I watch one of these Japanese "video walk" channels on YouTube and find myself despairing at how wildly better their land use is than in the US. Obviously some of that is to be expected of an island nation versus a continent-spanning one. And yet, so much of Tokyo seems like it's built at the scale of a small-town main street: Between the major roads with their skyscrapers sit networks of pedestria…

> Obviously some of that is to be expected of an island nation versus a continent-spanning one.

It has little to do with "island nation", most nations use mixed zoning, it's certainly the standard in europe (and recent developments are gravitating towards more mixed zoning e.g. Amsterdam's eastern docklands). It could have to do with being an old nation, but even then that's not actually true, the US existed for a while before cars happened.