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

891–900 of 1001 posts

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

#891

Post by lmm »

kelp wrote: post #864
masklinn wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wh…

In the US, we invented zoning, mostly to exclude black people from white neighborhoods. And now we use it to prop up property values and continue to keep poor people out of wealthy neighborhoods. Now I'm speculating, but I wonder if Japan, being mostly Japanese people, didn't have such a large group to exclude from certain neighborhoods? So they didn't entrench the institution of local control and exclusionary zoning…

Japan traditionally had a caste system where certain people were restricted to certain neighbourhoods. There was a lot of official effort to break that up after the war, but you can still tell which neighbourhoods are which.

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

#892

Post by squiggleblaz »

srj wrote: post #837
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…

Consider that: - Most American households own their home. - Homeowners vote at substantially higher rates than renters. - Home equity is one of the largest components of American wealth (roughly equal with retirement accounts). Taken together it's difficult to see how home values will be allowed to fall.

> Taken together it's difficult to see how home values will be allowed to fall.

If you allow increased density, and you use it to provide actually valuable homes (rather than studio/one/two bed apartments or the like mostly intended as a store of wealth), then land value can go up while unit value goes down.

This means people joining the market can buy for a couple of years salary, while people already in the market can exit and downsize for a decade's salary.

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

#893

Post by lmm »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #865
masklinn wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so supply > demand Nope. Japan has a declining population, but the population keeps urbanising. So while there's hefty supply (literally millions of unoccupied housing inventory) in places nobody wants to live in, there is not in places where people are moving to (large cities). There's very regularly news and posts about unoccupied houses ("akiya") being literally given away by government and local authorities bec…

>>>Some prefectures are nearing 20% vacancy rates, but they're places like… well basically all of Shikoku which is largely mountainous and rural, and has been bleeding population at a rate of 5%/decade since 2000. That's crazy to me, Tokushima in Shikoku was on my short list of "ideal relocation spots". With just a few hours of scenic driving, you can be in Kochi, Takamatsu, Matsuyama, Okayama, or Wakayama. All with…

The parts of Shikoku that are right next to bridges to not-Shikoku are doing alright. But even then, it's hard to make a case for Tokushima over an equivalent place across the water (I guess Himeji?).

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

#894

Post by TedShiller »

People who think that building more housing will lower rents don't understand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

It will not bring rents down. Rents in the Bay Area, for example, will NEVER be "reasonable". Building more housing will only turn the Bay Area into LA, or NYC.

Try living in any place with high density, it's still expensive.

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

#895

Post by nibles_and_bits »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #810
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…

I've been trying to build a house for myself. Going through all the hoops is not only cumbersome and expensive - but nearly impossible. I've run into legal tiff's between the county and nearby city. The city wants me to pay $40,000 for a sewer hookup for a single family dwelling when the sewer line is literally right along the road in front of where we will build the house. This is because the city has a beef to pick…

Why did you buy a lot zoned ag when you clearly wanted one zoned residential? A little due diligence before purchasing the lot and you would either know what you in for and still buy or decide it's too much of a hassle and walk.

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

#896

Post by d110af5ccf »

sjg007 wrote: post #889
d110af5ccf wrote: post #886

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been able to wrap my head around why things work like this. If what you build isn't a nuisance to neighbors, houses the same number of people as before, and doesn't pose a safety or environmental hazard, what business is it of anyone else? I've met a significant number of otherwise carefully law abiding people with various non-permitted remodels and even outbuildings. (I guess the latter won't work so well…

Building codes are written in blood.

I assume you're referring to the safety and environmental aspects that motivate them? Which (to reiterate from above) I recognize the importance of. The trouble is all the things that run afoul of local zoning rules (and sometimes even local code!) for no obvious reason other than "that's what it says".

The refusal to issue a septic permit noted in a nearby comment is a prime example. Such things should be "will issue" so long as they won't cause any health or environmental problems in that location.

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

#897

Post by rch »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #892
srj wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that: - Most American households own their home. - Homeowners vote at substantially higher rates than renters. - Home equity is one of the largest components of American wealth (roughly equal with retirement accounts). Taken together it's difficult to see how home values will be allowed to fall.

> Taken together it's difficult to see how home values will be allowed to fall. If you allow increased density, and you use it to provide actually valuable homes (rather than studio/one/two bed apartments or the like mostly intended as a store of wealth), then land value can go up while unit value goes down. This means people joining the market can buy for a couple of years salary, while people already in the market…

I would very much like this to be true. Do you have a citable source?

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

#898

Post by SavantIdiot »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #874
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…

Portland has an Urban Growth Boundary [1] that makes it very difficult (de-facto illegal) to build new housing on undeveloped land. That is a major cause of the housing shortage, but it was passed by people like you who wanted it to artificially densify the city. Current homeowners who want to maximize their house's value would be in favor of keeping the urban growth boundary (it restricts the supply of houses) and e…

That's great. I really appreciate the growth boundary. It is one of the reasons I like Portland. That's not at all what I'm referring to. In fact, my position, is that removing the single-family zoning restriction is a good thing. That works against sprawl.

> people like you

I think you may have been triggered by poor reading comprehension and gone off in a fit of ignorant rage and assumed I thought sprawl was a good thing.

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

#899

Post by abeppu »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #540
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…

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…

> 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.

Yeah, I really wish we normalized fee-for-service for buyer's agents. Agree on a fair hourly rate for their time, plus some constant fee for actually closing. The agent can have more consistent income over time, and the buyer can know that the agent's incentives are not misaligned. Buyers at the lower end of the market also don't get lesser attention.

But I think because we have normalized the commission structure, there's now also a bias effect, where the agents who are most willing to agree to a fee-for-service arrangement are the agents who are least successful/satisfied under the commission model.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/business/real-estate-fee-...

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

#900

Post by selimthegrim »

Spooky23 wrote: post #104
artificialLimbs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arkansas has a petition going around right now to axe property taxes completely. I believe other states do not have property taxes already as well.

It's a popular notion for the redneck crowd. It never happens because it the math just doesn't work out. State/local revenues boil down to: property taxes, sales/use taxes, excise taxes, fees and income taxes. The big revenue streams are property taxes (schools, towns), sales taxes (county/state), and income taxes (state). Fees mostly sustain individual programs and have limited revenue potential - you can't make a f…

See also, parts of Southern Oregon which went ahead and did this anyway since all the logging companies were already gone.
Post reply on HN