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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

#921

Post by bombcar »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #531
rgmerk wrote: post #165

It will make very little difference in the end. Australia's land tax system makes it effectively impossible for large corporations to own large chunks of residential property, but our real estate is amongst the world's most expensive and landlords are still awful - it's just that the landlords are hundreds of thousands of dentists and, yes, software engineers rather than corporate entities. If you want housing to be…

Don't be a coward, and talk about demand for housing, which in Australia is driven by sustained mass migration. The inevitable outcome of this is increasing homelessness, and likely slums when homeless just start building themselves make shift shelter in such large numbers that authorities can't stamp down on it.

We're not supposed to notice that the best thing about migrants (especially the illegal ones!) is that you can cram them 10+ to a house in squalid living conditions that would be abhorrent to most.

It's a price we're willing to pay since we're not paying it.

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

#922

Post by bombcar »

richwater wrote: post #874
class3shock wrote: post #841

"Real estate investors, both individual and institutional, bought one-third of all single-family residential properties sold in the second quarter of 2025" https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/07/home-sales-investors-make-up... As long as we have this focus on using homes as investment and rent prices are kept high through collusion, the industry refusing to build "non-luxury" units, and regulation hurdles stopping new entra…

> the industry refusing to build "non-luxury" units This is a government policy failure. Because no one is allowed to build fast enough, there is always a demand for luxury (higher profit) and thus that is what gets built.

You have to completely satiate the demand for luxury housing before it becomes "desirable" to build new standard housing. In years past the "starter home" market has completely been reselling past housing, even what was lux at the time of building.

Why would you spend your time and effort building a house that earns you $50k when for the same time and effort you could build a house that earns you $150k?

You'd only do the first if the second wasn't available.

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

#923

Post by bombcar »

h14h wrote: post #916
ksec wrote: post #889

This is largely a good move. There are plenty of whales, once those 5% disappeared, price should slowly come down. ( The Hong Kong Housing market is the one worth studying ) Next would be increase supply, and may be if needed, additional tax for individuals owning more than one home or when they buy 2nd home. Largely making housing as an asset not attractive for certain group of investment. Housing continues to be th…

Given how inexorably tied the US economy is to SFH prices, a drop may do more harm than good. Many families have the majority of their wealth tied up in their home, and another significant portion of it (knowingly or not) in the SFH MBS market via their retirement investments. If prices fall quickly enough to impact the MBS market, a large number of households could suddenly see big dips their two biggest sources of…

You don't even need a drop; you just need prices to stay stable for a decade or so, and inflation will "drop" the real cost of new ownership.

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

#924

Post by bombcar »

john-h-k wrote: post #911
ksec wrote: post #889

This is largely a good move. There are plenty of whales, once those 5% disappeared, price should slowly come down. ( The Hong Kong Housing market is the one worth studying ) Next would be increase supply, and may be if needed, additional tax for individuals owning more than one home or when they buy 2nd home. Largely making housing as an asset not attractive for certain group of investment. Housing continues to be th…

> There are plenty of whales, once those 5% disappeared, price should slowly come down But by how much? ~3-4% of housing has to be sold, some amount of it will still be bought for renting (as many people still want to rent). Surely this can’t have a very big effect on house price

It could be substantial just by increasing the number of occupied dwelling units - if institutional investors are willing to let housing sit empty for 6 months or a year (because it doesn't hit them where it hurts) and the average vacancy rate in a city is hovering around 10%, dropping that down to 5% will really shake up prices.

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

#925

Post by bombcar »

pianopatrick wrote: post #601

I'd be fine with a policy of "you can rent housing you build" for American corporations. If a corporation thinks there is demand in some city, goes and build housing for that demand and then rents that housing, that is good for the world. Would be a better policy than letting corporations use their access to capital markets to outcompete individuals trying to buy a house.

Simply greatly reducing loans available to small investors for non-built rental properties would do that.

The key is increasing supply, and we should directly target that issue (or decrease demand, but people don't like that side).

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

#926

Post by john-h-k »

bombcar wrote: post #924
john-h-k wrote: post #911

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are plenty of whales, once those 5% disappeared, price should slowly come down But by how much? ~3-4% of housing has to be sold, some amount of it will still be bought for renting (as many people still want to rent). Surely this can’t have a very big effect on house price

It could be substantial just by increasing the number of occupied dwelling units - if institutional investors are willing to let housing sit empty for 6 months or a year (because it doesn't hit them where it hurts) and the average vacancy rate in a city is hovering around 10%, dropping that down to 5% will really shake up prices.

If mega institutions are financial extractors who will take all money available, and the units can be rented to make more money, why aren’t they doing it?

Why would the institution turn away free money but individuals owning the houses wouldn’t?

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

#927

Post by mmooss »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #868
mmooss wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> common practice of having a self-owned LLC owning your home. This is common for the purposes of keeping your personal name out of public records I have a hard time believing lots of people care to do that - not many take steps for privacy - or have the resources or time to setup an LLC.

People who have been stalked or are uncomfortable having their details published for the world to find need privacy. Privacy mechanisms aren't just what applies to your or my perspectives, there are millions of other situations. For example, most counties in Texas identify the full legal name(s), phone number(s), and mailing address(es) of every single property owner and their tax payment amount and status. That'd ge…

I agree, but most people don't.

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

#928

Post by JoshTriplett »

Y_Y wrote: post #839
JoshTriplett wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe just stop telling people what cases are "legitimate" reasons to protect themselves and what cases aren't. I know multiple people who have gotten death threats because of technical comments they made online, or just for having the temerity to exist as a member of a minority group. Not the vague "I'm going to kill you" kind, the "here's a picture of your front door on Google Street View, and an unsolicited piz…

I don't feel like the solution to this is having victims set up LLCs.

It isn't, but that's the best solution that is currently available to people.

A better solution would be to stop putting people's addresses in public records, and eliminating data brokers that expose name/address correlations.

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

#930

Post by credit_guy »

petcat wrote: post #886
credit_guy wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you stand on encryption? Do you feel like the "I have nothing to hide" argument has any merit? If you think people have the right to privacy, why should real estate be an exception? I personally find the fact that real estate ownership is public in the US to be quite bizarre.

Property is a physical thing in the real world that has been here long before anyone "owned it", and will be here long after all the "owners" are gone. The public, i.e. the people on this planet, have a right to know who is claiming to own which part of the grass and soil that we all share.

They have the right to know that, but why should they know the transaction price?
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