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by trident5000 1797 days ago
Theres no supply because investors are hoarding them. Blackrock is buying out entire neighborhoods and thats really the tip of the iceberg compared to airbnb listings.
7 comments

I would like to see a strict occupancy tax, or ban the amount of real estate a company/person can own.

Oh yea, require all real estate purchases to be American, or have legitimate relitaves residing here. We are selling our land with an to anyone in the world with money. I don't know of any country that makes it so easy for the wealthy to buy land.

I would love to know which countries allow real estate purchases like we do?

(I am against regulations, and more laws, but only for the little guys. Regulate big corporations like Blackrock, Facebook, Google. Regulate the big boys, so the little guys can begin to get ahead. Yes-I conflated two different industries.)

>I would love to know which countries allow real estate purchases like we do?

Both the UK and Canada for sure. I think Canada is considering a foreign buyers tax but I don’t think it has been implemented yet. In the UK, property taxes don’t even exist - only council taxes paid for by the occupant which makes leasing much easier.

What you propose wouldn’t do anything but cause unforeseen problems. Blackrock has bought a few thousand homes; it has no significant impact. But - big companies build housing and sell it; you’d probably screw major homebuilders and limit new supply, making the problem worse.
If you look at the data on home ownership rates[0], which is the percent of homes owned by their occupant, the number did take a big drop after spiking up due to the pandemic, but still remains higher than it has for most of US history since the 1960s.

I've seen this black rock conspiracy posted elsewhere, and while it makes for a compelling dystopian narrative that large corporations are secretly buying all our homes to lease back to us, the reality is just not true.

People are leaving expensive urban housing in droves and competing for what seem like relatively cheap houses to them, so they are comfortable bidding wildly (I know many, many real people in this situation). I'm sure Black Rock wants in on the action, but until that rate falls dramatically lower, I'm not particularly convinced that that's what's happening.

0. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

Why can’t we create enough supply that it’s not worth investors hoarding?
Because space in desirable areas is finite? Because the creation of that proximate supply does reduce the desirability of those areas, not merely in terms of the upper class but the middle and--eventually, given a far enough point on the curve--the lower classes too? Because ruining things for everyone because of the investor class is antithetical to a humane society?

(Which is to say that there is absolutely an argument for increased supply, but rather that the interests of the REIT-helming class are not congruent with the interests of the people who live there, and thus can either come congruent or be ignored.)

Because we let people tell their neighbors they can’t build more housing, an action that used to be unconstitutional. Now it is, based on one openly racist court case from a hundred years ago.
Because theres not enough land and investors have more money than you. As an investment the average american will always be priced out.

Its priced to hit your maximum threshold on monthly wages expendable to rent with minimal savings.

Most cities have plenty of land but it is zoned exlusively for low density single family houses.
Because theres not enough land

There actually is enough land if you look outward from major cities, but billionaire investors already own that, too.

Look up how much they are actually buy it's nothing. Institutional investors don't even own a million home. Blaming some far off wallstreet fund instead of acknowledging the failed local policies is completely misdirected.

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/blackrock-buying...

> Tenants are overmatched, outgunned, and alone as they try to battle faceless absentee owners
There are airbnb investors as well, people buying properties in order to rent them out.
The causality goes the other way:

Because housing is not being built, existing houses are sure to increase in price, and so become a good investment for rich people.

You can't just do this with goods that are still being made.

No, there's no supply because local governments are permitting historically low rates of new development.