[NuSkooler]

This feels like attacking a symptom, not the cause. Housing and real estate across the board have been bought up by private corporations -- including housing that they then turn around and Airbnb. This has plagued the housing market in general, and of course, Airbnb.

Airbnb itself is/was still great when you can find a private owner leasing out their extra/summer/whatever home.

[davidw]

This 'institutional investors' thing is a symptom, not a cause:

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2024/2/21-going-after-co...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/housing-cr...

[carlosjobim]

Why is it bad when corporations do it, but not bad when individuals do it? Both ways means there is a young person from the community not being able to find a humble place to buy or rent.

[davidw]

People want a far-off bogeyman rather than to look deeper at causes and solutions.

[NuSkooler]

Totally agree that individuals buying houses just for the sake of renting them out is also a problem. Renting out your legitimate 2nd home, I don't have a problem with.

[ryandrake]

What is the difference between a "legitimate" 2nd home that you are renting and one you bought for the sake of renting?

[stainablesteel]

yeah, i don't want to sound like a communist but there really is something wrong with allowing corporate and foreign investments to flood local housing markets. individuals and families can't compete with them and their continued competition makes that even worse. plus downstream its affecting the birthrate, people want to have families.

[lukas099]

I think it's more of a symptom than a problem itself. It's too difficult for mom & pop developers to build things anymore, but the large companies have the resources and scale to do it. And investors know that localities are intent on making housing a good investment, so they invest in it.

[stainablesteel]

im not sure what you're saying, it sounds like you're referring to the building process rather than the buying process

[lukas099]

Both actually.

[NuSkooler]

Exactly

[NuSkooler]

This effects small businesses as well: These large mega corps buy up huge chunks of land and plan the entire thing from housing (which of course comes with their tight and pretty unregulated HSA) as well as slots pre-planned for particular businesses.

Here in Utah you can drive across the entire Wasatch valley and see a repeat "stamp" of this crap every 10 miles.

[davidw]

Is it zoned for anything but large swathes of housing? Is it legal to build corner stores or is it impossible for those places to adapt once they've been built?

https://www.neighborhoodworkshop.org/blog-posts/as-post-covi...