How is the US economy right now?

[Fedorgasm]

There's poor and then there's homeless.

The government will help you get housing if you can't afford it, but nobody helps you get a car. So I consider car ownership a decent gauge to how poor someone is.

Excluding New Yorkers of course, where nobody owns a car because there's too much traffic <45>

 

[Islam Imamate]

Again that's a bit of an oversimplification though. 'Mom and pop' home owners for the most part don't work together and therefore can't really influence the market. Mom and pop places also wont collude together to block new housing development. While some of them may vote that way out of self interest, I'm sure their are plenty that don't consider it or even more likely, don't vote at all. The other problem is the sheer volume of sales that have gone to corporate investors. I think I read somewhere that since the COVID boom its been around 20% of homes sold that have gone to large investors. Just think about what that has done to the cost of housing if they are buying up 1/5th of available housing during a period of high demand.

I haven't researched this enough, but it also seems like a lot of their purchases are buying up large swaths of the same area. That's going to give them local monopoly like powers in the future. So like I said the housing thing is a problem I don't fully understand and I don't know what direction this is going to take in the future, but I know there are some serious problems that are going to lead to either a bubble burst or a long term price hike in housing that is going to turn home buyers into virtual indentured servants.

One thing I think that is interesting and maybe an uncorrelated parallel but hauntingly similar is that the collapse of the Roman Republic began in large part due to wealthy nobles gobbling up all the land and then holding a monopoly over all the other classes. Julius Ceaser's agenda to break up those monopolies (which of course weren't called that at the time) was one of the things that garnered him a lot of support over the Senate.

Do you have any sources for any of these claims? I just cited something that showed you that large investors are a fraction of the market. The biggest obstacle to more housing are not corporations but NIMBYs. Everyone wants a corporate villain to point to but there isn't one here, its average homeowners who block housing at the local level through a variety of means and its largely because of this that we have a housing shortage. Nothing to do with the fall of Rome, just cut the red tape and bypass neighborhood busybodies so we can build housing for G-d's sake.

 

[Sinister]

Do you have any sources for any of these claims? I just cited something that showed you that large investors are a fraction of the market. The biggest obstacle to more housing are not corporations but NIMBYs. Everyone wants a corporate villain to point to but there isn't one here, its average homeowners who block housing at the local level through a variety of means and its largely because of this that we have a housing shortage. Nothing to do with the fall of Rome, just cut the red tape and bypass neighborhood busybodies so we can build housing for G-d's sake.

I dont think JUST NIMBY's. Yes they suck @ss but there is also a problem of corporations buying whole neighborhoods. This is just in my City:

Why does Wall Street want to buy your house?

Las Vegas Realtors are concerned about Wall Street hedge funds and investors buying homes en masse.

www.reviewjournal.com

 

[Wetarmpits]

Dont you listen to conservatives? Poor people dont deserve the luxury of $3 Pringles

Bootstraps ya serf

No one really should “deserve” any kind of Pringles.

 

[Sinister]

Good enough Trump hopes it crashes so he can blame Biden:

Trump says he hopes economy crashes in next 12 months: ‘I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover’

Former President Trump said in an interview that aired Monday that he predicts the U.S. economy will crash and that he hopes it does so within the next year. In the interview with Lou Dobbs, Trump,…

thehill.com

 

[no fat chicks]

Really good for the Uber rich.

 

[7even]

I don’t known where you Americans live in the U.S. with you guys thinking that poverty is having a cheap apartment. I guess you all live the suburbs.

Here in Manhattan there a fuck ton of actual homeless people living on the streets and smelling like absolute shit and piss. I almost barf when one walked in a buffet.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Do you have any sources for any of these claims? I just cited something that showed you that large investors are a fraction of the market. The biggest obstacle to more housing are not corporations but NIMBYs. Everyone wants a corporate villain to point to but there isn't one here, its average homeowners who block housing at the local level through a variety of means and its largely because of this that we have a housing shortage. Nothing to do with the fall of Rome, just cut the red tape and bypass neighborhood busybodies so we can build housing for G-d's sake.

I don’t think you’re been reading my posts very clearly in this thread.

Investment Firms & the State of Home Buying in the U.S. | BillTrack50

www.billtrack50.com

Are Big Companies Really Buying Houses? Everything You Need to Know - Today's Homeowner

It has been challenging for first-time homebuyers to find affordable housing in recent years. Many have placed the blame on the shoulders of big business, and in this article, we investigate that claim.

todayshomeowner.com

Why the Road Is Getting Even Rockier for First-Time Home Buyers (Published 2022)

Investors and corporations are buying up houses and turning them into rental properties. In Charlotte, N.C., that is adding to the hurdles facing would-be buyers navigating a brutal market.

www.nytimes.com

I dunno tell me when to stop.

The Rome thing was just an interesting factoid I added on my own. That wasn’t a point of contention

 

[Sinister]

I don’t known where you Americans live in the U.S. with you guys thinking that poverty is having a cheap apartment. I guess you all live the suburbs.

Here in Manhattan there a fuck ton of actual homeless people living on the streets and smelling like absolute shit and piss. I almost barf when one walked in a buffet.

Why do you think Americans think that's what poverty is? First of all the working class doesnt even define poverty. Secondly Americans are very aware of homeless people as we see them essentially daily if we live in a City with any decent sized population. The people who have "cheap apartments" and have a hard time affording food and other basic necessities are very aware things could be a lot worse, and consider their position based on how close they actually are to catastrophe.

 

[Islam Imamate]

I dont think JUST NIMBY's. Yes they suck @ss but there is also a problem of corporations buying whole neighborhoods. This is just in my City:

Why does Wall Street want to buy your house?

Las Vegas Realtors are concerned about Wall Street hedge funds and investors buying homes en masse.

www.reviewjournal.com

Your article makes the same mistake he did of conflating investors generally with corporate investors

The pandemic brought about an investor buying boom across the country, according to Redfin, an online real estate brokerage, with Redfin estimating in the first quarter of 2022, investors or Wall Street hedge funds bought one out of every five properties in metros across the country, racking up $50 billion in home sales. Redfin estimates the high water mark may have been 2021’s third quarter, when investors bought close to 100,000 single-family homes in the U.S.

As I've shown already most of these investors are so called "mom and pop" investors.

Either way, corporations owning housing isn't really the problem that you think it is.The artificial lack of supply caused by NIMBYs has created a situation with low housing stock where SFHs are very valuable. That makes them attractive investments for hedge funds but corporate ownership in and of itself wouldn't be a problem if there was sufficient housing stock such that prices became low for both buyers and renters.

I don’t think you’re been reading my posts very clearly in this thread.

Investment Firms & the State of Home Buying in the U.S. | BillTrack50

www.billtrack50.com

Are Big Companies Really Buying Houses? Everything You Need to Know - Today's Homeowner

It has been challenging for first-time homebuyers to find affordable housing in recent years. Many have placed the blame on the shoulders of big business, and in this article, we investigate that claim.

todayshomeowner.com

Why the Road Is Getting Even Rockier for First-Time Home Buyers (Published 2022)

Investors and corporations are buying up houses and turning them into rental properties. In Charlotte, N.C., that is adding to the hurdles facing would-be buyers navigating a brutal market.

www.nytimes.com

I dunno tell me when to stop.

The Rome thing was just an interesting factoid I added on my own. That wasn’t a point of contention

From your first link

The one major misconception about the investor-homebuying myth is that big, faceless companies are the largest force in buying houses. While large corporations certainly play a hand in shaping the market landscape, they only made up around 3% of American home sales in 2021 and only 1% in previous years. In reality, most home purchases in the investor space are made by smaller, localized groups. Everyone and their broker are trying to get into the real estate market. Today we see hedge funds, private equity firms, insurance companies, real estate investment trusts, and even mom-and-pop landlords taking a more active interest in rental housing.

That pretty much confirms what I just said. The 2nd link cites the same report so its the same info. Here's a quote from the NYT piece

Nationwide, large investment companies remain a small fraction of America’s home buyers. “It’s really difficult to make the case that a handful of companies that own 300,000 homes across the country really have the ability to influence things like home prices and rental rates,” said David Howard, executive director of the National Rental Home Council, which represents the single-family rental home industry.

So in other words all of your links supported the point I was making. The NYT piece tries to make the argument that this is a problem but then makes the same mistake you did by conflating investors generally with these big institutional investors. You guys are desperately looking for a corporate boogeyman here and I just don't think there is one.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Your article makes the same mistake he did of conflating investors generally with corporate investors

As I've shown already most of these investors are so called "mom and pop" investors.

Either way, corporations owning housing isn't really the problem that you think it is.The artificial lack of supply caused by NIMBYs has created a situation with low housing stock where SFHs are very valuable. That makes them attractive investments for hedge funds but corporate ownership in and of itself wouldn't be a problem if there was sufficient housing stock such that prices became low for both buyers and renters.

From your first link

That pretty much confirms what I just said. The 2nd link cites the same report so its the same info. Here's a quote from the NYT piece

So in other words all of your links supported the point I was making. The NYT piece tries to make the argument that this is a problem but then makes the same mistake you did by conflating investors generally with these big institutional investors. You guys are desperately looking for a corporate boogeyman here and I just don't think there is one.

Uh yes when you go around the articles trying to pick out what you want and leave out the context. For instance that last quote you posted was immediately followed by:

But their share is growing: Real estate investors bought a record 18.4 percent of the homes that were sold in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 12.6 percent a year earlier, according to the realty company Redfin.

And in some markets, especially in the relatively affordable Sun Belt metro areas, their share is far higher.

Or the closing paragraph of the second article

Unfortunately, the belief that corporations are buying up all the homes in America and raising housing prices holds some truth. However, not all aspects of the myth are true. For example, not all states are affected equally, and these corporations greatly favor single-family or starter homes over larger houses. However, there has undoubtedly been an increase in the number of homes bought and sold by investment groups over the years, especially since 2020.

But whatever. Pretend it’s not a growing problem and inflation isn’t real I guess

 

[Sinister]

Your article makes the same mistake he did of conflating investors generally with corporate investors

As I've shown already most of these investors are so called "mom and pop" investors.

Either way, corporations owning housing isn't really the problem that you think it is.The artificial lack of supply caused by NIMBYs has created a situation with low housing stock where SFHs are very valuable. That makes them attractive investments for hedge funds but corporate ownership in and of itself wouldn't be a problem if there was sufficient housing stock such that prices became low for both buyers and renters.

From your first link

That pretty much confirms what I just said. The 2nd link cites the same report so its the same info. Here's a quote from the NYT piece

So in other words all of your links supported the point I was making. The NYT piece tries to make the argument that this is a problem but then makes the same mistake you did by conflating investors generally with these big institutional investors. You guys are desperately looking for a corporate boogeyman here and I just don't think there is one.

Wait so your argument is that if it's, say, a hedge-fund, which could be owned by a big bank but privately managed, that means its NOT a "corporate boogeyman?" These are the exact kinds of hedge-funds who ended up profiting off of the 2008 collapse. I'd argue it doesnt make much of a difference to a person now living in their car if the house they were renting was bought BY Morgan-Stanley, or a hedge fund owned by Morgan-Stanley...who inevitably doubled the rent, or might just be sitting on stock waiting for the value to change for whatever reason. Homes which Americans cannot purchase, and many cannot afford to rent.

I can agree that the problem is nuanced in that lack of mixed-housing + investment buying make the entirety of the problem much much worse, but downplaying the role of the wealthy seems weird to me. Especially at a time when even mobile home parks arent safe from this:

Rents spike as large corporate investors buy mobile home parks

The parks, which for decades were mostly owned and operated like small businesses, have proven an attractive investment for private equity firms and large real estate companies.

www.pbs.org

Also it's an oversimplification to say the housing problem is merely a lack of stock. That's part of the problem. Are you aware of the cost of acquiring an apartment vs the expense of being homeless? I wasnt until I saw that "Invisible People" channel and interviews of working homeless and why they cant get housing. Bad credit, prior evictions due to loss of jobs, HIGH move-in costs, high daily costs delaying the saving for those high move-in costs, its brutal once you're that bad off. Even if we increased supply, we have to address the discrimination against the homeless and incentivize programs to alleviate those obstacles.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Uh yes when you go around the articles trying to pick out what you want and leave out the context. For instance that last quote you posted was immediately followed by:

Which is then followed by:

Housing industry representatives note that these numbers, which define investors as any institution or business, represent purchases by smaller, local owners, too, who may own just one or two buildings through a limited liability company.

But whatever. Pretend it’s not a growing problem and inflation isn’t real I guess

Housing prices are a real problem, its just that there isn't a corporate boogeyman to blame like you think. The core problem is a lack of supply due to zoning codes, other red tape, and NIMBYism which exploits the first two for the purpose of strangling housing supply.

Wait so your argument is that if it's, say, a hedge-fund, which could be owned by a big bank but privately managed, that means its NOT a "corporate boogeyman?" These are the exact kinds of hedge-funds who ended up profiting off of the 2008 collapse. I'd argue it doesnt make much of a difference to a person now living in their car if the house they were renting was bought BY Morgan-Stanley, or a hedge fund owned by Morgan-Stanley...who I inevitably doubled the rent, or might just be sitting on stock waiting for the value to change for whatever reason. Homes which Americans cannot purchase, and many cannot afford to rent.

I can agree that the problem is nuanced in that mixed-housing + investment buying make the entirety of the problem much much worse, but downplaying the role of the wealthy seems weird to me. Especially at a time when even mobile home parks arent safe from this:

Rents spike as large corporate investors buy mobile home parks

The parks, which for decades were mostly owned and operated like small businesses, have proven an attractive investment for private equity firms and large real estate companies.

www.pbs.org

My argument is that the data shows that the vast majority of investor purchases are from small investors who own less than ten properties, not corporate investors who account for a small fraction of SFH purchases. More generally the problem isn't investors purchasing homes, its the fact that there is so little stock that prices are high whether you want to buy or rent and that we should increase the housing stock by cutting red tape and allowing developers to build more housing more easily.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Housing prices are a real problem, its just that there isn't a corporate boogeyman to blame like you think. The core problem is a lack of supply due to zoning codes, other red tape, and NIMBYism which exploits the first two for the purpose of strangling housing supply.

Because you do have (public) corporate investors, you even see them list potential zoning relaxation as a risk factor.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Because you do have (public) corporate investors, you even see them list potential zoning relaxation as a risk factor.

In a way its the end game of the NIMBY worldview where housing must be treated as a sacred investment, where the haves are protected from the have-nots through zoning codes. Housing has thus became such a safe and protected investment for those who can put up the ever increasing amount of cash for one that it became a no-brainer for institutional investors to join the game. And now that we're at this point people want to blame the institutional investors instead of the folks who created this state of housing scarcity?

 

[Sinister]

Which is then followed by:


Housing prices are a real problem, its just that there isn't a corporate boogeyman to blame like you think. The core problem is a lack of supply due to zoning codes, other red tape, and NIMBYism which exploits the first two for the purpose of strangling housing supply.

My argument is that the data shows that the vast majority of investor purchases are from small investors who own less than ten properties, not corporate investors who account for a small fraction of SFH purchases. More generally the problem isn't investors purchasing homes, its the fact that there is so little stock that prices are high whether you want to buy or rent and that we should increase the housing stock by cutting red tape and allowing developers to build more housing more easily.

Yeah I'm just not buying the hand-waving at investor purchases in favor of "build more." Again I agree with building more mixed-units as I am a proponent of the "Strong Towns" movement of overall better city designs that address climate, traffic, and housing problems all at once. However I've felt and seen the impact of investor purchasing, my former landlord had 5 houses. That sounds small, he had LLC he did this through, and 2 other business ventures. He ended up losing ALL of his properties in 2010-11. This led to housing crises for numerous people, including his own parents. I had to relocate. So even if we say the bulk of investor purchasing is small investors with less than 10 properties, I think the justified concern is the growing scale of how many of those there are and how much inventory is inaccessible/unaffordable because of it, because these concerns aren't merely being stated by the public, they're coming from the industry itself.

Also, I can't speak for every area but "keep building" isnt so simple in Vegas. We have water issues, as well as that we live in a bowl of mountains. Combine this with how higher-class people loathe living among their lessers and you end up with these high-end developments that are extremely far from the City center, which exacerbates those other problems. Traffic gets worse, we have to pay for more road expansions, etc. Building more doesnt always help when it ends up catering to specific people anyway, which is what developers are going to do.

 

[Lucas1980]

The media tells me everyday that the Economy is great so it must be great even if it doesn't feel great it is because the Media tells me its great..

 

[7even]

Why do you think Americans think that's what poverty is? First of all the working class doesnt even define poverty. Secondly Americans are very aware of homeless people as we see them essentially daily if we live in a City with any decent sized population. The people who have "cheap apartments" and have a hard time affording food and other basic necessities are very aware things could be a lot worse, and consider their position based on how close they actually are to catastrophe.

I just didn’t like how you guys were giving non Americans the false notion that they weren’t homeless people here. I don’t consider it to be poverty when you have a roof over your head and have food. Are they poor? Absolutely

 

[Jack V Savage]

The media tells me everyday that the Economy is great so it must be great even if it doesn't feel great it is because the Media tells me its great..

The media definitely doesn't say it's great, even though the evidence suggests that it is. That's exactly the problem.

 

[Jack V Savage]

In a way its the end game of the NIMBY worldview where housing must be treated as a sacred investment, where the haves are protected from the have-nots through zoning codes. Housing has thus became such a safe and protected investment for those who can put up the ever increasing amount of cash for one that it became a no-brainer for institutional investors to join the game. And now that we're at this point people want to blame the institutional investors instead of the folks who created this state of housing scarcity?

If people really want to hurt housing investors, they should push for lower prices, which means more supply.