• pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksM
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    4 days ago

    This isn’t small timers, it’s corporations buying up all of the housing, building only “luxury” apartments and price fixing the fuck out of the rent.

    Then they spout “Trickle Down Housing” where the “luxury” apartments will be available in 30 years.

    • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      The guy said “these houses, …each” so he could own the whole area and jack up the rents, not be a small timer. But yeah, it’s not the person renting out Grandma’s old place to help pay for her nursing home.

    • Auth@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I might be wrong but the % of homes owned by corporations is really tiny. low single digits if I remember correctly.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksM
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        3 days ago

        Yeah, I don’t think so, lol. You’re going to have to produce the source. This is from September of last year and doesn’t include rental apartment buildings.

        GAO reported that there were 450,000 single-family rental homes owned by institutional investors as of 2022. However, in a report by the Urban Institute, they estimated that large institutional investors owned **574,000 **single-family homes as of June 2022 and their report was also based on 32 institutional investors. But, the Urban Institute actually aggregated data on all legal entities of the parent company because these institutional owners often use other names as the owner. They based their report on large investors owning a minimum of 100 single-family homes and they pulled data from a national property records database. The 574,000 figure is likely more accurate than GAO’s and the difference is most likely due to aggregating all of the legal entities under the parent companies.

        https://bloustein.rutgers.edu/who-really-owns-the-u-s-housing-market-the-complete-roadmap/

        This says the housing inventory is https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ACTLISCOUUS

        • Auth@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          institutional investors own 500,000 single family homes out of 80-100 million? That article you linked doesnt support your case. Even in (what I assume is) their strongest example institutional investors only own 10% of the rentals.

          • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksM
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            3 days ago

            Where are you getting the 80-100 million homes? Are you including apartments?

            Edit:

            While institutional investors own roughly 2% of the single-family rental housing stock across the U.S., they own a much greater share of homes in certain markets, particularly in the southeast.

            GAO estimates that institutional investors own 25% of Atlanta, GA’s single-family rental housing market, 21% of Jacksonville, FL’s, 18% of Charlotte, NC’s, and 15% of Tampa, FL’s single-family rental market. Areas that experienced the greatest influx of institutional investment after the 2007-2009 recession continue to have high rates of institutional investments in the single-family rental market.

      • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        With all the profiteering by corporations since covid, the cost to build a house has gone up substantially. That narrows the consumer base and forces builders to reduce margins. Unless of course they build a “luxury” home or apt. Then you have large investors battling it out and snapping them up. So, it is more profitable to build luxury homes rather than homes for peasants. The investors can afford to set on the empty house and hold them if they can’t get the rent they want. In fact, many large investors don’t even bother to try to rent and just hold the property to have secure investments during market fluctuations. So they are building like crazy, but the homes they’re building can’t be afforded by the people that actually need them.
        So, it doesn’t take a ton of housing being owned by big investors to fuck the market, they just have to be buying up all the new stock in what is already a limited market.

        • Auth@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Its not an issue of luxury home construction vs peasant home construction I doubt this even makes a dent. Investors are not buying up empty houses and sitting on them because they are to lazy to rent them out, thats absurd.

          The issue is simply that housing development is to slow. The demand to build houses in higher density is there but local zoning laws and nimby residents block the developments. In cities where zoning laws were changed to allow development we see prices decrease.

          • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Its not an issue of luxury home construction vs peasant home construction I doubt this even makes a dent. Investors are not buying up empty houses and sitting on them because they are to lazy to rent them out, thats absurd.

            https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2024/10/22/report-billionaire-investors-driving-homelessness-housing-costs/#%3A~%3Atext=“Wealthy+investors+are+buying+up%2Cestate+as+a+luxury+asset.

            The issue is simply that housing development is to slow. The demand to build houses in higher density is there but local zoning laws and nimby residents block the developments. In cities where zoning laws were changed to allow development we see prices decrease.

            https://archive.is/20250110182457/https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/the-u-s-has-more-fancy-apartments-than-it-is-able-to-fill-f7bca968

            • Auth@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I think what you’re highlighting is a symptom not the cause.

              US homeowner vacancy rate is relatively stable over the past 10 years bouncing between 1-2%. You’ve highlighted a specific subset of homes where the rate is 8% and im expected to believe that this is causing house prices to inflate? I’m sorry but thats a weak argument. The article you linked says that luxery apartments were built because it was the only way to get acceptable returns from the high valued land and even then the vacancy rate is only 11% for 4-5 star apartments.

              Once developers noticed that the demand wasn’t there they stopped building luxury apartments but the land value is still to high for them to build the affordable apartments that are in demand. This is a problem only city planning can address. The ways cities can address this is to invest in their own affordable housing units in these areas to drive down the prices by forcing competition. Zone extra land for housing. Basically just build more houses or reduce demand.

              • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Wow, I guess I was wrong. You have convinced me. My facts obviously don’t hold a candle to against your strongly held opinion.

    • twice_hatch@midwest.social
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      4 days ago

      If they built luxury apartments, rich people would stop renting regular apartments, and the prices would go down