Many of the world’s largest investment firms have launched new funds over the past couple of years aimed at acquiring or building single-family homes to use as rentals. This comes as no surprise considering that the increased cost of buying a home has forced many Americans into being tenants instead of homeowners. Arrived, a young real estate company backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, has just announced its entry into the single-family rental fund space. Arrived currently operates a f
  • ChillCapybara@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    2 years ago

    Yeah it’s the human condition. Power corrupts. It always does. It would corrupt me. It would corrupt you. What’s it like to live real life in god mode? I know what you do when the cheats get turned on, because I’ve done the same. But what happens when there is no option to restart the game? Or to play something else? You return to the game. It’s all you have. You become determined to make it progressively worse because you’re average. You have no imagination. You suck. You’re not a leader. You’re a regular dude for the most part and not cut out for this shit. You fuck it up. If we’re in a simulation, it’s the worst kind. One controlled by the simulated.

  • Vej@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 years ago

    How the fuck does anyone even afford to buy a house now? Billionaires keep buying them all out just to rent them out, to buy more houses. It’s almost as bad as me trying to use a hula hoop.

    • just_change_it@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 years ago

      It’s not just billionaires buying up all the housing, it’s anyone who can afford the investment. Real estate makes interest in value year over year with minimal upkeep costs AND it generates revenue every year from rentals. If you manage to secure permits to convert it to multifamily you instantly split your house into two parts with nearly the same individual value, almost doubling the value on the spot at the cost of adding a couple of walls and doors and maybe a kitchen.

      Real Estate as a source of investment and revenue goes contrary to the idea of accessible housing for everybody. If it’s a lucrative investment with greater low risk returns than any other low risk investment type, why would anyone take more risk?

      • 7u5k3n@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 years ago

        Got a buddy on that exact same path.

        • Military Contractor
        • Started with “very little” money
        • Bought a rental here a rental there. Has like 10 now
        • Now he “works” for himself (read that as plays games on steam all day) and enjoys his passive income.
      • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
        0·
        2 years ago

        Not to mention REITs, or real estate investment trusts. Entire corporations dedicated solely to buying up property for share holders.

  • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldMEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Congratulations, Airbnb. You singlehandedly destroyed the entire US housing stock, and ensured that the rich can continue to get richer, and the rest of us can continue to get fucked.

    edit: Not even joking.

    • Pipoca@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 years ago

      Airbnb didn’t single-handedly destroy US housing stock. It’s really not even the biggest part of the problem.

      Zoning codes that prevent the addition of any density to cities are way more of a problem than airbnb could dream of being. If Euclidean zoning existed 300 years ago, Manhattan would be 90% mcmansions, rather than being almost entirely low-, mid- and high-rises.

  • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    We need to expand community land trusts to ensure people have housing. Just going to copy and paste a previous comment since I was just talking about them in a thread about HOAs.

    I live in a townhouse that is one of 30 on our lot. All of the houses are a part of a land trust program that owners have to qualify in order to buy, a minimum income set to ensure applicants can pay a mortgage and a maximum set by the average income of the city. The houses are sold at cost and buyers agree to sell at that cost, plus a small percentage of equity gain per year lived in the house. Property taxes are fixed to this valuation agreement so nobody in the program is forced out of their home from real estate bubbles.

    If the program was expanded the bar to entry could be lifted. I had to hold off on a raise that I got while we were in the middle of the buying process to make sure I didn’t go over the cap, which is hilarious (sad) since we still struggle with my current income. Friends of ours missed out and moved out of state because they were a few paltry thousand over the cap, the work in restaurants and had they not declared their tips they would have had a house in the city they love.

    A great start would be seizing these vulture’s properties that are compounding the problem.

  • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 years ago

    Finally! Soon I’ll be able to get that 3bed 0bath house I’ve been dreaming of

  • spriteblood@kbin.social
    0·
    2 years ago

    So is this guy, like, the Devil? Every headline I see with him is like “Emperor Palpatine is buying single family homes” where I just assume it’s for some nefarious purpose that’s gonna benefit his regime and dick over a looooot of people.

  • Wrench@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 years ago

    Can we finally focus on real estate reform now?

    This latest housing crisis has made it abundantly clear that allowing wealthy individuals and corporations to own single family homes is destructive to society as a whole.

    The priority should be owner occupied homes. People need housing security. If even the middle class with career jobs can’t afford a modest house in their peak working years, the system is broken.

    We can attack this runaway housing inflation by doing the following:

    1. Ban companies (including hedge funds, etc) from owning condos and houses. Apartment complexes are still fair game, because society needs high occupancy buildings which require more capital to build and run.

    2. Limit individual ownership to 3 (as an example, number doesn’t matter) dwellings. This will curb the rampant “buy for short term rental, parlay into next purchase for short term rental” scheme. We still need rental properties, and small local landowners should be the priority.

    3. Heavy penalties for selling in under 2 (as an example) years. This will also curb the short term rentals due to added risk, as well as curbing the flippers relisting at 30%+ (and I’ve seen 100%) markups after 3 months.

    Each of these wouldn’t be outright bans which would potentially too big of a disruption. But in phases, using increasing tax penalties as the stick.

    We need to stop treating homes as a commodity. They are a basic essential.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
      0·
      2 years ago

      I’d argue that better urbanism is part and parcel of real estate reform. It would be much more difficult to entirely fuck up the housing market if we weren’t so utterly dependent on single family homes and there were more apartments being managed by small to mid-size firms.

    • AlexWIWA@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I’d go a step further and say you can only rent out what you built. No buying existing housing in cheap areas to rent out.

      If you want to be a landlord then you can pool your money with other people to actually create housing.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
      0·
      2 years ago

      Exorbitantly high residential property tax rates, with even higher owner-occupancy credits.

      Landlords will stop renting, and start issuing land contracts or private mortgages. “Tenants” will hold the deed to the property, and be earning equity. “Landlords” will have a major incentive to get their investment properties under contract and out of their name, lest they face a huge tax bill.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 years ago

      I absolutely agree that we need to focus significant energy on a more stable housing (not homeowner) market.

      However

      Ban companies (including hedge funds, etc) from owning condos and houses. Apartment complexes are still fair game, because society needs high occupancy buildings which require more capital to build and run.

      This just means fewer homes get built, period, adding to the problem. Id support restrictions on these groups purchasing homes specifically on the secondary market instead of an outright ban/strong Pigouvian tax.

      Heavy penalties for selling in under 2 (as an example) years. This will also curb the short term rentals due to added risk, as well as curbing the flippers relisting at 30%+ (and I’ve seen 100%) markups after 3 months.

      This will straight up just lead to bankruptcy, foreclosure, and then cheap speculation. This would be incredible dangerous, and you’d need to put a lot of protections in for homeowners that wouldn’t somehow be abused by flippers.

      What we primarily need is to rip our zoning policies out by the root and encourage lots of building.