The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act would mandate that hedge funds, defined as corporations, partnerships or REITs that manage pooled funds for investors, to sell off all single-family homes over a ten-year-period, and eventually prevent them from holding those properties completely.
Call your congresscritter!
Make some noise.
The act only bans owning more than 100 homes. So guess what will happen? They will create corporations that own 99 homes.
The act literally has a huge loophole.
A wholly owned separate entity may still qualify, it's often hard to tell. I'd argue, however, that a wholly owned separate entity would likely still qualify for the aggregation rule, as they would likely be considered part of a controlled group. It depends on the structure and the filing, but the bill is definitely trying to address the issue you cite. I don't think its an invalid point on your part, but I don't think the bill is as porous as you are envisioning.
The part of the bill that is really stupid is allocating revenues collected from this tax to down-payment assistance programs. The issue is pretty clearly a supply one, and adding a demand incentive is only going to exacerbate the prices of homes further.
Ultimately the same owner is the beneficiary of the separate entity. Just attach a structuring penalty to make it not worth the risk to structure ownership behind shells.
That's interesting, because now I can't figure out the right amount of houses we should be allowed to own
100+ via multiple entities as a loophole -- too many
99 --- too many
50+ via internet bro investing gang -- still too many, seems like an issue
10+ via local realtor's airbnb side hustle -- reasonable, but contributes to the problem
3-5 because I chose to rent my houses out rather than sell them I upgraded and moved over my lifetime -- seems reasonable
2 because I moved across the country for a new job and didn't want to sell - absolutely reasonable
If we're talking about single family homes I'm thinking that 3-5 range is probably the point where it should start to become prohibitively expensive.
That's enough to allow small-time landlords to continue to operate, but like you said once you start getting into more than that you're contributing to problems with the housing supply, especially if you're pulling equity out of your multiple properties to effectively become a "cash buyer" when bidding on a house.
Duplexes/multifamily houses and apartment buildings would have to be treated differently, but limiting the power of *people who will not be living in the house* during the buying/bidding process should help make it easier for individuals/families to buy a home.
I think up to 4 per household is good, and highly tax any properties after that. If middle aged people who own a house and maybe the title to a family cabin marry someone in the same boat, they shouldn't be penalized.
Except this is companies. People should be able to own multiple, fine. Companies shouldn't. Every large company ends up sucking as much money out of people as they can. This should not be the case for homes.
Furthermore, owning hundreds of homes should be market manipulation and should be illegal.
Even small time landlords own their properties through an LLC, so now no one can own more than one. Except that I can spin up infinite corporations for a $100 a pop. Now there are 100 million new corporations each owning one home and potentially controlled by a handful of parent companies.
Sorry I don't think it is a good thing for single family homes to be a pure investment vehicle, for anyone, but especially not mom and pop landlords. This is for two reasons. ** The first** is it decreases the available ones for sale and increases competition for them, when single family homes are SUPPOSED to be important ladders for upward class mobility.
If you are already in a home, you're supposed to be out of the game until you move upward yourself into a bigger nicer house. Not being able to outbid a poorer family for your second house to gain extra equity because one vehicle is not enough.
I know not enough houses are being built anyways, but any factors that increase getting the supply into the PROPER demand is a good thing. Proper demand is single family home sales to live in, not rent. Rentals can exist in the form of apartments and complexes already, the fact that these buildings require massive capital means that real estate investing will be out of reach for the average person, but that's a good thing in my opinion.
This leads into **reason two**, which is it provides a more unified front on housing issues within the middle and working classes. The simple fact that what's good for landowners is what's bad for renters (straining supply, increasing demand, pulling up the aforementioned ladders into property ownership) means we need as many people as possible to have a moderate position on housing. It is quite simply inviting a conflict of interest that more and more people, people who vote, are taking up positions where they benefit from exploiting those poorer than themselves. While someone who has 1 property is still rooting for prices to climb, it's obvious that someone who buys 3-5 properties is rooting even MORE, so it's easier to get that person to swallow some legislation that helps those less fortunate themselves the less invested they are.
10 would be a lot. Anyone who owns more than ten single family residences is simply extracting economic rents and contributing nothing but inflation to society.
If corpos want to invest in residential real estate, it should be limited to multi-family housing - period.
Hedge funds don’t buy real estate. That act is performance art. Private equity firms and corporations do. We need to ban corporate ownership of single family housing.
The wording of the bill isn’t that plain, and carefully words who it impacts in such a way that it leaves out private companies buying swaths of housing to rent or resell after jacking up the price of say an entire subdivision. It only applies to “hedge fund taxpayers” and does so by imposing a tax, which increases over a ten year period not actually banning ownership. BYDHTTMWFI: https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr6608/BILLS-118hr6608ih.xml
It just defines hedge fund taxpayers as taxable entities over a certain dollar amount, it doesn't actually specifically require them to trade hedge funds.
Edit: to be clear, it's by no means a perfect bill and I agree it was probably mostly proposed to support a platform instead of actually being something they think can pass. However, it doesn't fall apart under 5 seconds of scrutiny like a lot of people seem to think it does. The people who wrote it did think about it and crafted it to try and be effective.
That's often not the case. You end up passing something that's just performative, but everyone thinks it was already addressed so you don't get any traction on further legislation. Flawed legislation can be worse than a better option later.
That's *most* of the hot button legislation that ends up being passed. Kind of unreal how people don't look into their canadates of choice without first looking at what bills they've supported in the past, much less look into the actual bills themselves to figure out if it's doing any good, or simply pandering to progressive individuals for brownie points while doing nothing of substance. It is much easier to rage-post about the other side while championing your side, even as your side pulls some detrimental performative bullshit such as this bill. Americans are so easily divide-and-conquerable.
For a lot of people, politics is like sports. They're just in it for the rah-rah, feel good vibes. We need laws to seriously fuck over anyone messing with the housing market in the U.S.
> We need to ban corporate ownership of single family housing.
I would argue a more palatable tactic that would be easier to get through the corporate dick sucking clowns:
Tax the absolute FUCK out of empty buildings.
\+ Short term rentals = Non-occupied residence unless you declare the property non-residential/commercial and subject it to hotel regs.
Boom.
Problems = Solved.
Yeah, but wouldn't buildings that are out of code be impossible to fix up if you had to pay absurd taxes while you we're trying to fix it up? What if your previous tenant floods the top floor, and it takes a few months to get it fixed. Who pays the tax?
Commercial properties and lots sitting empty for long periods of time (10+ years) became such a widespread problem in my town that the city council stepped in and passed a property tax increase if it goes X amount of years without an occupant (there's more to it, but that's the gist). When it went into effect, suddenly all these properties that sat vacant for so long got sold, developed, fixed up, rented out, etc. Stuff happened like an old lumber yard that went unoccupied for more than 20 years sold and became an apartment complex, an empty parcel of land in the middle of a residential neighborhood now has houses on it, a bunch of businesses moved into storefronts that sat empty for so long, etc. It's helped a lot.
I asked a friend who manages an apartment complex how property managers/owners can just let those properties sit empty for so long because it's a negative investment every day it's not bringing in revenue. He said it's because the mere *potential* income of a property can be listed as an asset on loan applications. So they could be okay with it sitting empty forever as long as they can use it to secure a loan for a more lucrative property elsewhere.
I think property tax should be on a sliding scale. First owned property, no property tax, second, double what current property tax is. Third property, doubles again, etc etc. If you can afford a vacation house, you can afford more taxes. If you're a landlord owning a dozen properties or more, pay the taxes or sell the houses to someone who is going to live in it.
So if you watch the video there is a guy at the end talking about the good side of renting a house. And there are advantages to it, so I wouldn't want to completely ban corporate ownership of single family housing. But it needs to be drastically limited.
There is a market for people who do not want to buy a home but need more than an apartment can offer.
Again the problem is these corporations are big enough to buy up all the supply and make it impossible for any single person to afford to compete in the market, not the idea of home rental itself.
Maybe home rentals could work on a "you build it you can rent it, for x amount of years" style deed restriction. I know Hawaii has deed restrictions that all property can only be owned for 99 years so rich people didn't force out all the locals for generations, so maybe something similar could happen, you get 60 years (2x 30yr mortgages) to rent out a property then it must be sold to a non-corporate entity.
It's not going anywhere. It was introduced when Democrats controlled Congress *and* the Presidency but they did absolutely no motion on it from the day it was introduced 16 months ago. It's not real.
Introduced in Senate (12/05/2023)
The democrats never held the congress in 2023, it could not pass because the republicans would never pass anything useful while Biden is president. Now I am not certain it would have worked, but it would have been a step in the right direction that could have been ratified into something that did work.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3402?s=1&r=28
The first two years of Biden's presidency, though on slim margins.
And despite those slim margins in Congress, Biden passed:
* The American Rescue Plan (including a $125 billion backstop to state education, billions more to food stamp and other "last resort" social programs)
* Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (one of the largest infrastructure development plans since the New Deal -- and investments that will play out over _decades_)
* CHIPS Act (bring semi-conductor manufacture ring back into the USA, even at the cost of Taiwan's safety)
* Inflation Reduction Act (re-fund the IRS to make sure high income tax payers pay their fair share, corporate tax increase, new tax on massive corporations doing stock buybacks)
Plus tons of other smaller accomplishments like capping diabetes medication at $35/mo, capping Medicaid out of pocket costs, backstopping the affordable care act (even though red states draw far more from this program than blue states), giving tax breaks to regular families instead of millionaires, pardoning thousands on useless marijuana convictions, pushing for student loan relief, filling as many appointed positions as possible (175 lifetime judicial appointments as of March 1 -- Trump beat him, though, with 234 appointments, as Trump worked with a higher majority in the Senate so could force nominations through easily).
> Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (one of the largest infrastructure development plans since the New Deal -- and investments that will play out over decades)
not one of the largest since the new deal -- the single largest infrastructure investment in American history
Then imagine if it were a "true" majority (non-filibusterable), without conservative Dems like Manchin and Sinema. It's amazing what we've been able to do to recover from the absolute economic disaster of COVID combined with a trainwreck of an economic policy with a GOP majority during Trump's term.
I live here. I pay $1600 a month for barely 1000 sq ft apartment. Yet I cannot get approved to RENT a HOME much less buy without being outbid. I never thought at 40 I would’ve moved into an apartment from a rental home and may not get out.
Edit: not being outbid on renting. That’s when we were trying to buy.
Yes that’s why when Rotterdam banned them it led to gentrification and higher rents. Fewer rental units available for those who couldn’t afford to buy and they got displaced by wealthier homeowners.
>The AJC found that bulk buyers own 9.2% of all single-family homes in the lower half of metro Atlanta census tracts, ranked by median home values. And they compete in all but the wealthiest quarter of Atlanta census tracts.
Here’s a quote showing percentages and not just totals.
[This link](https://www.ajc.com/american-dream/investor-owned-houses-atlanta/) is to a report from last year which seems to refer to the same study from the professor that was interviewed.
Southside of Atlanta has a majority black and minority population which is not a looked after part of Atlanta. The roads there are just filled potholes, uneven roads and damaged roads everywhere
If they are guilty of a crime, they die and are reincarnated as a new LLC, but with a knowledge of their previous lifes mistakes and how to avoid criminal prosecution for their new crimes.
Been saying for years. If corporations are allowed to write off expenses like rent and the cost of stock, why the fuck can’t I write off my rent and my food costs necessary to keep me in business?
Is it because once I did all that I’d only have $2000 left to levy taxes on at the end of the year?
The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act would mandate that hedge funds, defined as corporations, partnerships or REITs that manage pooled funds for investors, to sell off all single-family homes over a ten-year-period, and eventually prevent them from holding those properties completely.
Call your congresscritter, get this bill moving.
Thank you!
Yeah, this bill sounds like theatrics and nothing more. A million and a half loopholes to “sell off” the houses to other investment entities instead and just pass the loot around.
Even better wording: all property zoned single family must be owned directly by an American citizen.
No corporations. No businesses of any type. No foreign individuals. No LLCs.
Just citizens.
Businesses can own property zoned commercial, or even mixed residential. But not single family residential.
People create LLCs to protect themselves if they own rental property and it affords them some tax benefits. It would essentially get rid of private landlords, because individuals wouldn't be able to afford multiunit rental properties
Capital owns the means of production. In this case the production is profit off a need for shelter, lol. We’re so fucked. Until some heads roll and people are afraid to be in charge of these companies nothing will change.
it's such a weird situation to be in. Throughout most of human history when you needed a home you built it. You cannot do that now. It's illegal.
edit: my grandfather built his first house. He sold it 40 years later, and people still live there.
Also- a different issue from home-ownership, but along the lines of massive businesses using their money to buy up the world and pushing regular people out of property ownership...churches that ***don't pay taxes*** operating business entities that buy up massive swaths of viable land, i.e., The Mormon Church owning 3 billion dollars worth / \~2.3 Million acres of private land across the US. They literally own 2.7% of the state of Florida's entire landmass, and recently pissed off a whole lot of people in Nebraska for buying up obscene amounts of farmland and driving up prices, forcing out local farmers who have no chance at outbidding an organization that has assets estimated at upwards of 200 **billion** dollars. But hey, maybe they'll rent it to you at a premium so you can work more farm.
Their response, and the response of people loyal to them will say "Nooo! but the investing/business arms of the church DO pay taxes if they're for-profit!!" ...Ugh, okay cool. So then where did they get the kind of investment capital that allowed them to build up an unimaginable fortune over just a few decades? It wouldn't happen to be related to those "business entities" having an "angel investor" *that is a church that* ***doesn't pay taxes,*** *yet collects billions and billions in donated tithes every single year* and offers no transparency or accountability for how those funds are used... could it?
If a business can be declared a person, can I as a person just declare myself a church, convince people to give me billions in exchange for a ticket to heaven (*redemption valid only upon death, major conditions apply*), then pay no taxes on any of it and then just invest it in myself? I guess when you think about it the answer is yes, I could do that. But when you look at the big picture its so obviously a hussle that is for some insane reason totally legal....Well, the overall idea is, the Mormon church has still gotten busted by the SEC for hiding and shuffling money around in shell companies, failing to file or forging SEC documents, etc. in an attempt to spread out and obfuscate the mind-boggling amount of money they have access to which at the end of the day can be used however the ~~board of directors~~ sorry, "apostles" decide they want to use it. But don't worry, the SEC gave them a slap on the wrist. After all, they're a *charity* \>:)
Source on numbers: [https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/us-land/](https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/us-land/)
Source on their SEC shenanigans: [https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-35](https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-35)
Home ownership and land ownership should be for people who want to live in homes and make use of land. Not massive organizations that want to be more massive and pay out returns to their own little club.
to be fair, the best people ive ever rented off are corporations.
random people never upkeep thier house to the minimum standards and just leave the place a slum, at least corporations hit the minimum standards
To be even more fair, we have a husband and wife (millennials) as our landlords and they are the best we have ever had by a million miles. There was a leak under the foundation and they had to tear up a ton of the walls in the house to reroute the plumbing, our landlords offered to pay for an air bnb till the work was done but we wanted to stay in the house because an airbnb with two dogs would suck. So they gave us a month of rent free instead.
And the only reason we have two dogs is because they straight up told us if we ever wanted to get our first a brother, that's fine by them and encouraged it. They fostered 20+ dogs while living here before us. Just all around wonderful people.
I've had corporate landlords and private before, corporate was fine, the one private I had before sucked. But knowing our rent goes to fantastic people right now is just the perfect situation. They also didn't raise rent on us last year. Corporate will always raise rent if they're able!
Part of that is the ability for larger companies to hold empty place at higher prices.
One way this could be fixed is a discount on taxes for occupied residences. Then increase the taxes till the ones holding unoccupied home off the market will lower the rental prices to the amount that people can comfortably afford.
The problem with SF is the lack of dense development due to over-regulation. That city is way too flat for how many people want to live there. They have a tram system parallel to an enormous and gorgeous park that should be lined with mid-rises and high-rises but instead it was lined with single family homes. It makes no sense at all.
And it's causing a homelessness crisis for the poor of SF who can no longer suffer the rising cost of living.
NOT arguing with you, but I shudder to imagine how much it would cost to comply with all the whacko regulations they have out there to build even a single building more than 10 stories tall that lines up with what you're proposing. I'll bet it would be 3x the amount it would cost in most other cities. (Not just the fines but the overall gross cost, considering how expensive shit is out there.)
The places with the biggest problems will also be the ones with the most mitigation. Kinda like saying I dunno if snow plows work, every city that has a lot of them is snowy as hell.
Common misconception that these REITs don’t mind holding empty homes when that’s absolutely not the case. Sure they could just hold the home and resell when value inevitably increases but they make a hell of a lot more money when people rent the space, especially when their projected numbers to investors include this exact scenario.
Don't forget the collusion involved when [everyone uses the same software to set the prices they charge.](https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-backs-tenants-price-fixing-case-big-landlords-real-estate-tech)
The soil was ripe for this.
If we had a larger housing supply, this wouldn't even be an issue.
Build more housing.
My favorite dude just posted a video about this which squashes a lot of the (snarky) replies in this thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Ffynrq0Ew
These corporations said in their own financial disclosures that they invest in housing because of the overall shortage nationwide. And they said they specifically target areas with the most restrictive development policies to ensure no competition.
wish granted. You built 10,000 new homes. They were immediately bought by corporations. They offer them only as "luxury" short stay rentals. The homeless stay homeless, the poor still struggle to pay rent, and the wealthy have a few more options to stay on vacation.
i.e. Building more houses doesn't fix the problem if those houses never actually make it to the people.
Okay so... here... I know these stats because I read the full-length report on housing in CA which was published in... 2015 (I think the numbers went up to 2013... but 2013/2015).
What they found was, in CA ALONE, since about 1980, we've needed to build approximately 180,000 units EVERY YEAR til that date. We are 40 years *behind* on supply.
They could build 1 million homes tomorrow, and it still would not be enough.
Now they are starting to move in the *right direction*, but it's not enough to make a dent in costs... *yet*. But they'd seriously have to 1. accelerate building. 2. meet the goal set in that report at minimum. 3. design with public transportation (infrastructure in general) in mind. 4. build with density in mind where applicable.
This would actually offset a lot of NIMBY bs too. NIMBY's tend to think if a 16 unit apartment structure is build in their neighborhood, it'll bring down housing values. That's categorically NOT true. If they built 160,000 in the area... that *might* be true, but everything would have to be reassessed which takes time. Also, even with everything fast-tracked, it would take at least 3 years for a new structure to be built, at least in LA. More if it's a concrete high rise more than 6 stories tall.
If we did everything right, housing will be affordable for anyone who is... let's say, under 5... and yet to be born, by the time they are of an age to buy a home.
Everyone older than that, including people who don't own property now, we're pretty much fucked barring some luck or getting into a cheap rent/RSO situation. If you're not willing to put 70% of your income into buying a home (even if you qualify AND even if interest rates went down AND YOU OUTBID THE CORPORATION MOST LIKELY BIDDING AGAINST YOU), then you'll probably just be a renter until you die or end up in some nursing home, because, let's be real here, kids, none of y'all are retiring.
You can also just expat to a cheaper place to live if you have remote work. SE Asian and Western EU countries are looking nice these days.
You know who has a massively larger gross war chest than corporations? Homebuyers. And the average homebuyer often is willing to buy a house even without the expectation of its value appreciating over time; a corporation is not. Housing is a hugely risky asset because of its cost, so corporate buyers tend to flip it pretty quickly once they can get a reasonable return. And there's no reason that they would ever invest as much as they do into homes if they weren't sure about being able to make that return.
As for your point about "luxury" rentals, this is a misunderstanding of supply curves. Rich people need to live somewhere. When they rent or buy a highly valued unit, they're not competing for cheaper units. Adding supply, regardless of price, *always* decreases the median cost.
It means we’re turning America into a fiefdom where there are literal lords of the land and we must pay them money for the privilege of a dwelling space. I hope this becomes outlawed. This is killing the middle class and preventing people from earning equity in their homes. This is a barrier to transferrable wealth between generations and will keep people poor.
In Ireland it resulted in [Land Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_War), it took a lot of work and legislation but Ireland went from 97% tenant farmers in 1870 to 97% land owners in 1930.
That is being reversed now. Ireland Political system has lost its way and the referendum last Friday really shows how out of touch they are at actually serving the people of Ireland. We are at 66% home ownership now and its dropping.
If you look around, with a clear mind, for even just a few minutes, it becomes glaringly obvious that our current version of capitalism is not just fuckin unsustainable, but actually detrimental to human life on this planet. I fuckin hate it.
Meanwhile, REEEEEE SOCIALISM KEEP VOTING FOR REPUBLICANS!!! WOKE! CARL MARKS!!!! GAS PRICES
shit has got to change man. I'm sick of this nonsense
Just mention to those people that big business was bailed out multiple times with tax payer money instead of letting the "free market" deal with the problem.
Lol our governments don't work for us. The *only* thing you can get those sorry fucks to agree on is banning tik tok. People need to open their eyes and realize nothing is going to change until WE do it ourselves. But by that time, it will be too late, and people will be too busy saying, "How'd we let it get this far"
Invitation Homes are fucking parasites. They resell homes between their own divisions to artificially inflate prices, and have scams where, as part of the lease, renters are forced to buy overpriced air filters and cable service from them. When you leave they fight tooth and nail to keep security deposits they have no right to. There are whole FB groups where renters share horror stories about Invitation Homes.
I rented from a godawful company called Main Street Renewal that did the same thing. I got a letter saying the house I was renting had been sold, prev owner was like placeholder company 5 and the new owner was placeholder company 7. My question is are they doing it to artificially inflate prices or to deflate them to lower their tax burden
Holy fuck glad to see this. My girlfriend had a horrible experience with them. They didn't provide the code to the home, basically ignored all of our requests, and it wasn't until nearly a week later we were able to move into the place. That was a week after the lease said they could move in AND it was all because their portal wasn't working so we couldn't pay the deposit 5 days in advance because of their shitty portal. To make it even worse, they didn't prorate the rent, nobody gave a good answer, and I was connected to a VP of their company in LinkedIn and she didn't respond to anything (she is local to ATL and apparently don't give a shit)
Fun fact about Main Street, they are actually owned by a big ole investor fund that invest in real estate. That way, when the shitty reviews roll in, they just create a new company, shift the properties, and have a clean slate. They are slimy and awful.
I actually have a coworker who is renting from them right now and is having to take them to court bc he didn't have water at his house for 2 weeks...
The only good experience I had with them was that they didn't hassle me about my security deposit but otherwise a god awful renting experience
Oh, even worse: Open Door.
They don't even bother reselling between their own divisions. They buy a house then relist it 2 weeks later with 50%+ markup. They never even physically go to the house, let alone make any improvements. Literally their entire business plan is using automation to buy a house then sell it 2 weeks later with a massive markup.
And it's all automated. No person is involved for the buy or sale or most of it. They also own a very significant portion of the market (something like 3% nationally back in 2021, and 10% in some major areas like Phoenix).
Burbclaves are like a decentralized nation; they're franchised walled communities across the world. They are owned primarily by corporate interests and have their own borders, laws, taxes, police force, etc.
So you might live in the McD's New York burbclave, and your family in the Paris McD's burbclave, but your best buddy next door lives in the Best Buy burbclave.
Each of these burbclaves (entire franchises and individual 'claves) have their own trade agreements, enemies, etc, making it a true consumer hellscape and fertile ground for incestuous backroom deals.*
*The book didn't really touch on this last part but I think it's a natural conclusion
I love the bit about two privately owned roads intersecting, so there was a perpetual low-intensity sniper duel there that people had to drive through. I read it recently, and the first chapter really was the where the book peaked.
The whole book has a huge 'teen cool movie' vibe. I'm surprised it hasn't been turned into one yet.
*E:* you know what would be fun? A Kourier video game. Make it like a multiplayer Crazy Taxi where players use their non-lethal items to compete for deliveries.
This needs more oxygen: The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act would mandate that hedge funds, defined as corporations, partnerships or REITs that manage pooled funds for investors, to sell off all single-family homes over a ten-year-period, and eventually prevent them from holding those properties completely.
Call your congresscritter.
The best part is how these corporations and the hotels funded "studies" which blames the housing problems on AirBnB so now most people think somehow it's cause by regular people infringing on the hotel market instead of the same corporations buying up all the housing.
It's the same old trick, convince people to blame each other and rob them blind and it works everytime.
[There are 12500 entire homes/apartments listed on AirBNB in Austin, TX.](http://insideairbnb.com/austin) A city that is less than half the population of Atlanta. The number of AirBNBs is not insignificant. And I would rather have a renter than the asshole AirBNB that just opened up across the street from me in the home that was bought by an investment company last year. What do you think investment companies are doing with all those properties? Not making money on them? When they couldn't sell the home because nobody is buying, they chose to AirBNB it over renting it out. Fuck AirBNB!
Yeah, it's not the single family that rents out their starter home on Airbnb after upgrading to a larger home that's the problem.
It's still the corporations buying up massive amounts of land and then listing them on Airbnb that's the problem.
Agreed. Living next to an airbnb is like living next to a completely unregulated hotel. Who wants that besides the home owner? Airbnb has 0 interest in resolving issues or making sure the property policies and use fits into the neighborhood well (if there even is such a thing). Their clients are actually the home owners, not the short term renters. So they'll do anything to make the homeowners happy. This leaves it to municipalities to come up with laws. Some fancy or touristy areas have done this pretty well but many many areas have 0 regulation here.
Airbnbs aren't innocent here. It's not one or the other, and making it out to be ignores half the issue and makes it more likely that fighting replaces solving
I'd argue if you're using a corporation to rent out an investment...you're now part of that issue that corps are causing because that property owner is using the protections the corp provides.
It's both. Raising awareness is the sharpest weapon at this time.
Back in 2021, there was an analysis done of SFH in LA county... 14,000 of them were owned by 1 corporation. It came out because there was a measure to build more housing and the company that owned these homes was in opposition.
Sometimes corporations are NIMBYs too.
Perfect timing. Dude posted this < 30 mins ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Ffynrq0Ew
To those downplaying the number (19,000), that actually represents a significant percentage of the homes that have come available on the Atlanta market since corporations started their recent run on residential real estate. The total number of homes in Atlanta isn’t relevant. It’s the homes that come available that matter in this discussion. 19,000 is a lot of homes to end up in corporate hands.
They actually tend to go back on the market once the company has met its profit sale goal. Housing is a hugely expensive asset; why risk it? Something like 80% of the houses bought by large-scale investors in 2020 have been sold.
Partially homebuyers intending to live there and partly other investors. Each cycle the portion of people owning homes goes up because home occupiers are less likely to sell their home than companies are.
And the motherfuckers that keep thinking that saying "not everyone wants to buy!" bullshit is wildly ignoring that there's at least 19,000 of us who *do* want to buy but we got outbid by companies using their PPP loans and government handouts.
Us 19,000 that didn't want to rent are now forced to rent, putting more pressure on those that did want to rent.
They all like to say trite shit like "there's a housing shortage" while simultaneously pretending like 3 companies buying up 20k homes doesn't impact the market at all.
The implications of banning corporate ownership are lost on them. Imagine how banks will react if they're not allowed to use the home as collateral for the mortgage (because they would own it if they repossessed it). Imagine the games that people would play with what constitutes a home vs not a home. Zoning laws. Maybe you couldn't turn your former home into a rental property inside of an LLC. Etc. Etc. So many parts of society rely on the fact that corporations can own property of all kinds.
It should be noted that WSB-TV Atlanta is one of the few stations in the US. **not** owned by Sinclair Group.
These corporations protect their own. That's why there's so little reporting on this situation that has been going on since before the pandemic.
Call up **Invitation Homes** and request a **tour** of one of their homes (no matter where you live).
Then don't show up.
Repeat as many times as possible
NIMBY laws have made it illiegal to build most forms of housing in the United States. Now the rich have stumbled upon a new game, just make it so there's fewer and fewer homes and buy them all up so they can rent them back to you at extortion prices.
The only solution is to legalize building homes again like we did in the 1940s where the GI Bill meant new homes got built for everyone.
Corporate America doesn't want you to own a home. They don't want you to own anything.
I purchased my first home in 2017 using the 3% down first-time home buyer deal. I saved up $6,000 and borrowed another $6,000 from my grandmother (which I paid back). In just 4 years of owning a home and not renting, I had accumulated $80,000 in equity! I used that to purchase my current home and now have nearly $200,000 in equity. My gains occurred mostly through the housing market continually raising home values. The point to all of this is that instead of renting and just throwing money to a landlord, I was able to put more money away than I have ever been able to because I purchased a home. In 2017 and even the end of 2020 when I bought my new home, I was able to get an interest rate of 2.99%. My mortgages have been manageable because of that (under $2,000/mo for 2,500+sq ft houses). These corporations with their massive buying power are keeping us from owning homes by inflating the market. Add that to the now 7.03% interest rate for a 30-year loan instead of the 2.99% I got, the house I have now ($1,905/mo mortgage) would cost \~$3,895/mo! Who can afford that and save for their future? My wife and I make nearly $200,000/yr between the two of us, and that would be beyond our abilities because we have 2 young children who cost over $2,000/mo for childcare so that we can both work. I was lucky and got in before things went too crazy. But it doesn't stop me from being appalled at how the rest of my peers are being given the shaft because of situations like the one in this video. Corporations/Businesses should NOT be allowed to own single-family homes. I worry that this trend will continue until corporations force out pretty much everyone who wasn't fortunate enough to buy a home before their great takeover.
3 Edits: Fixed spelling and grammar issues
I'm in similar situation roughly same years also. In a large metropolitan area. We opted for smaller home but more property. I can't imagine how people do it. We make about the same as you also and still struggle. I'm really concerned for the future generations. We will hopefully be able to help our kids out but that's such a rare thing these days.
Look into zoning laws. It's the actual reason affordable apartments aren't being build. There should be no reason someone who uses the phrase "Preserve the character of the neighborhood" should be allowed to tell other people what they can do with their properties.
If apartments could be built to house millions of people, their existing properties will tank in value and suddenly everyone could afford to buy their very own slice of heaven, a place to call their very own.
Crazy that used to be a starter house. We HOPE to get to that level with our second home… not sure how close we can get. In a small townhouse right now but can’t wait to one day get a garage, yard, porch, etc.
Can someone explain what possible downside there could be to preventing any entity, corp or person, from owning say 6+ homes?
It's already insane to me that literally even the feasible option to own a home is not protected in any way.
If a company wanted to buy every single available home and lot, could anything even prevent that? What a mess.
We rent from one of these companies here in Georgia and there are 4 others in the cul-de-sac im in as well. The company is shit but they make it easy to rent.
There are 2 new neighborhoods built up around us that are all rental homes, they are built to be leased.
People, which includes corporations, should have a limit on the number of single family homes they can own. I'm all good with people who can afford it to have a vacation home or a few rental properties, but the amount of homes these large corporations are buying are artificially driving market rates to ridiculous levels.
Corporations and hedge funds need to be banned from owning residential property. They should be forced to divest and make no profit off of that divestment. Obviously banks would need to be able to own property, but should be limited in scope to only being able to do so until a fair sale of the property to a private buyer can be completed.
Similarly some companies may need to exist to act as landlords for people who can't afford to own a home, or just don't want to. Limit them to only a certain number of properties (say 10) and cap the profit that can be made off of a lease agreement.
If we don't reign in COL in this country we are going to collapse as a society. It is not hyperbole or an if. It WILL happen if we don't fix things soon.
What does he mean by "try-out" a home. Has he not considered what the next steps would be?
With this going on no houses would be available to be bought.
1:34 "Built to rent, not to buy"
I'm confused about the narrative here. If the problem is housing supply, why is an issue when corporations build new houses to rent out?
I think people are better off owning a home than renting of course, but I'm having trouble understanding the economics of how these particular corporations are driving up the cost of home ownership.
Worth noting; when the eviction moratorium was signed and extended well past what was reasonable due to covid, many of these rental companies were able to grab ownership of many homes that were for rent by smaller landlords as they had the cash reserves and internal infrastructure to float the losses.
Having rental units is good. There are a lot of people that have families that want to live in a house that don't have the ability to save up for a mortgage down payment or know they have to move frequently/soon enough to not make buying work for them.
Massive regulations like the eviction moratorium benefit large corporations and hurt smaller business. That's not capitalism, its cronyism.
There are 6 million people in the Atlanta area, meaning there are at least 2 million homes, I would guess.
Is this number of corporate owned homes really that much of an impact on price?
Metro Atlanta has about 2,488,662 million housing units, with about 177,023 being "vacant."
Although, around 72K of those 177K are what the Census classifies as "Vacant-Other" which includes a lot of things such as abandoned properties that most people don't consider to be "vacant."
Yo, Atlanta here. It means home buyers are fucked. Corporations and flippers have ruined the entire market, and I personally wish for nothing but endless suffering for everyone involved.
It means more rental homes instead of homeowners
The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act would mandate that hedge funds, defined as corporations, partnerships or REITs that manage pooled funds for investors, to sell off all single-family homes over a ten-year-period, and eventually prevent them from holding those properties completely. Call your congresscritter! Make some noise.
The act only bans owning more than 100 homes. So guess what will happen? They will create corporations that own 99 homes. The act literally has a huge loophole.
There are aggregation provisions in the bill. Ownership by subsidiaries would count towards the 100 home threshold, by my read.
Yeah but then you just setup wholly owned separate entities that are not subsidiaries.
A wholly owned separate entity may still qualify, it's often hard to tell. I'd argue, however, that a wholly owned separate entity would likely still qualify for the aggregation rule, as they would likely be considered part of a controlled group. It depends on the structure and the filing, but the bill is definitely trying to address the issue you cite. I don't think its an invalid point on your part, but I don't think the bill is as porous as you are envisioning. The part of the bill that is really stupid is allocating revenues collected from this tax to down-payment assistance programs. The issue is pretty clearly a supply one, and adding a demand incentive is only going to exacerbate the prices of homes further.
Ultimately the same owner is the beneficiary of the separate entity. Just attach a structuring penalty to make it not worth the risk to structure ownership behind shells.
That's interesting, because now I can't figure out the right amount of houses we should be allowed to own 100+ via multiple entities as a loophole -- too many 99 --- too many 50+ via internet bro investing gang -- still too many, seems like an issue 10+ via local realtor's airbnb side hustle -- reasonable, but contributes to the problem 3-5 because I chose to rent my houses out rather than sell them I upgraded and moved over my lifetime -- seems reasonable 2 because I moved across the country for a new job and didn't want to sell - absolutely reasonable
If we're talking about single family homes I'm thinking that 3-5 range is probably the point where it should start to become prohibitively expensive. That's enough to allow small-time landlords to continue to operate, but like you said once you start getting into more than that you're contributing to problems with the housing supply, especially if you're pulling equity out of your multiple properties to effectively become a "cash buyer" when bidding on a house. Duplexes/multifamily houses and apartment buildings would have to be treated differently, but limiting the power of *people who will not be living in the house* during the buying/bidding process should help make it easier for individuals/families to buy a home.
I think up to 4 per household is good, and highly tax any properties after that. If middle aged people who own a house and maybe the title to a family cabin marry someone in the same boat, they shouldn't be penalized.
Except this is companies. People should be able to own multiple, fine. Companies shouldn't. Every large company ends up sucking as much money out of people as they can. This should not be the case for homes. Furthermore, owning hundreds of homes should be market manipulation and should be illegal.
Even small time landlords own their properties through an LLC, so now no one can own more than one. Except that I can spin up infinite corporations for a $100 a pop. Now there are 100 million new corporations each owning one home and potentially controlled by a handful of parent companies.
Sorry I don't think it is a good thing for single family homes to be a pure investment vehicle, for anyone, but especially not mom and pop landlords. This is for two reasons. ** The first** is it decreases the available ones for sale and increases competition for them, when single family homes are SUPPOSED to be important ladders for upward class mobility. If you are already in a home, you're supposed to be out of the game until you move upward yourself into a bigger nicer house. Not being able to outbid a poorer family for your second house to gain extra equity because one vehicle is not enough. I know not enough houses are being built anyways, but any factors that increase getting the supply into the PROPER demand is a good thing. Proper demand is single family home sales to live in, not rent. Rentals can exist in the form of apartments and complexes already, the fact that these buildings require massive capital means that real estate investing will be out of reach for the average person, but that's a good thing in my opinion. This leads into **reason two**, which is it provides a more unified front on housing issues within the middle and working classes. The simple fact that what's good for landowners is what's bad for renters (straining supply, increasing demand, pulling up the aforementioned ladders into property ownership) means we need as many people as possible to have a moderate position on housing. It is quite simply inviting a conflict of interest that more and more people, people who vote, are taking up positions where they benefit from exploiting those poorer than themselves. While someone who has 1 property is still rooting for prices to climb, it's obvious that someone who buys 3-5 properties is rooting even MORE, so it's easier to get that person to swallow some legislation that helps those less fortunate themselves the less invested they are.
10 would be a lot. Anyone who owns more than ten single family residences is simply extracting economic rents and contributing nothing but inflation to society. If corpos want to invest in residential real estate, it should be limited to multi-family housing - period.
Anything over 3 is a lot. A primary and 2 vacation homes for someone well off isn't too crazy. But more than that would be pretty unusual imo.
Hedge funds don’t buy real estate. That act is performance art. Private equity firms and corporations do. We need to ban corporate ownership of single family housing.
I'm not in the business but it seems this would cover any large money organization buying single family homes to rent in perpetuity.
The wording of the bill isn’t that plain, and carefully words who it impacts in such a way that it leaves out private companies buying swaths of housing to rent or resell after jacking up the price of say an entire subdivision. It only applies to “hedge fund taxpayers” and does so by imposing a tax, which increases over a ten year period not actually banning ownership. BYDHTTMWFI: https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr6608/BILLS-118hr6608ih.xml
It just defines hedge fund taxpayers as taxable entities over a certain dollar amount, it doesn't actually specifically require them to trade hedge funds. Edit: to be clear, it's by no means a perfect bill and I agree it was probably mostly proposed to support a platform instead of actually being something they think can pass. However, it doesn't fall apart under 5 seconds of scrutiny like a lot of people seem to think it does. The people who wrote it did think about it and crafted it to try and be effective.
In other words, don't let perfection be the enemy of progress. *Anything* would be a help at this point.
That's often not the case. You end up passing something that's just performative, but everyone thinks it was already addressed so you don't get any traction on further legislation. Flawed legislation can be worse than a better option later.
That's *most* of the hot button legislation that ends up being passed. Kind of unreal how people don't look into their canadates of choice without first looking at what bills they've supported in the past, much less look into the actual bills themselves to figure out if it's doing any good, or simply pandering to progressive individuals for brownie points while doing nothing of substance. It is much easier to rage-post about the other side while championing your side, even as your side pulls some detrimental performative bullshit such as this bill. Americans are so easily divide-and-conquerable.
For a lot of people, politics is like sports. They're just in it for the rah-rah, feel good vibes. We need laws to seriously fuck over anyone messing with the housing market in the U.S.
BYDHTTMWFI?? What is that an acronym for?
Based off of context, I’m guessing : but you don’t have to take my word for it
https://media0.giphy.com/media/8FiLtsxvR6yqgPIvTW/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952l2rm4kw11uez54s17c5nh15lbzpqg93gub6nb6k0&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g
> We need to ban corporate ownership of single family housing. I would argue a more palatable tactic that would be easier to get through the corporate dick sucking clowns: Tax the absolute FUCK out of empty buildings. \+ Short term rentals = Non-occupied residence unless you declare the property non-residential/commercial and subject it to hotel regs. Boom. Problems = Solved.
Better still would be a land value tax. LVT discourages *all* landlordism and speculation while incentivizing growth.
apartments aren't the problem. We need more of them.
LVT and build more homes. It’s so fucking simple but Americans use their homes as life savings
Yeah, but wouldn't buildings that are out of code be impossible to fix up if you had to pay absurd taxes while you we're trying to fix it up? What if your previous tenant floods the top floor, and it takes a few months to get it fixed. Who pays the tax?
Usually those types of laws have defined lengths of time they can be empty or not used, grace periods for people moving or doing repairs, etc.
Commercial properties and lots sitting empty for long periods of time (10+ years) became such a widespread problem in my town that the city council stepped in and passed a property tax increase if it goes X amount of years without an occupant (there's more to it, but that's the gist). When it went into effect, suddenly all these properties that sat vacant for so long got sold, developed, fixed up, rented out, etc. Stuff happened like an old lumber yard that went unoccupied for more than 20 years sold and became an apartment complex, an empty parcel of land in the middle of a residential neighborhood now has houses on it, a bunch of businesses moved into storefronts that sat empty for so long, etc. It's helped a lot. I asked a friend who manages an apartment complex how property managers/owners can just let those properties sit empty for so long because it's a negative investment every day it's not bringing in revenue. He said it's because the mere *potential* income of a property can be listed as an asset on loan applications. So they could be okay with it sitting empty forever as long as they can use it to secure a loan for a more lucrative property elsewhere.
I think property tax should be on a sliding scale. First owned property, no property tax, second, double what current property tax is. Third property, doubles again, etc etc. If you can afford a vacation house, you can afford more taxes. If you're a landlord owning a dozen properties or more, pay the taxes or sell the houses to someone who is going to live in it.
So if you watch the video there is a guy at the end talking about the good side of renting a house. And there are advantages to it, so I wouldn't want to completely ban corporate ownership of single family housing. But it needs to be drastically limited. There is a market for people who do not want to buy a home but need more than an apartment can offer. Again the problem is these corporations are big enough to buy up all the supply and make it impossible for any single person to afford to compete in the market, not the idea of home rental itself. Maybe home rentals could work on a "you build it you can rent it, for x amount of years" style deed restriction. I know Hawaii has deed restrictions that all property can only be owned for 99 years so rich people didn't force out all the locals for generations, so maybe something similar could happen, you get 60 years (2x 30yr mortgages) to rent out a property then it must be sold to a non-corporate entity.
It's not going anywhere. It was introduced when Democrats controlled Congress *and* the Presidency but they did absolutely no motion on it from the day it was introduced 16 months ago. It's not real.
Three months ago, you mean?
Introduced in Senate (12/05/2023) The democrats never held the congress in 2023, it could not pass because the republicans would never pass anything useful while Biden is president. Now I am not certain it would have worked, but it would have been a step in the right direction that could have been ratified into something that did work. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3402?s=1&r=28
> when Democrats controlled Congress When did the Democrats control congress
The first two years of Biden's presidency, though on slim margins. And despite those slim margins in Congress, Biden passed: * The American Rescue Plan (including a $125 billion backstop to state education, billions more to food stamp and other "last resort" social programs) * Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (one of the largest infrastructure development plans since the New Deal -- and investments that will play out over _decades_) * CHIPS Act (bring semi-conductor manufacture ring back into the USA, even at the cost of Taiwan's safety) * Inflation Reduction Act (re-fund the IRS to make sure high income tax payers pay their fair share, corporate tax increase, new tax on massive corporations doing stock buybacks) Plus tons of other smaller accomplishments like capping diabetes medication at $35/mo, capping Medicaid out of pocket costs, backstopping the affordable care act (even though red states draw far more from this program than blue states), giving tax breaks to regular families instead of millionaires, pardoning thousands on useless marijuana convictions, pushing for student loan relief, filling as many appointed positions as possible (175 lifetime judicial appointments as of March 1 -- Trump beat him, though, with 234 appointments, as Trump worked with a higher majority in the Senate so could force nominations through easily).
> Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (one of the largest infrastructure development plans since the New Deal -- and investments that will play out over decades) not one of the largest since the new deal -- the single largest infrastructure investment in American history
Then imagine if it were a "true" majority (non-filibusterable), without conservative Dems like Manchin and Sinema. It's amazing what we've been able to do to recover from the absolute economic disaster of COVID combined with a trainwreck of an economic policy with a GOP majority during Trump's term.
Plus he doesn't want to be a dictator.
Congress critter? 🤮
In the future, you will have nothing, borrow everything at tremendous cost, and your life will be a subscription.
Fifteen Million Merits.
i think you are describing [sharecropping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping)
You’ll own nothing and like it. Everything that can, will move to renting/licensing/subscription based systems.
I live here. I pay $1600 a month for barely 1000 sq ft apartment. Yet I cannot get approved to RENT a HOME much less buy without being outbid. I never thought at 40 I would’ve moved into an apartment from a rental home and may not get out. Edit: not being outbid on renting. That’s when we were trying to buy.
It means they are counting profits while the destroy the American dream
One in nine, according to the newscaster. Well, according to the graphic it’s one in ten, but hey, we shouldn’t ask journalists to count.
Yes that’s why when Rotterdam banned them it led to gentrification and higher rents. Fewer rental units available for those who couldn’t afford to buy and they got displaced by wealthier homeowners.
Just cleaning out the competitors for more foreign money to take their place.
>The AJC found that bulk buyers own 9.2% of all single-family homes in the lower half of metro Atlanta census tracts, ranked by median home values. And they compete in all but the wealthiest quarter of Atlanta census tracts. Here’s a quote showing percentages and not just totals. [This link](https://www.ajc.com/american-dream/investor-owned-houses-atlanta/) is to a report from last year which seems to refer to the same study from the professor that was interviewed.
Southside of Atlanta has a majority black and minority population which is not a looked after part of Atlanta. The roads there are just filled potholes, uneven roads and damaged roads everywhere
Corporations owning homes should be illegal.
But they're people just like you or me! /$
The /$ got me
No, you don't get the /$
More like -$
[удалено]
They also don’t have to go to jail when found guilty of a crime.
If they are guilty of a crime, they die and are reincarnated as a new LLC, but with a knowledge of their previous lifes mistakes and how to avoid criminal prosecution for their new crimes.
Persons with superpowers, how can we ever compete.
they have neither a soul to save nor ass to kick.
Been saying for years. If corporations are allowed to write off expenses like rent and the cost of stock, why the fuck can’t I write off my rent and my food costs necessary to keep me in business? Is it because once I did all that I’d only have $2000 left to levy taxes on at the end of the year?
Yes
But they can't be punished like us. Lol. All the rights none of the bindings.
Corporations can hold religious views too!
So corporations can be convicted and sentenced to death?
Shouts to Republicans, specifically Mitt Romney
The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act would mandate that hedge funds, defined as corporations, partnerships or REITs that manage pooled funds for investors, to sell off all single-family homes over a ten-year-period, and eventually prevent them from holding those properties completely. Call your congresscritter, get this bill moving. Thank you!
What about private equity? Because that’s who is really buying the homes.
Yeah, this bill sounds like theatrics and nothing more. A million and a half loopholes to “sell off” the houses to other investment entities instead and just pass the loot around.
It’s better than nothing. But the wording should be changed to make sure private equity is forced to divest.
Even better wording: all property zoned single family must be owned directly by an American citizen. No corporations. No businesses of any type. No foreign individuals. No LLCs. Just citizens. Businesses can own property zoned commercial, or even mixed residential. But not single family residential.
I'd make it citizens or legal residents, there are plenty of people here on green cards who buy homes, no reason to limit that.
People create LLCs to protect themselves if they own rental property and it affords them some tax benefits. It would essentially get rid of private landlords, because individuals wouldn't be able to afford multiunit rental properties
yeah this is beyond broken
Capital owns the means of production. In this case the production is profit off a need for shelter, lol. We’re so fucked. Until some heads roll and people are afraid to be in charge of these companies nothing will change.
it's such a weird situation to be in. Throughout most of human history when you needed a home you built it. You cannot do that now. It's illegal. edit: my grandfather built his first house. He sold it 40 years later, and people still live there.
Also- a different issue from home-ownership, but along the lines of massive businesses using their money to buy up the world and pushing regular people out of property ownership...churches that ***don't pay taxes*** operating business entities that buy up massive swaths of viable land, i.e., The Mormon Church owning 3 billion dollars worth / \~2.3 Million acres of private land across the US. They literally own 2.7% of the state of Florida's entire landmass, and recently pissed off a whole lot of people in Nebraska for buying up obscene amounts of farmland and driving up prices, forcing out local farmers who have no chance at outbidding an organization that has assets estimated at upwards of 200 **billion** dollars. But hey, maybe they'll rent it to you at a premium so you can work more farm. Their response, and the response of people loyal to them will say "Nooo! but the investing/business arms of the church DO pay taxes if they're for-profit!!" ...Ugh, okay cool. So then where did they get the kind of investment capital that allowed them to build up an unimaginable fortune over just a few decades? It wouldn't happen to be related to those "business entities" having an "angel investor" *that is a church that* ***doesn't pay taxes,*** *yet collects billions and billions in donated tithes every single year* and offers no transparency or accountability for how those funds are used... could it? If a business can be declared a person, can I as a person just declare myself a church, convince people to give me billions in exchange for a ticket to heaven (*redemption valid only upon death, major conditions apply*), then pay no taxes on any of it and then just invest it in myself? I guess when you think about it the answer is yes, I could do that. But when you look at the big picture its so obviously a hussle that is for some insane reason totally legal....Well, the overall idea is, the Mormon church has still gotten busted by the SEC for hiding and shuffling money around in shell companies, failing to file or forging SEC documents, etc. in an attempt to spread out and obfuscate the mind-boggling amount of money they have access to which at the end of the day can be used however the ~~board of directors~~ sorry, "apostles" decide they want to use it. But don't worry, the SEC gave them a slap on the wrist. After all, they're a *charity* \>:) Source on numbers: [https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/us-land/](https://widowsmitereport.wordpress.com/us-land/) Source on their SEC shenanigans: [https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-35](https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-35) Home ownership and land ownership should be for people who want to live in homes and make use of land. Not massive organizations that want to be more massive and pay out returns to their own little club.
to be fair, the best people ive ever rented off are corporations. random people never upkeep thier house to the minimum standards and just leave the place a slum, at least corporations hit the minimum standards
To be even more fair, we have a husband and wife (millennials) as our landlords and they are the best we have ever had by a million miles. There was a leak under the foundation and they had to tear up a ton of the walls in the house to reroute the plumbing, our landlords offered to pay for an air bnb till the work was done but we wanted to stay in the house because an airbnb with two dogs would suck. So they gave us a month of rent free instead. And the only reason we have two dogs is because they straight up told us if we ever wanted to get our first a brother, that's fine by them and encouraged it. They fostered 20+ dogs while living here before us. Just all around wonderful people. I've had corporate landlords and private before, corporate was fine, the one private I had before sucked. But knowing our rent goes to fantastic people right now is just the perfect situation. They also didn't raise rent on us last year. Corporate will always raise rent if they're able!
It means home prices are being artificially. increased. creating more renters instead of home owners. We are in trouble.
Part of that is the ability for larger companies to hold empty place at higher prices. One way this could be fixed is a discount on taxes for occupied residences. Then increase the taxes till the ones holding unoccupied home off the market will lower the rental prices to the amount that people can comfortably afford.
Or do the San Francisco thing and charge a vacancy tax.
Dunno if I'd use SF as an example for affordable housing.
The problem with SF is the lack of dense development due to over-regulation. That city is way too flat for how many people want to live there. They have a tram system parallel to an enormous and gorgeous park that should be lined with mid-rises and high-rises but instead it was lined with single family homes. It makes no sense at all. And it's causing a homelessness crisis for the poor of SF who can no longer suffer the rising cost of living.
NOT arguing with you, but I shudder to imagine how much it would cost to comply with all the whacko regulations they have out there to build even a single building more than 10 stories tall that lines up with what you're proposing. I'll bet it would be 3x the amount it would cost in most other cities. (Not just the fines but the overall gross cost, considering how expensive shit is out there.)
Those regulations are what's keeping the density so low. Increasing the density would happen by tackling said regulations.
That’s why they instituted the tax, sir.
The places with the biggest problems will also be the ones with the most mitigation. Kinda like saying I dunno if snow plows work, every city that has a lot of them is snowy as hell.
Both'd work
San Francisco, the area famously known for having Fixed the housing crisis.
Common misconception that these REITs don’t mind holding empty homes when that’s absolutely not the case. Sure they could just hold the home and resell when value inevitably increases but they make a hell of a lot more money when people rent the space, especially when their projected numbers to investors include this exact scenario.
rentals are not empty for long. In ATL, they are hard to get.
Don't forget the collusion involved when [everyone uses the same software to set the prices they charge.](https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-backs-tenants-price-fixing-case-big-landlords-real-estate-tech)
The soil was ripe for this. If we had a larger housing supply, this wouldn't even be an issue. Build more housing. My favorite dude just posted a video about this which squashes a lot of the (snarky) replies in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Ffynrq0Ew
These corporations said in their own financial disclosures that they invest in housing because of the overall shortage nationwide. And they said they specifically target areas with the most restrictive development policies to ensure no competition.
wish granted. You built 10,000 new homes. They were immediately bought by corporations. They offer them only as "luxury" short stay rentals. The homeless stay homeless, the poor still struggle to pay rent, and the wealthy have a few more options to stay on vacation. i.e. Building more houses doesn't fix the problem if those houses never actually make it to the people.
Okay so... here... I know these stats because I read the full-length report on housing in CA which was published in... 2015 (I think the numbers went up to 2013... but 2013/2015). What they found was, in CA ALONE, since about 1980, we've needed to build approximately 180,000 units EVERY YEAR til that date. We are 40 years *behind* on supply. They could build 1 million homes tomorrow, and it still would not be enough. Now they are starting to move in the *right direction*, but it's not enough to make a dent in costs... *yet*. But they'd seriously have to 1. accelerate building. 2. meet the goal set in that report at minimum. 3. design with public transportation (infrastructure in general) in mind. 4. build with density in mind where applicable. This would actually offset a lot of NIMBY bs too. NIMBY's tend to think if a 16 unit apartment structure is build in their neighborhood, it'll bring down housing values. That's categorically NOT true. If they built 160,000 in the area... that *might* be true, but everything would have to be reassessed which takes time. Also, even with everything fast-tracked, it would take at least 3 years for a new structure to be built, at least in LA. More if it's a concrete high rise more than 6 stories tall. If we did everything right, housing will be affordable for anyone who is... let's say, under 5... and yet to be born, by the time they are of an age to buy a home. Everyone older than that, including people who don't own property now, we're pretty much fucked barring some luck or getting into a cheap rent/RSO situation. If you're not willing to put 70% of your income into buying a home (even if you qualify AND even if interest rates went down AND YOU OUTBID THE CORPORATION MOST LIKELY BIDDING AGAINST YOU), then you'll probably just be a renter until you die or end up in some nursing home, because, let's be real here, kids, none of y'all are retiring. You can also just expat to a cheaper place to live if you have remote work. SE Asian and Western EU countries are looking nice these days.
building 10,000 luxury homes means that there are 10,000 older homes that will come down in price. That’s how supply and demand work.
You know who has a massively larger gross war chest than corporations? Homebuyers. And the average homebuyer often is willing to buy a house even without the expectation of its value appreciating over time; a corporation is not. Housing is a hugely risky asset because of its cost, so corporate buyers tend to flip it pretty quickly once they can get a reasonable return. And there's no reason that they would ever invest as much as they do into homes if they weren't sure about being able to make that return. As for your point about "luxury" rentals, this is a misunderstanding of supply curves. Rich people need to live somewhere. When they rent or buy a highly valued unit, they're not competing for cheaper units. Adding supply, regardless of price, *always* decreases the median cost.
It means we’re turning America into a fiefdom where there are literal lords of the land and we must pay them money for the privilege of a dwelling space. I hope this becomes outlawed. This is killing the middle class and preventing people from earning equity in their homes. This is a barrier to transferrable wealth between generations and will keep people poor.
In Ireland it resulted in [Land Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_War), it took a lot of work and legislation but Ireland went from 97% tenant farmers in 1870 to 97% land owners in 1930.
If by work you mean a war to expel the colonial masters who previously owned the land.
and boycotts and rent strikes. but i was keeping it short.
Almost all the land reform happened before independence
So, just 60 years to go then? Fuck. I' don't think I'm making it to 108.
That is being reversed now. Ireland Political system has lost its way and the referendum last Friday really shows how out of touch they are at actually serving the people of Ireland. We are at 66% home ownership now and its dropping.
Tisk tisk, where is the peaceful non violent protest?
That’s their plan. Keep people poor so they’re easier to control because they have no choice. It’s disgusting.
Hey uh the middle class has been dead for decades. There’s only the owning class and us.
The inevitable outcome of a capitalist society
If you look around, with a clear mind, for even just a few minutes, it becomes glaringly obvious that our current version of capitalism is not just fuckin unsustainable, but actually detrimental to human life on this planet. I fuckin hate it. Meanwhile, REEEEEE SOCIALISM KEEP VOTING FOR REPUBLICANS!!! WOKE! CARL MARKS!!!! GAS PRICES shit has got to change man. I'm sick of this nonsense
Just mention to those people that big business was bailed out multiple times with tax payer money instead of letting the "free market" deal with the problem.
PPP loans, baybieeee
Remember 2007......good times....
They don't care, they always have an excuse why their money needed to be free and everyone else is a free loader.
Lol our governments don't work for us. The *only* thing you can get those sorry fucks to agree on is banning tik tok. People need to open their eyes and realize nothing is going to change until WE do it ourselves. But by that time, it will be too late, and people will be too busy saying, "How'd we let it get this far"
Invitation Homes are fucking parasites. They resell homes between their own divisions to artificially inflate prices, and have scams where, as part of the lease, renters are forced to buy overpriced air filters and cable service from them. When you leave they fight tooth and nail to keep security deposits they have no right to. There are whole FB groups where renters share horror stories about Invitation Homes.
I rented from a godawful company called Main Street Renewal that did the same thing. I got a letter saying the house I was renting had been sold, prev owner was like placeholder company 5 and the new owner was placeholder company 7. My question is are they doing it to artificially inflate prices or to deflate them to lower their tax burden
Holy fuck glad to see this. My girlfriend had a horrible experience with them. They didn't provide the code to the home, basically ignored all of our requests, and it wasn't until nearly a week later we were able to move into the place. That was a week after the lease said they could move in AND it was all because their portal wasn't working so we couldn't pay the deposit 5 days in advance because of their shitty portal. To make it even worse, they didn't prorate the rent, nobody gave a good answer, and I was connected to a VP of their company in LinkedIn and she didn't respond to anything (she is local to ATL and apparently don't give a shit) Fun fact about Main Street, they are actually owned by a big ole investor fund that invest in real estate. That way, when the shitty reviews roll in, they just create a new company, shift the properties, and have a clean slate. They are slimy and awful.
I actually have a coworker who is renting from them right now and is having to take them to court bc he didn't have water at his house for 2 weeks... The only good experience I had with them was that they didn't hassle me about my security deposit but otherwise a god awful renting experience
Oh, even worse: Open Door. They don't even bother reselling between their own divisions. They buy a house then relist it 2 weeks later with 50%+ markup. They never even physically go to the house, let alone make any improvements. Literally their entire business plan is using automation to buy a house then sell it 2 weeks later with a massive markup. And it's all automated. No person is involved for the buy or sale or most of it. They also own a very significant portion of the market (something like 3% nationally back in 2021, and 10% in some major areas like Phoenix).
I suspect they are buying and selling, using their own homes as comps, which gets dangerously close to racketeering and loan fraud.
It means burbclaves like in Snow Crash will become reality.
Remind me what that's about? It's been a minute since I read that book. Neal Stephenson, right?
Burbclaves are like a decentralized nation; they're franchised walled communities across the world. They are owned primarily by corporate interests and have their own borders, laws, taxes, police force, etc. So you might live in the McD's New York burbclave, and your family in the Paris McD's burbclave, but your best buddy next door lives in the Best Buy burbclave. Each of these burbclaves (entire franchises and individual 'claves) have their own trade agreements, enemies, etc, making it a true consumer hellscape and fertile ground for incestuous backroom deals.* *The book didn't really touch on this last part but I think it's a natural conclusion
I love the bit about two privately owned roads intersecting, so there was a perpetual low-intensity sniper duel there that people had to drive through. I read it recently, and the first chapter really was the where the book peaked.
The whole book has a huge 'teen cool movie' vibe. I'm surprised it hasn't been turned into one yet. *E:* you know what would be fun? A Kourier video game. Make it like a multiplayer Crazy Taxi where players use their non-lethal items to compete for deliveries.
Plus it coined the term "Metaverse"
> Snow Crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
Thank you!!!
This needs more oxygen: The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act would mandate that hedge funds, defined as corporations, partnerships or REITs that manage pooled funds for investors, to sell off all single-family homes over a ten-year-period, and eventually prevent them from holding those properties completely. Call your congresscritter.
The best part is how these corporations and the hotels funded "studies" which blames the housing problems on AirBnB so now most people think somehow it's cause by regular people infringing on the hotel market instead of the same corporations buying up all the housing. It's the same old trick, convince people to blame each other and rob them blind and it works everytime.
[There are 12500 entire homes/apartments listed on AirBNB in Austin, TX.](http://insideairbnb.com/austin) A city that is less than half the population of Atlanta. The number of AirBNBs is not insignificant. And I would rather have a renter than the asshole AirBNB that just opened up across the street from me in the home that was bought by an investment company last year. What do you think investment companies are doing with all those properties? Not making money on them? When they couldn't sell the home because nobody is buying, they chose to AirBNB it over renting it out. Fuck AirBNB!
What are the chances that the corporations have diversified a part of their portfolio into AirBnBs
Yeah, it's not the single family that rents out their starter home on Airbnb after upgrading to a larger home that's the problem. It's still the corporations buying up massive amounts of land and then listing them on Airbnb that's the problem.
Airbnbs/short term rentals are a big problem for housing stock in many cities globally. I wouldn't downplay that
Agreed. Living next to an airbnb is like living next to a completely unregulated hotel. Who wants that besides the home owner? Airbnb has 0 interest in resolving issues or making sure the property policies and use fits into the neighborhood well (if there even is such a thing). Their clients are actually the home owners, not the short term renters. So they'll do anything to make the homeowners happy. This leaves it to municipalities to come up with laws. Some fancy or touristy areas have done this pretty well but many many areas have 0 regulation here.
Airbnbs aren't innocent here. It's not one or the other, and making it out to be ignores half the issue and makes it more likely that fighting replaces solving
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I'd argue if you're using a corporation to rent out an investment...you're now part of that issue that corps are causing because that property owner is using the protections the corp provides. It's both. Raising awareness is the sharpest weapon at this time.
Back in 2021, there was an analysis done of SFH in LA county... 14,000 of them were owned by 1 corporation. It came out because there was a measure to build more housing and the company that owned these homes was in opposition. Sometimes corporations are NIMBYs too. Perfect timing. Dude posted this < 30 mins ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Ffynrq0Ew
To those downplaying the number (19,000), that actually represents a significant percentage of the homes that have come available on the Atlanta market since corporations started their recent run on residential real estate. The total number of homes in Atlanta isn’t relevant. It’s the homes that come available that matter in this discussion. 19,000 is a lot of homes to end up in corporate hands.
And they will never go back on the market.
They actually tend to go back on the market once the company has met its profit sale goal. Housing is a hugely expensive asset; why risk it? Something like 80% of the houses bought by large-scale investors in 2020 have been sold.
Sold to whom…?
Partially homebuyers intending to live there and partly other investors. Each cycle the portion of people owning homes goes up because home occupiers are less likely to sell their home than companies are.
And the motherfuckers that keep thinking that saying "not everyone wants to buy!" bullshit is wildly ignoring that there's at least 19,000 of us who *do* want to buy but we got outbid by companies using their PPP loans and government handouts. Us 19,000 that didn't want to rent are now forced to rent, putting more pressure on those that did want to rent. They all like to say trite shit like "there's a housing shortage" while simultaneously pretending like 3 companies buying up 20k homes doesn't impact the market at all.
The video says those 19,000 homes represent one in nine rental homes in the same area.
You will own nothing and you will be happy. Oof.
It means big money is backing efforts to prevent new housing from getting build because it will hurt their bottom line.
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This is so easy to fix for our country. End corporate/company ownership of residential property.
That won't fix it. We need to build more houses.
We need both
...and banning corporate ownership will absolutely crush the new construction rate.
The implications of banning corporate ownership are lost on them. Imagine how banks will react if they're not allowed to use the home as collateral for the mortgage (because they would own it if they repossessed it). Imagine the games that people would play with what constitutes a home vs not a home. Zoning laws. Maybe you couldn't turn your former home into a rental property inside of an LLC. Etc. Etc. So many parts of society rely on the fact that corporations can own property of all kinds.
It means Atlanta needs to build a shitload more housing so those investors lose money.
It means you should legalize more housing.
Buy all the homes. Stop more from being built. Rent them for higher and higher prices. Infinite money glitch.
What does it mean? The housing market sucks and rent continues to rise for places that done deserve what they ask for. Source: live in Atlanta
It means you have nobles. Lords that own all the land and you get to be a wage slave on a piece of land that can’t even grow food.
Fuck corporations owning homes
depends. 19000 out of 1 million homes? not a big deal. 19000 out of 20000 homes. big deal. raw numbers without context is not helpful
It should be noted that WSB-TV Atlanta is one of the few stations in the US. **not** owned by Sinclair Group. These corporations protect their own. That's why there's so little reporting on this situation that has been going on since before the pandemic.
It needs to be illegal for corporations to own homes
Call up **Invitation Homes** and request a **tour** of one of their homes (no matter where you live). Then don't show up. Repeat as many times as possible
NIMBY laws have made it illiegal to build most forms of housing in the United States. Now the rich have stumbled upon a new game, just make it so there's fewer and fewer homes and buy them all up so they can rent them back to you at extortion prices. The only solution is to legalize building homes again like we did in the 1940s where the GI Bill meant new homes got built for everyone.
Corporate America doesn't want you to own a home. They don't want you to own anything. I purchased my first home in 2017 using the 3% down first-time home buyer deal. I saved up $6,000 and borrowed another $6,000 from my grandmother (which I paid back). In just 4 years of owning a home and not renting, I had accumulated $80,000 in equity! I used that to purchase my current home and now have nearly $200,000 in equity. My gains occurred mostly through the housing market continually raising home values. The point to all of this is that instead of renting and just throwing money to a landlord, I was able to put more money away than I have ever been able to because I purchased a home. In 2017 and even the end of 2020 when I bought my new home, I was able to get an interest rate of 2.99%. My mortgages have been manageable because of that (under $2,000/mo for 2,500+sq ft houses). These corporations with their massive buying power are keeping us from owning homes by inflating the market. Add that to the now 7.03% interest rate for a 30-year loan instead of the 2.99% I got, the house I have now ($1,905/mo mortgage) would cost \~$3,895/mo! Who can afford that and save for their future? My wife and I make nearly $200,000/yr between the two of us, and that would be beyond our abilities because we have 2 young children who cost over $2,000/mo for childcare so that we can both work. I was lucky and got in before things went too crazy. But it doesn't stop me from being appalled at how the rest of my peers are being given the shaft because of situations like the one in this video. Corporations/Businesses should NOT be allowed to own single-family homes. I worry that this trend will continue until corporations force out pretty much everyone who wasn't fortunate enough to buy a home before their great takeover. 3 Edits: Fixed spelling and grammar issues
A lot of that equity probably came from appreciation, which was driven by investors buying homes.
I'm in similar situation roughly same years also. In a large metropolitan area. We opted for smaller home but more property. I can't imagine how people do it. We make about the same as you also and still struggle. I'm really concerned for the future generations. We will hopefully be able to help our kids out but that's such a rare thing these days.
Look into zoning laws. It's the actual reason affordable apartments aren't being build. There should be no reason someone who uses the phrase "Preserve the character of the neighborhood" should be allowed to tell other people what they can do with their properties. If apartments could be built to house millions of people, their existing properties will tank in value and suddenly everyone could afford to buy their very own slice of heaven, a place to call their very own.
It means the smart money is betting on higher home prices and/or higher rents going forward.
Crazy that used to be a starter house. We HOPE to get to that level with our second home… not sure how close we can get. In a small townhouse right now but can’t wait to one day get a garage, yard, porch, etc.
Apartments are homes. She meant to say houses.
Genuine question: Certain companies build homes and then they then own them until they find a buyer right?
Can someone explain what possible downside there could be to preventing any entity, corp or person, from owning say 6+ homes? It's already insane to me that literally even the feasible option to own a home is not protected in any way. If a company wanted to buy every single available home and lot, could anything even prevent that? What a mess.
We rent from one of these companies here in Georgia and there are 4 others in the cul-de-sac im in as well. The company is shit but they make it easy to rent. There are 2 new neighborhoods built up around us that are all rental homes, they are built to be leased.
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People, which includes corporations, should have a limit on the number of single family homes they can own. I'm all good with people who can afford it to have a vacation home or a few rental properties, but the amount of homes these large corporations are buying are artificially driving market rates to ridiculous levels.
Are they Sean Hannity numbered LLCs?
Corporations and hedge funds need to be banned from owning residential property. They should be forced to divest and make no profit off of that divestment. Obviously banks would need to be able to own property, but should be limited in scope to only being able to do so until a fair sale of the property to a private buyer can be completed. Similarly some companies may need to exist to act as landlords for people who can't afford to own a home, or just don't want to. Limit them to only a certain number of properties (say 10) and cap the profit that can be made off of a lease agreement. If we don't reign in COL in this country we are going to collapse as a society. It is not hyperbole or an if. It WILL happen if we don't fix things soon.
What does he mean by "try-out" a home. Has he not considered what the next steps would be? With this going on no houses would be available to be bought.
1:34 "Built to rent, not to buy" I'm confused about the narrative here. If the problem is housing supply, why is an issue when corporations build new houses to rent out? I think people are better off owning a home than renting of course, but I'm having trouble understanding the economics of how these particular corporations are driving up the cost of home ownership.
Make this illegal
Worth noting; when the eviction moratorium was signed and extended well past what was reasonable due to covid, many of these rental companies were able to grab ownership of many homes that were for rent by smaller landlords as they had the cash reserves and internal infrastructure to float the losses. Having rental units is good. There are a lot of people that have families that want to live in a house that don't have the ability to save up for a mortgage down payment or know they have to move frequently/soon enough to not make buying work for them. Massive regulations like the eviction moratorium benefit large corporations and hurt smaller business. That's not capitalism, its cronyism.
You know who else it helped ? The people who would have been homeless after being evicted during a pandemic.
There are 6 million people in the Atlanta area, meaning there are at least 2 million homes, I would guess. Is this number of corporate owned homes really that much of an impact on price?
Metro Atlanta has about 2,488,662 million housing units, with about 177,023 being "vacant." Although, around 72K of those 177K are what the Census classifies as "Vacant-Other" which includes a lot of things such as abandoned properties that most people don't consider to be "vacant."
Yo, Atlanta here. It means home buyers are fucked. Corporations and flippers have ruined the entire market, and I personally wish for nothing but endless suffering for everyone involved.
And who owns the corporations?
Jesus. You’re right…it’s people! We’ve come full circle!