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New Legislation Proposes to Take Wall Street Out of the Housing Market (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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[–] 24 points 2 years ago (2 children)

That's crazy that they say we need more housing when there are so many empty houses sitting on the market from corporate real estate investing and other house flippers. "Wall Street is not the problem, a lack of new housing is" really sounds like the guy with gasoline and matches in hand saying "it wasn't me" at the scene of an arson fire.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    A significant problem isn't just the lack of housing, it's the lack of affordable housing. Builders keep building single family homes in spread out suburbs which is problematic in its own way. But not everyone could afford those homes regardless of whether they are buying or renting.

    Investors owning single family homes is a big problem, the bigger problem is exacerbated but not explicitly caused by that. Affordable housing simply isn't available in places where it's needed. That's why people say we need more homes.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    Not just single family homes. They could be building starter single family homes, but those are cheap. They could be focusing on middle class family single family homes, but those aren't as profitable as the luxury housing. They focus on luxury housing both in single family suburbs, and when they build apartment buildings in the cities.

    According to the home builders, if you aren't rich, they won't build you a home.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    The funny thing about empty yet "unaffordable" housing is that if the market actually works correctly it gets lowered in price until a buyer is found.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    You would think so. But the reality is that large companies would often rather let a property sit empty than devalue it by accepting a lower amount. And when they control enough of the market that there's no good competition, it breaks the whole "free market" thing.

    You or I would be hurting (I presume) if we owned a property and weren't living in and weren't making any money off of it. These holding companies just see a line on a spreadsheet under the "assets" column.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    A lack of housing is very explicitly our problem. Houses that are empty are not unowned.

    Until housing is no longer seen as an investment, which can only happen if we are allowed to build sufficient housing, housing will continue to go up in value, and thus more people will invest

    Anyone who sees their home as their "nest egg" is part of the problem.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    So you build 500,000 new homes and blackstone or other companies buy 450,000, meaning you only actually generated 50,000 new homes. No, corporate interests are the vast majority of the problem with housing. Your neighbor renting out their house after buying a 2nd isn't the issue.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Assuming some large capital group buys all those homes, they're going to do it to try to make money off of it.

    More supply means lower prices

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Constraining supply, either by not building, or by buying everything available, means higher prices, so they don't have to sell as many houses to make the same revenue.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Until housing is no longer seen as an investment, which can only happen if we are allowed to build sufficient housing

    It can happen through legislation.

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