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Companies that buy up homes should be known as home scalpers (lemmy.ca)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (7 children)

there is no recent increase in vacancy rates

You're looking at the wrong stats. When people are forced to spend more on necessities, they don't cut necessities. They can't. They're necessities.

They cut luxuries.

One such relevant stat, would be piracy spiking. Not to mention the spike in homelessness if we are talking about the US.

You yourself point out that housing is not keeping up with need. Things can absolutely be getting worse (and they are), while at the same time not showing up in vacancy rates. The well-off can be moving into new homes faster than the poor are moving back in with parents. Or going homeless.

Another stat is the average age at which people buy their first home increasing.

Another is the ratio of renters increasing in relation to owners.

investment companies are seeing that housing is shooting up in value already, due to low rates of building, hence making it a more attractive investment relative to other things. So they buy them up and charge high rents - but at the same time all the individual owners of rental property also see that they can charge high rents, and do so. All we've done is swapped who is screwing renters, not by how much.

This is a distinction without a difference. You're saying the chicken came first, while I'm trying to explain chickens come from eggs, and the entire relationship between the two.

Increased consolidation increases the co-ordination of price hiking, hence increasing "how much" screwing is going on. But that doesn't mean a tiny bit of screwing can't get it started.

I'm saying it has gotten so bad because the problem feeds itself. By allowing more investment, the screwing gets harder.

All we've done is swapped who is screwing renters, not by how much.

This is a truly insane take. You're saying if all rented properties were owned by single landlords who owned no other properties, rents today would still be just as high?

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (6 children)

    When people are forced to spend more on necessities, they don’t cut necessities. They can’t. They’re necessities.

    Well then, we're back to some people cutting their costs by doing all the things I said above. You dismissed them all as if reasons why they're not practical are reasons why they're impossible.

    You’re saying if all rented properties were owned by single landlords who owned no other properties, rents today would still be just as high?

    All those landlords have the exact same incentives to charge as much as they can get away with, to subdivide properties and to exploit their renters as corporate landlords do. Consolidation can allow prices to increase - but it doesn't always, and typically not by a lot, until consolidation reaches very high levels. 3-7% is what I've read for company mergers (note that the case studies include large market shares and companies dealing in necessities).

    So I propose that corporate landlords have manipulated the market by no more than 10%. So about 6 months of house price increases at current rates, or two years at less crazy rates. Everything else is caused by low supply and such.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

    Well then, we're back to some people cutting their costs by doing all the things I said above. You dismissed them all as if reasons why they're not practical are reasons why they're impossible.

    No. I dismissed them as insufficient to show up in the stats. In order to significantly impact the situation, the alternative needs to be valid for any individual. Not just some.

    All those landlords have the exact same incentives to charge as much as they can get away with, to subdivide properties and to exploit their renters as corporate landlords do.

    Duh. But are you really going to claim single property owners competing with every other single property owner, wouldn't have different results than duopolistic companies carving up cities and throwing their weight around in legislation?

    Have you considered that larger companies are also able to act to maintain the low supply?

    Real-estate and construction overlap a great deal, and that influence also grows with consolidation.

    And thanks for linking to a study that confirms what I'm trying to say? 3-7% of the largest bill most people have is not nothing.

    Does that percentage account for wage stagnation? Which is also exacerbated by mergers.

    Everything else is caused by low supply and such.

    A few comments ago you were clamining low supply is the only problem.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

    If people really thought that companies buying real estate might, at most, contribute a few percent of the price, while limited supply has led to price increases of hundreds of percent, then we'd be getting constant memes about insufficient house-building and pushes to change that, rather than this kind of thing.

    I want to change the narrative, because if all people hear is "COMPANIES ARE BUYING UP HOUSES AND JACKING UP RENTS" they won't push for the policies which will have a bigger impact.

    EDIT: Here is a chart of the ratio of population growth to house-building in the USA. Notice that it's increased from about 1.5 to about 2.5. That is a massive difference. A company with 17% of the homes in a city can squeeze residents in that city for 17% of its available housing if they don't mind sitting on an asset that isn't paying them anything.

    Meanwhile, the population has increased by about 50%, but you only built homes for half that. That's a bigger effect even if you believe that companies are willing to sit on vast quantities of empty housing, which we know they're not.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (3 children)

    Did I at some point say we don't need more housing?

    Protip: switch to "yes, and".

    You won't get a positive response by continuing with "no, actually".

    I believe these same corporate forces are a major reason why housing isn't being built. Hence my focus is on them, not simply "build more homes".

    In my city, homes are being built, but only by the rich for the rich. I'm finnish, btw.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    Protip: switch to “yes, and”.

    Right back atcha, pal. You had ample opportunity to agree that the biggest problem is lack of housing. Instead you embraced the narrative of the OP.

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    In my very first reply to you:

    If there isn't an overabundance of food (as you yourself admit, housing is insufficient).

    This whole time I've been trying to tell you, "no, that is actually a problem" because you started off by minimizing the contribution of corporate interests to the housing problem. I guess I should have made the the implied "as well" more obvious, but it was always there.

    You didn't start off with "we need more housing". You started off with "it's not the companies and they are good actually".

    So no, I wasn't gonna reply with "yes, and". I didn't have the option because what you started with needed actual refuting, first.

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