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Homes "unaffordable" in 99% of nation for average American
(www.cbsnews.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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Put a hard stop to the purchasing of homes by corporations/businesses and people with no intention of living in them.
You should need proof of intention to live in the home within a reasonable amount of time after the purchase in order to make the sale. The flipping of homes for profit by those with cash and more money is a detriment to the market and the american dream for the rest of the population trying to get a foothold.
The problem isn't necessarily flipping houses, if the ones doing the flipping really are improving the property and are able to refurbish old properties to be more appealing. If they put in the work, they deserve to make money off of that - but they only make their money if they sell.
The problem is corporations who buy up housing stock, with no immediate plans to resell. They view houses like a commodity, and if they constrain supply in certain areas they can artificially create profit. This profit, though, comes at the expense of everyone who is looking for a home at the time.
I think the solution is for localities to step in and crank up property taxes for residential units that are not either occupied or actively on the market. Once a company keeps a property off the market for a year, make it much more painful for them to hold it for another year.
House flippers are incentivized not to make good, long term, sustainable, or efficient home improvements. Their only incentive is to make a house more sellable upon initial inspection, house flipping is a bad practice I would argue far more often than not.
The problem is housing as an investment like a stock. They should be commodities.
I spent the last year looking for a house to buy, and since it took me a year I got to see many of the shit-bucket houses I was looking at (since they were in my price range) get bought up and "flipped" - which usually amounted to just some paint slapped on everything and those fucking grey fake wood vinyl planks that everybody loves these days put down everywhere - and then resold for absurd prices. I respect people that do a good job of renovating houses, but most of these flippers aren't doing that.
I'm in no position to buy a house, but I like to browse and dream, and my mindset at this point is basically--give me an honest old house that hasn't been renovated since 1970...at least I can SEE the problem-spots (cracked this or that, stains, etc.) and make a plan on how to tackle them.
Like, my gut feeling when I see that horrible silver-blue color scheme anything flipped/"renovated" in the past few years is to run as fast as I can. You can't plan, you don't know what you'll have to tackle, it's all hidden under fresh paint or flooring. Is there mold? Who knows. Water damage? Who knows. Old pipes/electrical/etc. that need fixing? Who knows, the signs that might have given you a clue were hidden or pulled out. It's all a big mystery.
Hey I like the grey wood floor look lol
Inherently, flipping houses is about increasing the price of the home. This directly relates to the article by making more houses further out of range of more people.
Houses with issues might not be able to be financed by a mortgage. So a company/individuals will fix the issues, then resell the house to someone who can now get an FHA loan for it.
FHA loans have strict requirements on the condition of the house in order to give funding.
If someone does work on the house, they should get paid for their efforts.
Hard agree. Also they can slap a really big transfer tax on non-owner occupied as well.
Non-owner occupied properties already aren't eligible for the capital gains exclusion. I guess we could make unoccupied houses subject to regular income tax instead of capital gains tax rates would further discourage empty houses. That, and higher property taxes would probably be enough.
I live in a high property tax area and even though prices have gone up, it's nowhere near as crazy as other parts of the country.
All agreed except the localities bit. These smaller cities councilmen are too cheap to bribe. A $1,000 check will have them hanging on your every word. I've seen it with my own eyes. Probably best bumped up to state level.
But yes, we should ban corporations at some well-defined point. I mean, what if I incorporate myself? Now I can't buy another house?
To add, the corps buying up housing are also the ones that have the most potential to back housing builders, but since they're buying up stock to artificially decrease supply, then they're deincentivized to support builders. I really wish these big corps had some sort of for each unit you buy, you must build a unit within the next 2 years.
Good point! That's a great idea.
Higher taxes is just a cost of doing business which is passed on to other tenants, be it long or short term rentals, even if housing stock is temporarily held - though I don’t disagree that such a vacancy tax is a good.
GP was right - forbid corporations from owning any residential property if 4 or fewer units and greater than four unless the building is wholly owned.
On the tax side, add a purchasing tax of 15-25%, 90% of which is rebated at closing for non-corporations who have not received the rebate in the previous 24 months. That targets flippers and property-bros willing to go naked on liability.
This would take all the single family and duplexes off the rental market and make a ton of people homeless. No thanks. There's enough people homeless in this country due to drug and alcohol issues.
We do need to have an exception for those who need to buy through a corporation in order to protect their privacy, especially with the rise of professions such as streaming.
Those professions aren't going to be going anywhere anytime soon.
Rather than a hard stop, I think it would be a good idea to significantly increase taxes on real estate no one is actively living in, and use the proceeds to subsidize construction of new housing.
This seems to be the most reasonable. Disincentiivize multiple property ownership rather than outright ban it. The ones who can eat the cost will pay taxes and the rest will just bow out of the market.
But housing is a need and people will keep paying any price to not be homeless, this feels like it leads to massive corporations still owning all of them and paying large taxes they can eat short term and raise to massive prices of rent. Maybe they dump some stock but I'm just not sure it does much other than diversify smaller investors that used property for assets
Then the taxes aren't high enough. That's an easy fix. It's one of those times the state doesn't want to optimise the rate for total tax earned but to make paying it for any length of time actually prohibitive. Make it so that they can't possibly raise rents high enough to cover those taxes and they'll understand quickly.
The other side of the equation is a bit harder, and that's housing overstock: Companies will be sitting on housing they can't rent out due to lack of demand for housing. One idea would be to allow them to lease homes out to municipalities for literally nothing but tax forgiveness and the municipalities can use that to house the left-over homeless, unemployed, etc. Call it a half write off. Oh those leases need sensible minimum durations, I'd say five years is a good start.
You can easily make smaller investors be hit significant less by it by scaling the tax to the number of vacant housing units. Own a second home you rent out and spend four months finding a renter you like? Fine, pay ten bucks. Do that to 1000 housing units? Pay 10000 bucks for each.
Yes, those kinds of rates are right-out financial violence. That's the point: The state has to step in as the larger bully to keep the small ones in check to avert market failure.
An alternative is to replace property tax with a land tax. That way instead of penalizing people for building more housing, they are penalized for holding onto land that could be used to house more people (or whatever other use is in mind).
There should also be taxes on rental properties beyond the first to prevent the "hoard and rent" cycle
I disagree, because that would disincentivize housing. I think the price of housing is mostly just a function of how much of it is on the market. Wealth inequality is also a problem but should be addressed in other ways.
As an aside, the tax should also apply to commercial real estate so there is an incentive to convert offices to apartments.
You’re essentially talking about decommodification of housing, which is the only correct answer. It is necessarily impossible for a house to be both affordable and a good investment, and the current status quo means that housing will be used as an investment. Whatever mechanism used to fix the housing affordability problem will require that housing no longer be subject to commodity market forces.
The value of a house should be in reduction of costs, not increase in real value.
When you rent, you pay for maintenance of your residence, some amount of furnishings, and the risk tht property owner takes in renting to you (i.e. the likelihood that you'll destroy the property, fail to pay, etc).
When you own, you take that risk on yourself. You can choose to delay, DIY, or preempt repairs. You can choose what level of furnishings you have, and you are responsible for any loans or taxes due on the property. You don't need to worry about unplanned vacancies.
Housing should keep pace with demand so property values stay roughly consistent with normal inflation. Unfortunately, cities tend to grow, making existing property more valuable.
When you rent, you also pay for the flexibility of being able to pick up and move in a short while if you get a new opportunity somewhere else, or just want to move for whatever reason.
Some people rent because they don't want to worry about repairs, or mowing lawns, or any of that stuff.
They'd rather spend $3,500 taking a nice vacation than on a new furnace.
When you rent, you still pay for that $3500 furnace, you just pay for it in monthly installments through your rent instead of all at once.
You can accomplish the same thing with home ownership by using sinking funds. Basically, if you expect that furnace to last 20 years and cost $3500, you'd set aside ~$15/month, assuming your furnace is new. If you expect repairs in that time, set aside enough to cover that cost as well. If you do that for enough of your major repairs (roof, major appliances, driveway, etc), you should always have enough in the fund to meet any house related emergency, assuming your estimates are accurate enough on average. I do this in my budget by using online estimates for expected lifetime and cost to replace, and I do my best to make things last longer than that estimate. I do the same for cars and other large expenses so I'm always prepared.
That's what landlords do, and homeowners can do it too. Budget for repairs just like you'd budget for a vacation.
Your first point is more important though. Selling a house is expensive and time consuming, so it absolutely makes more sense to rent if you expect to need to move with short notice. You'll pay a premium for that convenience, and you'll also not have to worry about repairs. For some people, renting is less expensive on net vs owning even if they don't need to move quickly, e.g. if they know they'll overspend on renovations and repairs. There's absolutely an argument to both, I'm just pointing out that the value in a house isn't in the appreciation imo, it's in potential cost savings by taking ownership of repairs, vacancy, etc.
The problem is not that the furnace is $15/mo, it's that it requires having $3500 all at one time. Newer furnaces have circuit boards on them and seem to require more repairs and maintenance. Everything does really. Appliances, water heaters, etc. There's lots of expenses to home ownership and expenses that happen suddenly instead of being able to plan neatly for them.
Right, and those can be anticipated and mitigated. Options:
If something truly out of the blue comes up, you're usually in appliance warranty or home owners insurance claim territory. The vast majority of the time, "unexpected" expenses could've been planned for, but the individual didn't do their due diligence. A 20 year old furnace going out isn't an emergency, that's its expected lifetime (and with maintenance, a high quality furnace can last double that).
Owning a home is expensive, and so is renting. If you're paying more owning a home on average vs renting for the same size of place (after, say, 6 years or so), you're doing something seriously wrong.
Again, not everyone who owns a home saves up for those things. Case in point, one of my friends budgets for an annual furnace tuneup at the end of summer. Well, they discovered that the furnace is dead and won't start up once it gets cold. So her plan is to work a second job for a month to be able to afford getting a new furnace since it's close to winter.
If she was renting, the owner would simply replace the furnace and she wouldn't have to worry about it.
Does she budget for other longer term expenses, like car replacement and repairs, retirement, or college for kids (assuming she has kids)? If not, this should be a wakeup call that she needs to get her finances in order, because working a second job shouldn't be the solution to every periodic expense.
I don't know where you live, but at least in my area, I had to finish a new homeowner packet to get my mortgage, which laid out common expenses. AFAIK, that's a pretty common thing because banks don't want you to default due to an unexpected repair cost.
But maybe renting is better for her if she is unable or unwilling to plan ahead. My point is that, in most cases, owning ends up being cheaper than renting for the same space.
I'm willing to bet there's a lot of homeowners like this. Why do you think there have been so many foreclosures?
New homeowners get the house then they think that's it.
But it's not.
Homeownership isn't for everyone. Not everyone is financially responsible to own a house.
I absolutely agree. I'm just saying that's what homeownership requires, otherwise you'll be stuck with an endless money pit financing every little repair.
To add to that, put a limit on airBNBs and similar, you can only have one. Corporations are buying homes and small apartments for that too.
I live in a touristy area and literally everything is getting turned into AirBnBs. It’s a huge problem because the people who actually live here have nowhere to live now
It’s gotten out of control. I would say one in ten houses in my neighborhood are airBNBs.
It's disgusting because airbnbs in my area can have 50% occupancy and do better than a long term, meaning for about 180 days of the year that housing is just artificially decreased supply.
$200/night * 15 days = $3k/mo
If you want to operate an airbnb in Berlin you need a hotel license (unless you actually live in the thing at the same time, or only do it for I think about a month a year, say when you're on vacation). Long story short the city isn't giving out any licenses in areas with high rent pressure, which is basically all of Berlin.
But those things are highly regional, there's plenty of villages in the alps with an absurd amount of tourist accommodation compared to the number of regular inhabitants, but they also don't have any industry but family farms and tourism. If you own something on Sylt and somewhere else you're paying sky-high secondary residence taxes (rich fucks don't rent they just buy holiday homes).
How is your homeless situation, does it alleviate it somewhat?
Municipalities are required to house everyone so the situation doesn't even begin to be comparable to the US. Ballpark a shabby dorm room to yourself as the minimum, bath and kitchen might be shared, washing machine will almost invariably be. In Berlin there's about 27k living in those shelters, about 2k are sleeping rough, and that's as a metropolis smaller cities tend to have zero. None of that includes people crashing on somebody else's couch, but it does include apartment burned down and you don't want to pay for a hotel until you find something new kind of situations.
The official term is "emergency accommodations" and they're supposed to be short-term, hence also the low standards, but we haven't built enough social housing in ages and the stuff that got build constantly stops to be social housing as municipalities cheaped out and simply tacked "X% of units as social housing for 30 years" onto building permits, which leads to municipalities push come to shove having to rent hotel rooms and eat the difference.
The whole situation could be solved within a decade if we re-instituted the social housing programmes of the 50s, and you can't do it as one-off investment as construction companies aren't willing to increase their own capacity for a short-term boom.
Side note: Berlin had a referendum to expropriate all landlords who have more than 3k units, it passed, but wasn't 100% binding and politics is dragging its feet implementing it, including the social democrats. With legalities out of the way though they're now starting one that would be immediately applicable law.
The reasoning of the socdems isn't even completely wrong, "we should build instead of expropriate" but MFers don't seem to understand that people are out for blood. If the people want to expropriate something you can say your bit that you think that there's better solutions but fucking do it. Especially in the east.
And, no, the landlords won't get compensated at market rates. The whole thing is possible because for landlords housing units are means of production and Article 15, Berlin doesn't even have to show it's for the public good. Eminent domain type stuff is Article 14, 15 is way stronger and there because the constitution was deliberately written to be compatible with democratic socialism.
You guys are kind of bad ass taking care of your own though, even if there are politics around it.
How about expropriation of these homes instead of just a half assed "can we put a pause on capitalism guys?" You realize what the problem is. No more half measures, Walter
First step is seizing the ones they already bought, at gunpoint if they resist
As for "the market and the american dream", lol. lmao, even
Death to America
well that doesn't sound like free market capitalism!
331.9 million (2021) US Population / ~142 million housing units in the United States (2021) = ~2.34 people average needed per dwelling to fully house everyone.
According to Statista: " The average American household consisted of 2.5 people in 2022. "
If people did not need vacation homes, and investment property... We appear to have enough housing for everyone already.
I'm working under the assumption hotels/motels are not included.. there should be plenty of those to house people on vacation, and leaves plenty of room for the ultra wealthy to still have their vacation homes.
Sources: Statista, US Census, Google
ATL had a pretty good program at one point. If you made $60k, you could buy a $250k house with the requirement that you would be the primary resident for the first year.
What's even better is that the comparables in the area were all $450k, so 3 years later, all of the homes got valued around $500-600k.
Just levy additional taxes on the homes that aren't owner occupied and make it less attractive to investors.
its maddening there are plenty of homes out there completely empty