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Comment by brutal_chaos_ | Hacker News Reader

Disagreed. We have corpoeations/Private Equity Firms buying up property to squeeze out as much money possible from these places. Creating an artificial inflation of housing costs and making a UBI look untenable. If the property rush wasn't happening we wouldn't see this. A decent UBI would adjust with the cost of living. Including handling a price surge like this.

Edit to add: More than just a UBI would be needed for the surges probably. Perhaps a more functional Congress would be needed too, at this point.

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> We have corpoeations/Private Equity Firms buying up property to squeeze out as much money possible from these places.

This isn't some groundbreaking revelation they had. Corporations and firms are always trying to squeeze as much money as possible. After a few purchases, the stimulus checks go into the hands of the corporations, who are are now flush with newly printed cash. Given that there are few real growth opportunities to invest in, everyone just throws their money at property.

Land value tax is the answer..only allow real people to own residential dwellings, no corps. Secondly every property as a 0.25% higher tax than the previous one, sorted by lowest value, so you're paying lower taxes on the lower costing houses, and the highest taxes on the highest costing.

Finally, the base tax is gotta be way above primary dwelling, normal homeowners shouldn't be penalized.

All the $$ raised is to be used for UBI or Medicare For All, it cannot be borrowed from or repurposed.

Oh I understand that. I just meant the recent mass buys that have been happening. (this may just be a feeling based on my news readings and not a reflection of reality)

This represents a small amount of the property in the US. Investors own 16% of US housing. And keep in mind that includes investors with 1 or 2 additional properties that they rent secondary to their own home.

https://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/investors-bought-m...

It's just not true. Housing prices are rising due to record low interest rates (most people folks on monthly payments, not net cost) and demand shifts due to covid. Housing prices in core cities have largely fallen.

>And keep in mind that includes investors with 1 or 2 additional properties that they rent secondary to their own home.

That directly contradicts the definition in literally the second line of your source.

>Investors — any institute or business that deals in real estate

Institute or business, which doesn't include unincorporated individuals with just a couple of extra properties they rent out.

You can tell they're not included because it says in the article that "investors" only bought "26.5% of multifamily homes" (i.e. multi-unit apartments), so unless you're suggesting that 75% of multifamily buildings aren't being bought as an investment, the numbers don't add up.

I think you're more or less right on your reasons.

I do have add-on thought as far as demand shifts contributing to price increases; A lot of the demand was driven by people wanting to move into bigger houses. Those who didn't have enough equity built-up early on could just tack what they wanted onto their selling price and hope for the best.

One more interesting anecdote; In my neighborhood, housing prices have stayed relatively flat since summer of 2020. There are other nearby cities where the prices have increased more, however they often do not have the same property tax rates as where I reside. (prop Taxes are over 1/3 of my monthly 30y mortgage payment, lol)

Do you think everybody's house is on the market?

Everyone's house is on the market. Some are just too expensive to bother with.

I bet if I offered you a billion dollars a square foot you'd sell you beloved childhood home. And If you're the 1 in a billion who'd turn down that deal with that amount of money on the line, I can simply bribe the local government for them to expropriate you.

Large investors represent 1 to 2 percent of purchases. The number of home purchases from all investors has been FALLING since 2013: https://www.vox.com/22524829/wall-street-housing-market-blac...

Housing prices (in certain areas) are high due to low interest rates, covid related demand changes (moves of high income earners from core cities), and wage growth for high income earners.

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