Tricon CEO hoards 30000+ single family homes in US/Canada
old.reddit.com
old.reddit.com
Tell me another. It’s time to call the bluff. We either have the right to affordable housing, or we are beholden to the market and its participants. When the free market can’t provide a market based solution, are we to just throw up our hands and say, at least we tried?
I know there are no easy answers here. What do people in the industry think the future of affordable housing looks like?
Make it illegal for corporations to own single/dual family residential property. Boom. Done. End the corporate landlord.
Residential property owners don't go scooping up empty factories and strip malls when the market is down.
Where do you draw the line?
I think landlords are an archaic remnant of the past that refuses to let go. I haven't self-resolved my thoughts on whether or not it's ethical to have property you don't, yourself use. In my opinion, it's complex, ethically. Ideally we wouldn't need landlords or apartments or anything (hey 37% of the workforce in the US could "easily" work remotely! what about th) - but since they exist, I'm in agreement. "holding land" should be frowned upon.
The only reason you would want to hide behind an LLC is so you can avoid liability as a landlord. That is the source of so many horror stories. Dangerous, disgusting, pathetic horror stories.
Banks shouldn't own houses. People should.
I think there are ways we can draw the line. We can accept that some form of property ownership is fine, even if it means that one person owns multiple properties. For example, an older couple renting out their old home after they downsized. But there needs to be a progressive tax on additional properties. Something like that by the time you own 10 properties, each additional property costs you more in taxes annually than it can ever bring in (think 500k annual tax on a property valued at 500k.)
Corporate property ownership we can treat two ways -- completely eliminate it, or similarly progressively tax it, but at a much harsher rate. Like, each additional property requires 2x the taxation of the previous one. And make any attempts to circumvent this very criminal and strict liability -- like 25y/life for the executive and board levels, and no arguing that it was some underling that did it.
https://www.avail.co/education/articles/should-you-create-an...
Ideally there would be a federal moratorium on new land-lording, and all current landlords would have to setup an estate plan to transition ownership to heirs for use as a primary residence if they did not already own one, and the excess could be sold at auction to those who don’t already own a primary residence, or to those who are trading up or down to another house.
Not sure if that’s a great way to go about it, but it could work.
My mother spent 30+ years paying off her mortgage, busting her ass to ensure that I would inherit her property free-and-clear. I'm just beginning to setup the place with a property management company, and already my projections indicate it is the #2 source of income and wealth in our family over the next 10 years (my income is #1, wife's income a VERY distant #3). Property ownership, and leveraging assets to acquire more assets, isn't used exclusively by the already-wealthy 1%. It's also used by middle-class minorities, living well within their means, to climb the ladder out of the working class and into the capitalist class. I'm finally starting to see a light at the end of the wage-slavery tunnel.
My primary residence is outside the US, and I have no intention or expectation that I would ever penalize my children by forcing them to reside in the crumbling, socially-fractured dystopian hellhole of America. I would absolutely fly MYSELF back to the States, perhaps even augmented with personally-hired SE Asian "security contractors" (far more affordable than US veterans) to defend my family's assets with lethal force if someone tried to implement this insanity.
"Do-gooders" and their unintended consequences really grind my gears.
(Note that I’m part of the problem too, by renting out our previous house so that my kid may eventually be able to live close to us, but at least I’m not a hypocrite, knowingly or not, about it.)
Congrats. I wish the same could be said of the people that are going to be beholden to wage slavery to rent the residence that you own and they get nothing out of at the end of their leases.
> My primary residence is outside the US, and I have no intention or expectation that I would ever penalize my children by forcing them to reside in the crumbling, socially-fractured dystopian hellhole of America.
But you're okay contributing to making America more of a hellhole for others? If you don't reside in the US, and you have no intention of living in the US, nor having your family live there, but you own property that you extract rent on, you are the EXACT problem that people complain about. How about you sell your US properties and buy ones where you live? After all, the US is a hellhole, why would you want to own a piece of it.
Those 'do-gooders' that you complain about, may be wrong, but they're trying to better the situation. You seem to content to shit all over it instead. That makes you no better than said 'do-gooders' and if anything quantifiably worse.
Almost every urban development thread on HN is full of comments about how Americans need to abandon the idea of single-family home ownership and move into apartments. How is renting out a SFH any different from a small-time landlord than owns a property with 10 tenants? Either way the inhabitants leave the relationship with no change in their ownership of the underlying physical land.
>>>But you're okay contributing to making America more of a hellhole for others?
Middle-class rental property owners aren't even on my Top100 list of Things Making America a Hellhole.
>>>If you don't reside in the US, and you have no intention of living in the US, nor having your family live there, but you own property that you extract rent on, you are the EXACT problem that people complain about.
You've basically just described "Foreign Investment". Renting property is protection from the elements, without the long-term financial risk of a mortgage. Likewise, working a job is a means to generate income, either in the absence of accumulated capital (for starting your own business), or when the laborer is unwilling to risk their own capital. So if renting out our family home is apparently immoral, is it also immoral to open a factory and employ American workers, while I live overseas? In both cases I am levering my possession of private property, which I am not personally using, to amplify the accrual of wealth to myself. I'm considering sub-dividing my property and building 1-2 additional houses on the currently-unused land. If zoning weren't an issue, I could tear down the existing home and replace it with a 3-unit apartment building. Would I still be "the exact problem" if I now owned a luxury condo building instead of 3 single-family units?
>>>How about you sell your US properties and buy ones where you live?
My US property is severely undervalued because it is in a historically-black neighborhood with a poor-performing school system. I was quoted a sale price of ~$275k....while houses barely 1.5km away in the white neighborhoods, with fewer physical features/amenities than our home, are selling for $450k. If I ever sell it at all, it will be after the neighborhood sufficiently gentrifies and home prices normalize with the surrounds. As for buying a home here (Japan), why would I undergo all the various transaction costs involved (FX risk, agent commissions, etc...) just to physically shift the source of my revenue? With the current exchange rates, it's more advantageous in purchasing-power terms to collect an income in USD, and spend JPY. It's also generally a better risk-management strategy to hold physical assets during periods of high inflation (like now), so I wouldn't want to sell the US house and just sit on the cash either. So if I bought a house here, I would lose on the transaction costs, gain nothing in nominal wealth (break even on house price), lose qualitatively on the physical features (you're not getting a 4-bedroom house with an inground pool for $400k in Japan), and lose on purchasing-power-parity of my rental income.
>>>Those 'do-gooders' that you complain about, may be wrong, but they're trying to better the situation. You seem to content to shit all over it instead. That makes you no better than said 'do-gooders' and if anything quantifiably worse.
Yes, because all too frequently, doing something is objectively worse than doing nothing. I've seen it a million times in the military: new officers come in, always trying to shake up the status quo and "improve" things....but they have a terribly limited understanding of the depth of the organization's problems...so they force us to implement poorly-thought-out adjustments to our business practices. Then they are out the door to another office barely 1 year later. The constant churn of bad ideas leaves the organization unable to build institutional proficiency, worse than if we had just stuck with one set of mediocre solutions for ~5 years instead.
So when someone suggests that the solution to America's housing problem is "get the central government to seize and redistribute private property", I absolutely consider my position quantifiably better than their suggestion.
I never said that the idea of owning a SFH should be abandoned. Owning multiple SFHs for the purpose of turning them into an investment vehicle should be the thing that's abandoned. I also believe that as long as you are renting, you should be gaining equity in the property.
> Middle-class rental property owners aren't even on my Top100 list of Things Making America a Hellhole.
Lets hear them then. 1-100, a numbered list please.
> You've basically just described "Foreign Investment".
You state this as though I am not aware of it. I don't think foreign investment in house-bearing real estate should be allowed.
> So if renting out our family home is apparently immoral, is it also immoral to open a factory and employ American workers, while I live overseas?
If all you do is extract and expatrtiate the wealth gained from said factory, yes, it is immoral in my mind. You should be reinvesting all of the profits into the factory or the workers with some _very_ minimal amount kept for yourself as profit.
> In both cases I am levering my possession of private property, which I am not personally using, to amplify the accrual of wealth to myself.
You should be limited in the ability to accrue wealth. If anything, this is an argument against what you're doing. And ultimately, if you're not using it personally, you should sell it to someone that would. That's the most benefit to society.
> I'm considering sub-dividing my property and building 1-2 additional houses on the currently-unused land. If zoning weren't an issue, I could tear down the existing home and replace it with a 3-unit apartment building. Would I still be "the exact problem" if I now owned a luxury condo building instead of 3 single-family units?
Again, I have no problem with you using your property as you wish as long as you don't exploit other people. If you subdivide your property, build houses or apartments on it, and then rent them out at cost or very close to, there's no issue with that. But if you subdivide your property, or develop it into a profit-generating vehicle that goes beyond just cover your costs as a landlord, I have a problem with that. I don't really give a crap that you want to generate some profit off your properties. The need for housing overrides your desires for profit, and ultimately if that means you lose your additional properties, that's fine by me as long as society in general benefits. Your feelings on this are 100% irrelevant.
> My US property is severely undervalued because it is in a historically-black neighborhood with a poor-performing school system. I was quoted a sale price of ~$275k....while houses barely 1.5km away in the white neighborhoods, with fewer physical features/amenities than our home, are selling for $450k.
So you made a risky investment that will possibly not pay off in your lifetime? What's your point?
>If I ever sell it at all, it will be after the neighborhood sufficiently gentrifies and home prices normalize with the surrounds. "I will remove this home from the market and disallow any other potential homeowner to use it as a home until my investment has been recouped. And until I have done so, I will extract wealth from those than cannot compete with me for the purchase of the home."
What you're signaling here is that your property is purely an investment vehicle and that the only thing you intend to do with it is extract rent.
> As for buying a home here (Japan), why would I undergo all the various transaction costs involved (FX risk, agent commissions, etc...) just to physically shift the source of my revenue?
Well, some people see that as away to have a home that they don't need to be worried about getting kicked out of. Pretty sure they mind much less than you going through all that process.
> So if I bought a house here, I would lose on the transaction costs, gain nothing in nominal wealth (break even on house price), lose qualitatively on the physical features (you're not getting a 4-bedroom house with an inground pool for $400k in Japan), and lose on purchasing-power-parity of my rental income.
Once again, and? You state this as though there's some necessity in the world to guarantee your income/profit. If you're going to lose money on buying a house, then don't buy the house. I ain't twisting your arm.
> Yes, because all too frequently, doing something is objectively worse than doing nothing.
When the system is at rock bottom and grinding people into dust, and any motion outside of the current system will result in a more beneficial local minimum, then doing nothing is objectively worse. This isn't like a new officer changing the processes and routines of a well-established unit. This is taking a shitty officer out back after he just joined the unit and suggested they should change tactics to attacking the enemies buck-naked without any weapons. We're well past the point where doing nothing is neutral.
And here's the other thing, as long as the wishes are of the society at large, then it doesn't really matter how mercurial they are. You can either follow them, or be ostracized.
> So when someone suggests that the solution to America's housing problem is "get the central government to seize and redistribute private property", I absolutely consider my position quantifiably better than their suggestion.
But the suggestion isn't to seize private property. It's to tax private property that can serve a public good enough that serving the public good becomes more profitable than not. You're free to own as much property as you want as long as you commensurately compensate society for said property.
But even if the suggestion was to actually seize private property and redistribute it, in certain contexts that would be perfectly acceptable.
The solution to the housing problem in the US is not only building more housing, but shutting down avenues of removing or significantly pricing-up housing supply from the market. It helps no one if new housing is out of the price range of the people that need housing the most. And as such, your approach to housing, is part of the problem.
>>>You should be reinvesting all of the profits into the factory or the workers with some _very_ minimal amount kept for yourself as profit.
Define "minimal amount". If it is MY property, who are you to determine the limits of how I compensate myself for the risks that I assume with my capital allocation?
>>>And ultimately, if you're not using it personally, you should sell it to someone that would. That's the most benefit to society.
Am I not a member of society? Am I not allowed to benefit from my property? Why are you mandating that the material abundance accrue to total strangers? What makes any other individual member of American society more deserving of the utilization of my family's assets?
>>>Again, I have no problem with you using your property as you wish as long as you don't exploit other people.
If people are voluntarily entering into a business relationship with me, who are you to interject that they are being "exploited"? Do they not have their own agency as rational adults?
>>>The need for housing overrides your desires for profit, and ultimately if that means you lose your additional properties, that's fine by me as long as society in general benefits. Your feelings on this are 100% irrelevant.
This is fundamentally anathema to the basic concept of private property rights in America.
>>>So you made a risky investment that will possibly not pay off in your lifetime?
Made a risky investment? I am inheriting the house I grew up in, which is paid off, and has been for years. I'm not that concerned about a guaranteed return during my life, as I'm more interested in snowballing asset ownership for my children, and my children's children. The only risk is opportunity cost compared to ownership of other assets.
>>> You state this as though there's some necessity in the world to guarantee your income/profit.
I'm not guaranteed anything (beyond what is elucidated in the Bill of Rights)....and neither is anyone else. I'm exercising my rational self-interest, as is whoever decides to become my tenant. Are you not familiar with the concept?
>>>If you're going to lose money on buying a house, then don't buy the house. I ain't twisting your arm.
I merely articulated a response to YOUR suggestion that I purchase local property, explaining why that wasn't the best course of action.
>>>And here's the other thing, as long as the wishes are of the society at large, then it doesn't really matter how mercurial they are. You can either follow them, or be ostracized.
Yes, you should follow the society at large's wishes regarding the value of private property rights. [1][2]
>>>But the suggestion isn't to seize private property.
The post I responded to stated: "federal moratorium on new land-lording ...all current landlords ...setup an estate plan to transition ownership to heirs for use as a primary residence ...and the excess could be sold at auction". There is nothing in there about "taxing private property". It is about forcing land owners to auction their assets. A forced auction is essentially a seizure and redistribution with a few extra steps.
>>>as long as you commensurately compensate society for said property
We already have a vehicle for that. It's called "property taxes". And you keep using the word "society" as if it is some amorphous blob that can be directly engaged with as a unit. Civilizations are composed of individuals, and when you get down to the nitty-gritty details of everyday resource utilization and AUTHORITY, there is always A PERSON who wields that authority. In our current system, the authority is typically tied to the person who OWNS the resource. "Society" cannot sign a document. "Society" cannot make a decision. Individuals vested with authority do (until we adopt DAOs at large, but hey HN hates blockchain tech, so let's not go there either....). If you want "society" to exert influence, it will be via essentially governmental bureaucrats. We've seen the performance of systems where government middle management controls resource allocation.....somehow the bureaucrats manage to all have nice Dachas on the Black Sea Coast while the populace at large still goes hungry, and lives in shitty apartments. Good luck pulling this off in the US, where trust in government is terribly fragile [3].
>>>But even if the suggestion was to actually seize private property and redistribute it, in certain contexts that would be perfectly acceptable.
Well, it's been tried before at scale and the consequences are typically disastrous (Soviet Collectivization, Mao's Great Leap Forward).
[1] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/12/21/ilya-somin/more-empi...
[2] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/12/27/ilya-somin/what-surv...
[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/07/22/trust-and-di...
What free market do you have in mind? Housing supply shortages aren't the result of a free market, they are the result of a very regulated market or simply the prohibition to build more houses.
> What do people in the industry think the future of affordable housing looks like?
Construction needs to keep pace with population growth and demand, which it hasn't for a long time [0].
We could expropriate those 30000+ units and sure it would feel like justice is being done but this will only be a temporary patch if demand keeps outpacing supply.
And sure the government can build more units but can the government by itself make up for those 5 million needed units [1]?
Note once we expropriate those 30000 units we'll only be 4.97 millions units short.
[0] https://usafacts.org/articles/population-growth-has-outpaced... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/14/america-is-short-more-than-5...
I dont understand how this is an objectively evil thing, except if you see house ownership as a human right?
Because apparently buying a house by paying more is stealing. Oh, and the Kulak billionaires should apparently be put to death.
No one person or corporation should be able to own even dozens of homes, nevermind the thousands that they currently do.
Why? Did they steal the homes? Do they evade property taxes?
> No one person or corporation should be able to own even dozens of homes, nevermind the thousands that they currently do.
Why should you get a say in how other people chose to deploy their money?
In a way, yes. By being better capitalized, they are able to offer better offers on properties than individual buyers. You might say that this is working as intended, but I disagree. Housing should not be an investment vehicle.
Are they doing anything illegal? Probably not. Are they doing something that harms society at large and can lead to civil unrest? Absolutely.
> Why should you get a say in how other people chose to deploy their money?
As long as the way they spend their money has zero effect on me, they can spend it however they want. As soon as they spend it on something that affects, me damned straight I'm going to voice my opinion on how they're spending it.
You spend $10m to build a mansion in the boonies? Cool, enjoy your fancy house. You spend $10m, to buy up multiple properties in a city with a housing deficit to build a mansion? Go fuck yourself with a rusty railroad spike.
So, paying more than other buyers is in a way stealing? Do you hear yourself?
> As long as the way they spend their money has zero effect on me, they can spend it however they want. As soon as they spend it on something that affects, me damned straight I'm going to voice my opinion on how they're spending it.
You are opposed to the very idea of price signals?
When it comes to housing, and your intention is to use it as an investment vehicle, yes, absolutely.
I have no problem with individual buyers who are intending to use the property as their primary housing competing on price. I do have a problem with institutional or investor buyers competing against those would-be-homeowners on price.
Homes aren't just any other assets, they're not just some good. They're a thing you and your family need to survive. They _must_ be treated different. And if that means considering institutional or investment purchases in homes be considered stealing, so be it. There must be controls on such properties to ensure a more equitable (read: regardless of wealth) distribution of this specific asset type.
> You are opposed to the very idea of price signals?
For housing? Yes, 100% against it. Housing availability and access should _never_ depend on an individuals wealth.
Literally everyone who buys a house expects it to appreciate in value. This is the reason for NIMBYism, regulatory capture and market failure.
If you actually want make housing more affordable, the solution is get rid of regulations that make it impossible to build new houses.
> Homes aren't just any other assets, they're not just some good. They're a thing you and your family need to survive.
You mean like food, fuel and clothing?
Housing is a basic necessity, ownership of a single family house is not.
> Literally everyone who buys a house expects it to appreciate in value. This is the reason for NIMBYism, regulatory capture and market failure.
And that's a problem. In many countries housing is not seen as an appreciative asset. For example, much of my extended family lives in housing that is decidedly depreciative over time. The cities they live in tend to build sufficient housing to keep up with the demand such that the prices don't rise much. Housing here seems to be treated as primarily an investment vehicle, and secondly a place to live. I think those priorities are inverted in the US.
> If you actually want make housing more affordable, the solution is get rid of regulations that make it impossible to build new houses.
Gods yes, so much yes. I agree with you here. The most expedient way to affordable housing is to boost the supply. Any actions that boost housing availability will fall short of simply building more housing.
With that said, I think its a problem that the only viable house-building these days in the US is either large developer-built suburbs or the now-common 5+1 apartment buildings. These are fundamentally investment vehicles (why would a business building homes just to lose money on them after all?)
> You mean like food, fuel and clothing? > Housing is a basic necessity, ownership of a single family house is not.
And I think that food, fuel, clothing and medicine should be treated similarly -- that is, provided equally regardless of wealth.
But I do agree that ownership of a single family house is not a basic necessity. The trouble is that these days, there's no price differentiation on owning vs. renting. In a lot of places, rents are higher than mortgages on the same property. And even when you factor in the costs of ownership (maintenance, property taxes, etc) it usually still ends up being more beneficial to own than rent because after spending all that money, you end up _owning_ the property. The biggest differentiator tends to whether or not you rent vs buy seems to be the ability to scrounge up the dosh for the downpayment.
That is, when you have a mortgage on a home, yes, you may be paying a similar amount per month, but there's some value returned to you -- the ownership of the property. Renters commonly pay similar amounts without the benefit of ever owning anything. The economics work out that, compared to a homeowner that spends a similar amount of money, a renter will get pretty shafted on average.
In the developed world, provision of basic goods and services is a solved problem thanks to free markets. Where there is still an issue of access, it is addressed through targeted subsidies. Not through piecemeal, knee jerk restrictions nor by redefining what ownership or stealing means.
> And that's a problem. In many countries housing is not seen as an appreciative asset.
Where? Even if the house doesn't appreciate in value, the land it sits on does. The only places where land doesn't appreciate in value are those experiencing depopulation.
My homeless friends would really love for you to tell them this to their faces. In fact, they would love it so much, they would absolutely be willing to give you the gift of additional orifices in your abdomen.
> Where? Even if the house doesn't appreciate in value, the land it sits on does.
Everywhere that believes housing is an actual human need rather than an investment vehicle.
Homeless make up ~0.17% of the US population. Of these, the majority live in some form of shelter transitional housing. Tell me again how a system that manages to provide shelter to 99.9% of the population isn't working.
> Everywhere that believes housing is an actual human need rather than an investment vehicle.
Do the have have actual names or are they simply a concept?
If .17% are homeless, then its 99.83% that it's 'working for.'
But the part you missed is that anything less than 100% is unacceptable. If the system is working, it must work for 100.0% of the population, not 99.83%. Nothing less is acceptable for a 'working system'. Anything else is 'work in progress'
Also, I would like to point out that .17% of 330 is 56000 people. Are you saying that 56000 people don't matter?
Like I said, the majority of the people who are classed as homeless live in some form of shelter or transitional housing [0]
> the system is working, it must work for 100.0% of the population, not 99.83%. Nothing less is acceptable for a 'working system'.
Have fun in Narnia.
> .17% of 330 is 56000
0.17% of 330 million is 561000.
> Are you saying that 56000 people don't matter?
I'm saying that a system that works for 99.9% of people must be doing something right and that helping the less than 0.1% population should not require a fundamental change.
0: https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...
And you have fun in your hellhole.
> 0.17% of 330 million is 561000.
Whoops, you're right I missed a zero. Thanks for furthering my point.
> I'm saying that a system that works for 99.9% of people must be doing something right and that helping the less than 0.1% population should not require a fundamental change.
You're basically arguing for status quo and I contend that status quo is not enough. A system that works for 99.9% of people could be better if it worked for 99.99% of people, and even better yet, if it worked for 100% of people.
Food and fuel in particular do not have infinite sources of supply. Have you REALLY thought through all the edge cases and complexities of equal provision of supply-constrained resources and in the face of practically-unconstrained demand? Are physically larger people or people with high metabolisms allocated the same caloric value of nutrients as the diminutive? How is that equal, if their bodies have higher demands to maintain their muscle mass? Are natural body builders not allowed to pursue their fitness objectives because it would require an "excessive" allocation of healthy food products? What is the organizational process by which those who have grievances with their allocation are able to implement adjustments?
These are largely rhetorical questions, I probably shouldn't further derail the thread, but I wanted to highlight how I consider this position not particularly well thought-out, and I would encourage you to dig into a WHOLE lot of specifics of real-world implementation to better understand why.
How is this different from buying single family home with large lot in city suffering deficit in housing?
Can I interest you in some new eyeglasses? You seem to be in need.
And no, a government is almost never beholden to it’s people. It automatically has power, especially communist ones. The “democratic” one also only have to convince a few groups to agree on a few topics to get full controll.
Will the companies compete to lower their prices to their cost level? That is, to have 0% profit by default? I don't think so. But housing should absolutely bear 0% profit by default. Governments can subsidize housing to below cost (allowing some profit to be made) but the default should always be selling the housing at-cost. The ability to make a profit from this is the crux of the problem. That introduces all sorts of negatives into the equation.
> And no, a government is almost never beholden to it’s people.
Maybe not, but it is more beholden to its people than a corporation is. A corporation doesn't even have 'its people'.
Care to reply to this: > Why advocate for one big monopoly unless you have a potentially malicious agenda?
And why you won’t create a non-profit company if you actually believe in what you preach?
No, because it premises that opposing the 'free market' for housing means I have a malicious agenda. If that is your supposition, I won't be engaging.
Tricon is publicly traded. Anyone can invest. You could put in $100
When people say they can't afford to get into property what they really mean is they only want the massive double your money wins they see in the news for free. Not the average.
Anyone willing to work hard with risk on a property generally can.
It shouldn't just be immoral to be a billionaire; It should be criminal and fatal to be one.