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harryhon Zillow seeks to sell 7k homes for $2.8B after flipping halt

Decades of under-building due to restrictive zoning laws will do that.

harryhon Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

Super interesting answer. Thanks!

harryhon Why can't we build nice neighborhoods anymore?

If demand so significantly exceeds supply, why aren't folks with these skills raising prices?

harryhon The high-frequency trading arms race: frequent batch auctions (2015)

The big HFT firms are, in fact, well known.

https://medium.com/automation-generation/15-well-known-high-...

They're also regulated in various ways.

harryhon The high-frequency trading arms race: frequent batch auctions (2015)

I thought HFTers only got involved in between two parties when they knew they could make a profit.

You thought wrong. While there are a variety of things that HFT firms do, most of it is market making.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_maker

harryhon The high-frequency trading arms race: frequent batch auctions (2015)

When someone buys liquidity, they don't do so to close their order 500ns faster. They do it to ensure they can trade at the current market price because they don't want to take the risk that the market will move away from them while waiting for a counter-party to trade with.

Those that are comfortable taking this risk can simply issue a LIMIT order instead of a MARKET order.

harryhon The high-frequency trading arms race: frequent batch auctions (2015)

But maybe if the trades were priority queued it would negate that.

If the trades are priority queued, then you have just recreated the speed "arms race" that this idea hopes to eliminate.

harryhon The high-frequency trading arms race: frequent batch auctions (2015)

Probably worth appending 2015 to the title on HN.

harryhon Self directed IRAs under attack in proposed tax bill

One of my more controversial opinions is that tax advantaged retirement accounts should be eliminated entirely.

Almost all of the advantages of them accrue to the top decile of income earners. Why should we have exceptions in the tax code just to help richer people amass more money?

harryhon Many believe it's time to do away with lawmakers making stock trades

I don't think anyone is talking about banning lawmakers from investing in broad market indexes and the like. They're talking about banning buying and selling individual stocks because that opens the door to trading on non-public information they receive as government officials.

For the vast majority of people this kind of passive index based investing is actually what will lead to the best returns overall. So I don't think your conclusion that this sort of change would restrict public office to very wealthy people is correct.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

I can't speak for Berlin, but it's basically illegal to build new housing in sufficient quantities in virtually every major American city. Due to this fact, prices have shot up everywhere.

The entire state of California now has a housing crisis with > 30% of residents spending more than a third of their income on housing.

Some estimates indicate that the US as a whole has underbuilt by around 5M units of housing. There are quite a few causes to this, but exclusionary zoning is definitely one of them.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

The interests in favor of zoning are almost all homeowners actually. Not sure if that is what you mean by "real estate interests."

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

It depends on what you mean by "solve."

Can the market 100% solve all housing problems? No, probably not. Can the market solve A LOT more housing problems than it currently is? Yes, absolutely. The market is hugely constrained by government enforced zoning in a huge number of places right now. It's the primary housing issue of our time.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

But you did say that it was "False" that additional supply would put competitive pressure on housing prices.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

I'm not saying social housing is bad. We should definitely have more social housing.

I am saying "The problem is not that there isn't sufficient housing" is wrong. Very very very wrong. There are massive supply shortages of housing in many many places. Governments need to fix their oppressive zoning policies so they stop preventing people from living where they want to live (either because of $, because of waiting lists, or any other mechanism).

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Your thought exercise is interesting, but not in the way you think.

Property owners do, in fact, conspire with each other to prevent the construction of new housing (via zoning laws). They do this, as you say, so that they can get richer.

Allowing them to get away with it (by denying the fact that there is a supply problem) plays right into their hands.

What we need to do is thwart their scheme and, through better government, legalize the construction of new housing so that wealthier people who own much of the existing property stop seeing artificial government created gains in the the value of their housing because they've conscripted the government into their cartel.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

If you don't use price to determine who receives a scarce good, then you're stuck with other bad mechanisms. In Stockholm, for example, waiting lists for apartments can be over a decade long.

Much better to recognize that "The problem is not that there isn't sufficient housing" is wrong and legalize building more housing.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

There is plenty of evidence that housing supply is significantly limited by zoning regulations in lots of places. And in those places the little bit of construction that does happen tends to be targeted to the top of the market.

So I'm not just making an analogy. I'm reasoning from the available evidence.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Adding more housing means there is more room for people.

Your question is almost non-sensical?

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Zoning.

Yes.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Indeed! As I acknowledge in the last sentence of my comment. Because of these things, I think the healthiest housing markets are those with a good mix of suppliers (both govt and private). Supplier competition comes with many benefits.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Government run housing can have its own problems too. For example in Singapore, there have been huge issues with gay couples being unable to rent housing. This can happen with some private landlords too, but at least in that situation there can be multiple suppliers and you only need one to rent to you.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Imagine car suppliers were only allowed to build 1M new cars per year (in the US, consumers currently buy about 17M new cars per year). Suppliers would no doubt use their limited quota to produce high end cars for the richest customers.

This is essentially the situation housing suppliers have in many major cities. The solution isn’t government built housing. Private suppliers are perfectly capable. The solution is to lift the quotas.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Because housing isn’t completely in-fungible either. So, while there might be irregularities here and there, increasing supply will in fact put downward pressure on prices.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Corporate ownership of housing is good. Every time I’ve rented from a corporate landlord, it’s been great. They’re organized, have staff, fix problems promptly. Every time I’ve rented from an individual owner, it’s sucked. They are undercapitalized, don’t know what they are doing, and hem and haw over every tiny repair expense.

Economies of scale are real.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Owner occupied housing already gets a tax deduction because owners don’t have to pay taxes on imputed rent (in the vast majority of tax jurisdictions). It would be great to actually fix this because it distorts the housing market to the detriment of renters, but I’m not holding my breath.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

While I can't speak for Berlin specifically, I can say that in most places with very expensive housing this isn't true. You can see this because other problems tend to occur when housing gets very expensive:

- Overcrowding

- People being forced to move out of city centers

- Very long commute times to work

- Reduced fertility rates because people want more room for kids

All of these problems are due to insufficient housing and not just too high prices.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

If you declare housing "a fundamental right" then you still need more supply when you have a location (like Berlin) that doesn't have sufficient housing for the number of people that want to live there.

harryhon Berlin buys thousands of apartments from corporate landlords

Even if you were right (and I don't think you are) about the same 5 real estate companies buying up all added supply, it wouldn't matter. Those 5 companies would still be subject to the forces of supply and demand. Increased supply with flat demand means falling prices.

https://twitter.com/cw4emeryville/status/1438862784024891394

harryhon Silicon Valley stirs over proposal to end popular QSBS tax break

You don't need to earn a 400k salary to have your QSBS qualification reduced, you just need to have 400k of income and proceeds from stock sales are income.