POLITICS Maybe everyone can agree on this

“I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it,” Trump said in a lengthy Truth Social post on Wednesday. “People live in homes, not corporations.”

https://www.notus.org/housing/trump...ngle-family-homes-blackrock-blackstone-apollo

 

I'm a Trumper on this.

 

As somebody who live next to a rental property owned by a conglomerate (American Homes 4 Rent) cannot disagree here. It’s been a massive (understatement) pain in our ass.

This needs to go further. They also need to be forced to sell the homes currently owned.

 

This is also a lesson for everybody when they are shopping for a new home. Pull up the tax records of the neighbors, not to be nosy, but to confirm who the owner is. If it’s some kind of rental company or conglomerate around the house you’re looking at, run, don’t walk, away from it immediately.

 

The shift that has happened is this space has happened fast. Not enough light has been shined on it.

 

I don't know what the solution is, but I think there is a link between short term rentals like AirBNB and homelessness. There are 2-3 million homes on short term rental platforms in the US. I think this is a big deal.

 

People who say I always hate everything Trump does: here is an exhibit in my defense. This is good. Now apply the same logic to healthcare.

I also am at least lukewarm on his recent defense contractor move. I think I agree with the sentiment but am unsure on the execution of that one.

 

I agree. There are a lot of empty houses, and I don't just mean beach houses and cabins.

 

I disagree.





What are we talking about?

 

My wife cares about and is knowledgeable about these sorts of things. She likes this idea but said people think this is a bigger problem than it actually is - that the % of homes owned by these types of companies is much smaller than people think. So a positive move, but probably not as impactful as some are thinking/hoping.

She also thinks it will be funny to see how people who should be happy about this will twist things to not be happy about it because they don't like Trump.

 

It’s absolutely a big deal in places where they own a ton of homes, but if we’re talking about the whole market I don’t disagree.

 

There's developers here that have 50 home subdivisions sold to one buyer before they break ground

 

I see it all over the place. If its not a big deal across the country its definitely a problem in the Midwest as I have seen it with my own 2 eyes.

 

My parents sold the house I grew up in a few years ago, in a Nashville suburb, and I was curious what it went for so I just looked it up rather than prying. One of the real estate sites showed the selling price at like 9million. Turned out one of those companies came in and bought a few dozen houses in my old neighborhood at once. I've been told that at least half of it is owned by like 3 companies, and it's a huge subdivision.

 

Artificial demand

 

In some markets, corporate home ownership is as high as 25% of all single family housing. Nationally, it may not have much of an impact, but it will affect certain local markets. I don't disagree with the sentiment here.

 

They are smart on how they buy. They are looking for areas where home prices are high so they buy up as much as they can in the middle to low cost homes which causes a lot of people to have to rent instead of buy because they can't afford the more expensive homes. Its pretty smart but really bad for average people. I know someone actively doing this on a much smaller scale than Blackrock and he is getting filthy rich.

 

It is predatory and disgusting.

 

100%. I used to really like the guy but after he basically laid out how these things worked I just have a hard time looking at him the same way ever again. He even came from a poor family so it blows my mind he wants to basically keep people poor or at the least keep them from ownership. I like to make money but I have a line when it comes to things like this.

Side note to that he has started to try and do it on the commercial side. There was a building I was interested in to add more warehouse space but I wasn't in love with it (I really more wanted the land that came with it). It went to auction and I made him spend about 200K more than he should have and now he can't find anyone to rent it. My good deed for the year.

 

It is like he is treating houses like scalping concert tickets, except this isn't an optional entertainment event.