this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 188 points 10 months ago (3 children)

what about not allowing companies to buy hundreds of houses as rental property?

[–] [email protected] 122 points 10 months ago (4 children)

It's not just companies. Individuals are also chain buying places. Establish income from airbnb, leverage for their next purchase.

My real estate agent was buying his 3rd airbnb while I was looking 2 years ago. Dude was in his late 20s.

I'm hoping the house of cards comes crumbling down. Been dealing with housing insecurity as my landlord terminated our lease.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’ve seen on Airbnb people who own 50+ properties.

I used air bnb and fees times and found it more expensive and a hassle compared to a hotel.

250 dollar cleaning fee but you want me to take out all the trash, was the sheets, sweep, mop etc. no thank you

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I priced out an air bnb versus one of the nicer extended stay places. The ones that are larger and nicer than the apartments I have lived in.

Guess what came in at 1/3 less cost, had maid service, and a free breakfast.

I am all for banning Air BNB flat out unless the owner is living in the building. I am okay with a person buying a house and then renting out rooms or converting a basement to an apartment to lend out. It doesn't remove available housing inventory from market to sit empty most of the year.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I am all for banning Air BNB flat out unless the owner is living in the building. I am okay with a person buying a house and then renting out rooms or converting a basement to an apartment to lend out. It doesn’t remove available housing inventory from market to sit empty most of the year.

That’s where I stand. Also helps a young person afford a home by renting a room.

I’ve been watching the Oregon coast. I’ve seen a lot of air bnb for sale. Seems like the market is dropping on them.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I remember this scene in The Big Short. Steve Carell goes to a strip club.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

"There's a bubble! It's time to call bullshit."

"Bullshit on what?"

"Every fucking thing."

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (5 children)

While I do agree with your point, individuals aren't buying hundreds or thousands of properties. It's corporations buying up a limited resource that are driving up the prices, not I-own-three-houses landlords.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Nah, I'm gonna go ahead and still be mad at both despite them being different degrees of bullshit. Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

What about two houses? That you plan to pass on to your children?

[–] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago (1 children)

An individual landlord isn't buying hundreds of properties, but hundreds of individual landlords (all saying "it's not my fault, I only own three houses!") are buying hundreds of properties.

Even if each individual landlord is a good person who's going to heaven, they still make the housing market worse for everyone else. Their interests are directly opposed to working class people.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

They're still all buying more than they need to live in.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But setting policies to help renters in need without hurting landlords is complicated. Landlords aren’t a homogenous group of faceless corporations. In fact, fewer than one-fifth of rental properties are owned by for-profit businesses of any kind. Most rental properties – about seven-in-ten – are owned by individuals, who typically own just one or two properties, according to 2018 census data. And landlords have complained about being unable to meet their obligations, such as mortgage payments, property taxes and repair bills, because of a falloff in rent payments.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/02/as-national-eviction-ban-expires-a-look-at-who-rents-and-who-owns-in-the-u-s/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm not disagreeing, but 2018 census data may not be relevant anymore. There has been an absolute feeding frenzy since the lockdown. The landscape has definitely changed.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I prefer data over conjecture.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Outdated data is irrelevant. 2018 was before the housing shortage, before wealthy hedge funds started buying up real estate en masse, before real estate corps employed AI to buy real estate, before airbnbs became egregious to the point of legislation like above.

Quality and relevancy of data is important. You would roll your eyes at anyone citing 1920s census figures. Yes, that's a dramatic exaggeration, but it makes the point.

A lot has changed in real estate in the last 5 years. That's the entire basis of the housing crisis discussion as a whole.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

... Unlike every other housing bubble both local or worldwide that happens every 15 years or so?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-estate_bubble

E:

Quality and relevancy of data is important. You would roll your eyes at anyone citing 1920s census figures. Yes, that's a dramatic exaggeration, but it makes the point...A lot has changed in real estate in the last 5 years.

... Wow.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Absolutely true.

I work in a highly paid industry and during the 2010-2015, nearly everybody was investing in real estate. Most of the lunchroom talks were about finding properties, showing off our house investments, and speculating if an area would boom. There were startups catered to folks like us to just give them money and they'll handle the cleaning and maintenance.

Then we got distracted by Bitcoin and all other weird things.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Focusing on AirBnB is better in my opinion because of the difference between the two.

A company buying a home to rent still has to rent the property, so they aren't removing the housing supply. In contrast, a person or corporation buying a home to use as an AirBnB is removing housing from the market.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Companies should not own houses. Residents of houses should own their own houses.

Nobody should own someone else's house. A roof over one's head is a basic human right. Not an extortionate investment.

The problem with companies owning hundreds of houses is that they hire property management companies to manage these houses that were built by the lowest bidders and everybody blames each other when something needs to be maintained and the maintenance never gets done and the people living in the houses suffer because they are paying their hard-earned money to these companies while their shoddily-built houses are falling apart.

remember there are real actual humans hiding behind the facade of these corporations, greedy extortionate millionaires & billionaires thriving on exponential dollars from poor people's paychecks, and this needs to be stopped.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Those should be co-ops/non market housing.

And if the incentives for new co-ops to be made isn't enough, it's time for the government to finance/build/zone for new ones. If the government just fucking spams medium and high density housing in the form of co-ops, bans corps from owning housing, bans AirBnB, etc, it would very quickly fix the housing crisis.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I'm 5050 on this. At least the airbnb is making money for people (generally) instead of a massive Corp. I. Reality both suck but I think I'd rather a person benefit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

I make a living cleaning short term vacation rentals. I also have no savings and cannot afford to buy a home. I'm almost 40 yrs old and never have I been in a position to consider purchasing a home. Rent is my life now :'(

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

In theory same person could rent out the same property to a family instead of on airbnb

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I feel like the harm to a community of removing housing is worse than someone in the top 10% having another investment vehicle.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I can tell you that it is all harmful. My landleeches have acknowledged that the house we rent needed maintenance before we moved in and have done literally 0 of it in the last year, opting to instead use my wages to improve the other 24 properties they purchased in bulk from a retiring landleech. Then they have the audacity to attempt to illegally evict me and my pregnant wife when I start asserting my rights, and tell prospective landlords we are "problem tenants" who have paid every rent payment in full and on time for the entire lease.

No, there needs to be mandatory, city/borough-wide rental associations that have the legal authority to hold landleeches accountable. It needs to be mandated at the federal level and it needs to have serious teeth.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

What about doing both?