New Legislation Proposes to Take Wall Street Out of the Housing Market
A bill introduced in the House and Senate would prevent hedge funds from owning single-family houses in the United States.
They should never have been allowed to buy them to begin with.
The second best time is now.
People require housing. Corporations are people. /s
Yeah, but you can squeeze 285,000 corporations in one office building!
I mean it's a free market, it's not reasonable nor desirable to proactively prohibit all possible bad scenarios
edit: to anyone downvoting, read carefully
I was just saying that as I was about to send my 6-year old out to the corner store to go buy some cigarettes for me, since our free market hasn’t imposed any restrictions on that transaction.
Or if you look at the housing market specifically, in my area at least, I can’t buy a second home in the same area as an individual. I can buy investment properties that I’d need to rent out, but I’m forbidden from owning a second residence for myself.
State, Local, and Federal lawmakers are constantly proactively prohibiting bad scenarios. And in this case, it wouldn’t even be proactive, it’s literally something that’s going on right now that needs corrected.
Homes are for people.
A true Libertarian utopia.
Gods yes. We can't predict every sort of bad behavior in the market, only react. Bunch of arm-chair quarterbacks in here, "We should have seen this coming!" Watch 10 people tell me exactly how we could have.
And on this issue, it's high time to react. Doubt it will happen. :(
It's not a free market... that's not an actual thing that can ever exist. It's a state where the markets are in a perfect, frictionless state, where barriers of entry are non-existent and everyone has equal access to trade on the market... Ignoring petty things like needing to actually source things
It is, in fact, both reasonable and desirable for the government to proactively watch and interfere in the markets before they enter a failure scenario, that's their job in the market.
It's often willfully misunderstood, but what you're describing is a half step from lasse faire capitalism. Which is the idea that a "free market" is a stable state, and we just need to let it settle long enough without interference. But that's literally psuedoscience...
And this is the sort of legislation that should be passed by direct referendum, will of the people, and not by representatives who have been bought out by special interest groups. Desperately needed but unlikely to happen.
the country would function so much better if we just sent out ballots to everyone to vote on every bill if they want to
I would be very careful with that. US should try having a more representative government first.
So long as you don't like a functioning economy, sure.
This will pass at the same time as the healthcare, world peace, and word hunger bills.
From the article:
With a divided Congress, the bills are unlikely to pass into law this session. But Mr. Smith said legislators needed to start a conversation.
Solid odds this will be a campaign issue, which is a great thing.
can’t wait to see conservatives line up in droves to defend wall street buying houses in a few months time
Everyone will talk about it, nobody will do anything to improve the situation.
Once you reach the ranks of the Senate, you have more financial interest in the future of your REIT-heavy investment portfolio than the price any of your constituents are paying for housing. Hell, more than a few Senators come straight from the halls of Wall Street themselves. That's how they have the kind of surplus cash to run for office to begin with.
don't forget gun regulation
Do your part and vote 3rd party. If we want change we have to vote for it.
Please, tell me you're a child who knows nothing about the US electoral system without telling me. People like you got us Trump
Too much of a baby to read and understand the spoiler effect that comes with FPTP? Too impatient and short-sighted to push for election reform (RCV or approval voting) and just want some low effort immediate option that requires nothing more than casting a vote? Child. Democracies require effort to survive.
Looking at companies like Blackstone, who buy up houses at auction, lightly flip them and put them back on the market as high-priced rentals. THEY'RE the big reason for the lack of affordable housing.
Remember that Blackstone and the other institutions are only financing it. These companies have names; like American Homes/AMH, invitation, opendoor and so on. There are a lot of them and they are all given billions to go buy as many houses as they can get their hands on... essentially bottomless pockets. And those are just the large ones. There's plenty of people churning 100s of homes and letting property management companies do all the work, financing new deals with existing rentals as leverage.
Something like 6% of US Homes are owned by Chinese Investors. More than 1 in 20 homes.
I mean, would it be better if we had a thousand mid-sized car dealership style house flippers rather than one singular monolith doing the same thing?
Blackstone agents are operating at a national scale in a market that's been flush with speculators and flippers going straight back to the colonial era. The high price of real estate is the consequence of housing as a commodity. There's no more free land to develop on the cheap and no more suburbs for young people to push out into searching for cheap new constructions. Take everyone at Blackstone out of the market tomorrow and you'll have a hundred smaller banks lining up to repeat their formula by the end of the month.
So long as cash is cheap, housing is in demand, and REITs are a thing, you're going to have businesses looking to profit off the difference between sale rates and rental rates as well as the gap between the prime rate and the going mortgage rate.
The solution is to make hoarding rental properties an unattractive investment. Put an escalating tax on owning multiple residences. If the 5th property is at 40% tax every year it's no longer a money maker in a competitive market. Put the money towards tax rebates for single mortgage interest. Now you have buyers back in the market and landlords looking to sell.
There WOULD be more suburbs to develop if we were allowed to work remotely. I would gladly move to the developing suburb of bumfuck-nowheresville if I could go there and keep my job, but I have to stay within a reasonable commuting distance of the nearest metropolis.
So preying on the victims of the growing wealth innequality and income gap. That will surely accelerate the decline of civilization.
If we actually had a democracy, there would be a total of 0 people against this. It's so incredibly unfavorable to want corporations to buy houses for profit.
There are people profiting from this either by owning the investment firms e.g. through stocks or by working in them in highly paid positions. In a democracy, the majority might be for such a law, but certainly not everyone.
0 souls then
Please do. I'd love to see more supply.
Home Ownership and protecting the middle class used to be phrases so often uttered by the Republicans 40 years ago that I yawned.
I'm glad to see someone pick up the gauntlet. Boggles the mind that this hasn't become a huge political issue yet.
Now what’s the chance of this actually passing?
Via referendum? I say 80% chance of a majority.
Congress? 5% is generous
Eh maybe, I can see the attack ads now though.
Special interests in Washington want to destroy the value of your home by placing strict regulations on home ownership! Government beurocrat fat cats wants to put themselves in charge of who can and can't buy a home! Don't let the big wigs in Washington destroy your homes value and strangle your children's future and their inheritance! Vote no on proposition 1! This ad paid for by free homes for all real Americans (a Koch industries subsidiary).
Never underestimate peoples ability to vote against their own interest when partisanship get involved.
With a divided Congress, the bills are unlikely to pass into law this session. But Mr. Smith said legislators needed to start a conversation.
:|
Well, yeah. That's how politics work. Or should.
Get the issue in front of the people, get them talking. Like we are now. Give one side a chance to say, "See what we tried and got shot down!" You gotta start somewhere.
This is the first I've heard of such an initiative and I'm all in.
I wonder which side doesn’t want it to pass /s
Fun fact: there is always a divided congress because the ruling class just adjusts its spending on elections to ensure nothing ever gets done in our favor.
As soon as we start voting more/for better candidates, they start spending more. They haven't even scratched the surface of how much they can spend to control the government; they don't need to yet.
As the disparity in wealth continues to grow, they'll just have even more money to ensure their grip for generations.
it’s cool they had the idea. hopefully they act on it
Please make it happen, it's an important first step
why were they ever allowed to do this? why should the system allow you to gamble on houses?
Because they saw an opportunity to fuck America again after imploding Wall St in 2007-08.
Rampant unfettered capitalism only cares about the money they can make, never about the people's lives they destroy.
Who ever tabeled this needs to run for your president. Seriously
Step in the right direction, hope some version of it gets passed.
The Republicans won't let it happen.
I'm sure they'll have plenty of democrats helping, too.
Wall Street is not the problem, a lack of new housing is, according to David Howard, the chief executive of the National Rental Home Council, a trade association. The country needs anywhere from 2 million to 6.5 million units of new housing, according to various estimates.
“Policies really need to be shaped and crafted so that they support the production, investment and development of new housing,” Mr. Howard said. “I think bills that work against that ultimately are just going to perpetuate the challenges we’re already facing.”
While I certainly disagree with this person on some of their specifics, and don't necessarily agree with the "teeth" of this bill (10k per home owned isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, and can just be priced in to an already out-of-control market), seeing a trade organization argue for the actual long-term solution bodes really well for the future of solving the housing crisis.
That's crazy that they say we need more housing when there are so many empty houses sitting on the market from corporate real estate investing and other house flippers. "Wall Street is not the problem, a lack of new housing is" really sounds like the guy with gasoline and matches in hand saying "it wasn't me" at the scene of an arson fire.
A significant problem isn't just the lack of housing, it's the lack of affordable housing. Builders keep building single family homes in spread out suburbs which is problematic in its own way. But not everyone could afford those homes regardless of whether they are buying or renting.
Investors owning single family homes is a big problem, the bigger problem is exacerbated but not explicitly caused by that. Affordable housing simply isn't available in places where it's needed. That's why people say we need more homes.
A lack of housing is very explicitly our problem. Houses that are empty are not unowned.
Until housing is no longer seen as an investment, which can only happen if we are allowed to build sufficient housing, housing will remain an investment.
Anyone who sees their home as their "nest egg" is part of the problem.
The head of an organization that represents landlords is advocating for building more houses. Now why do you think that is?
Because they want to build more to make more money.
Please explain how this is a bad thing? This is rental org explicitly stating that the lack of supply is hurting their growth and profit.
That means they believe that the supply/demand curve is so out of whack that cheaper housing will make them more money.
This is absolutely and 100% a win-win.
The trade organization is arguing for investment into their market rather than regulations that would improve the efficiency of their market. The bill is likely a negative for them, and they want something that would be a positive.
The situation is not caused by a lack of number of houses. It's caused by the lack of efficiency in housing. It's more beneficial to leave units empty than to fill them because there's little penelty (and sometime incentives) to do so. There should be something like a land value tax that pushes for more efficient use of land, not investments that push for less efficient use.
The trade organization is arguing for investment into their marke
This is the only solution to the housing crisis. We have too little housing. We need more.
The situation is not caused by a lack of number of houses
This is not supported by math.
There should be something like a land value tax that pushes for more efficient use of land
Stop, stop - I can only get so erect! I'd absolutely love to see more of a push for LVTs, but we both know that's our fantasy and not a serious discussion in the near term.
What about private equity?
They're trying to get it passed, I doubt people sitting in on that vote would shoot themselves in the wallet?
DNC really driving it home what their platform is with actions instead of words, lately.
In case you want to learn about the bill:
NYT article (archive link):
Press releases:
https://adamsmith.house.gov/press-releases?ID=637A8E58-8F0D-4CB0-AECC-1D4690A00725
Text of the bill:
https://www.merkley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/MCG23660.pdf
Will be nice to have anything close to this, but 10 years is too long of a ramp down.
They are holding housing hostage in the interim. They don't feel that at all, the people do
It'll never pass, unfortunately.
If it gets through the house then I think it'll fly through the senate. Correct me if I'm wrong but a simple majority can pass this bill, and even a few Republicans would sign a bill like this.
Well, Republicans don't really have that strong of a majority in the House, given that they gave Santos the boot, and McCarthy is getting set to retire after losing the Speakership. It's also possible that by the time this makes it to the floor, McConnell may finally shuffle off this mortal coil (fingers crossed).
These bills are about forcing a conversation and forcing the cowards in the gop to go on the record with a vote against common sense bills that benefit everyday people. It's not impossible, but harder for some of the purple district representatives to go on record against something as centrist and popular as this idea.
If it got to the Senate, this is one area where you might have your mansions and sinemas having their putrid moments in the sun, but again, sometimes these are there as conversation starters, so there's value either way.
Less likely sure, but I wouldn't say NEVER here. There's also a 10 year ramp down to sell, which is ridiculously long.
I will be SO surprised if this happens.
