Oh boy…
How the fuck does anyone even afford to buy a house now? Billionaires keep buying them all out just to rent them out, to buy more houses. It’s almost as bad as me trying to use a hula hoop.
I had some lucky timing with an inheritance. Also two software engineer’s salaries. Even then, it took a chunk out of our finances. We also got a bit lucky. The house was probably selling a little below its value and we got in right before the Fed really started pumping the brakes with interest rate increases.
It’s not just billionaires buying up all the housing, it’s anyone who can afford the investment. Real estate makes interest in value year over year with minimal upkeep costs AND it generates revenue every year from rentals. If you manage to secure permits to convert it to multifamily you instantly split your house into two parts with nearly the same individual value, almost doubling the value on the spot at the cost of adding a couple of walls and doors and maybe a kitchen.
Real Estate as a source of investment and revenue goes contrary to the idea of accessible housing for everybody. If it’s a lucrative investment with greater low risk returns than any other low risk investment type, why would anyone take more risk?
My landlord is 45 and owns 4 properties with a total of about a dozen units. He bought a small business with the income and retired from his job at a defense contractor. His total wealth is under 10m and he started with probably little more than 50k ~25 years ago. Low interest loans have done wonderfully for anyone turning a small amount of cash into a big amount, assuming you bought in the right place with the intent to rent out to middle class workers.
Got a buddy on that exact same path.
- Military Contractor
- Started with “very little” money
- Bought a rental here a rental there. Has like 10 now
- Now he “works” for himself (read that as plays games on steam all day) and enjoys his passive income.
It’s a bunch of shit that he’s not taxed to below fiscal feasibility for his multiple single family homes.
Make it so 50%+ of rent becomes equity and instantly housing becomes accessible to all. Can’t rent without giving ownership to your tenants. Banks would get the lion’s share of the income (it’s their money anyway if you have a mortgage…) and owner occupied properties are still feasible.
No one’s “value” would disappear either.
I got permanently injured in the military, so qualified for a mortgage with no down payment. Just the total amount on the mortgage.
It was still cheaper then renting anything close to a comparable house.
People always talk about interest rates, but down payments are the real barrier to entry
Home ownership will be a thing of the past. Eventually corporations will own all the single family homes within two hundred miles of any urban center.
Bezos isn’t going to miss a chance to dick people over. Because apparently he’s not rich enough yet.
Imagine what the world would be like if we treated sociopathy as the vividly destructive mental illness it so obviously is, rather than rewarding sociopaths with wealth and power.
What is his goal? More zeroes on a spreadsheet? Does he take satisfaction in being evil?
It’s likely the same as corporations.
Once they get so much money, they focus on quarterly profits. Then you compare percentage change from last quarter/month.
So he just doesn’t think about the billions he has banked.
Or the multimillions he makes a year
It’s a small percentage of change, and making 90 million after 100 million can be viewed as losing money this way, which makes these fucking psychopaths believe they need to be even shittier to make more money.
He’s not looking at his wealth, but at the rate he’s accumulating it, even though he literally can’t spend what he has now if he tried.
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Airbnb didn’t single-handedly destroy US housing stock. It’s really not even the biggest part of the problem.
Zoning codes that prevent the addition of any density to cities are way more of a problem than airbnb could dream of being. If Euclidean zoning existed 300 years ago, Manhattan would be 90% mcmansions, rather than being almost entirely low-, mid- and high-rises.
