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I believe part of the explanation for this is that big landlords have more ways to make money off property than just collecting rent over long periods of time d

I believe part of the explanation for this is that big landlords have more ways to make money off property than just collecting rent over long periods of time due to the way buildings are valued in the commercial real estate market. Building net operating income has a direct relationship to market value; the ratio of these things gives you the capitalization rate, which tends to be known for a given type of building in a given market. If the unit sits vacant for a while but they do eventually succeed in growing building revenue through rent increases, they don't have to wait out the full breakeven timeline to make money since they can sell it on to the next buyer at the newer higher price indicated by the latest year's financials. Let's take an example building where the local market has apartments trading at a 3% cap rate. If there are 30 units renting at 1.2k with no vacancy, that's $432k in annual rent. Let's say running this property requires a $80k property manager, $80k in property taxes, $40k in utilities, $40k in insurance, and $25k in miscellaneous expenses for a total of $265k/yr in expenses. The net operating income is $432k - $265k = $167k/yr. The market value of this building to a prospective buyer would be $167k/0.03=~$5.56M Renting the 30 units at $1.7k (41% rent increase), gross rents would be $612k. Expenses constant at $265k/yr (taxes would go up, but this is napkin math), the NOI is now $347k and the building is worth $347k/0.03=$11.56M . In this example, a 41% rent increase more than doubled the value of the building. For an investor with deep enough pockets, the $6M of equity created by renting units at the higher price is enough to cover the cost of a long vacancy / rehab process. But they can't get too greedy or the units will never rent and they're just stuck holding the bag on a high-vacancy underperforming property. These dynamics amount to what is basically a slow-motion flip playing out over 4-10 years. Some REITs do this across their entire portfolio to achieve healthy annualized returns.

decebalus1 7y ago
Alright, that makes sense. But can we all agree that it's a problem? When I said there needs to be some level of control (and apparently nobody agrees), I was referring to something like the taxes put in place by local governments against foreigners buying up property, keeping it unoccupied thus creating scarcity and driving prices up. In this particular case, the local government practically gave away building permits, changed codes, the whole town was at the developer's feet (roads closed, free traffic enforcement, less green space, redesigned roads to deal with the forecasted traffic, etc..) under the promise of building plenty of 'affordable housing'. But when after you build it (tons of this crap https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-america-s-new-apartment-buildings-all-look-the-same https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-ameri...) you raise the rent for no reason and practically drive people away (I'm not saying it's gentrification, I'm saying it's well-off young professionals who are now choosing to move to a different city), the local market stops being competitive, you sit around with empty apartments, somebody went wrong somewhere. All new developments are under the ownership of two or three giant entities which have a vested interest of keeping prices very high as opposed to competing among themselves. The management companies who own these also made sure to buy a lot of the existing (crappy) apartment buildings. The argument I was trying to make is that more housing does not necessarily solve the rent price problem, especially if the new housing is governed by a handful of large corporations. And that is usually the case.

decebalus1 7y ago

Alright, that makes sense. But can we all agree that it's a problem? When I said there needs to be some level of control (and apparently nobody agrees), I was referring to something like the taxes put in place by local governments against foreigners buying up property, keeping it unoccupied thus creating scarcity and driving prices up. In this particular case, the local government practically gave away building permits, changed codes, the whole town was at the developer's feet (roads closed, free traffic enforcement, less green space, redesigned roads to deal with the forecasted traffic, etc..) under the promise of building plenty of 'affordable housing'. But when after you build it (tons of this crap https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-america-s-new-apartment-buildings-all-look-the-same https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-ameri...) you raise the rent for no reason and practically drive people away (I'm not saying it's gentrification, I'm saying it's well-off young professionals who are now choosing to move to a different city), the local market stops being competitive, you sit around with empty apartments, somebody went wrong somewhere. All new developments are under the ownership of two or three giant entities which have a vested interest of keeping prices very high as opposed to competing among themselves. The management companies who own these also made sure to buy a lot of the existing (crappy) apartment buildings. The argument I was trying to make is that more housing does not necessarily solve the rent price problem, especially if the new housing is governed by a handful of large corporations. And that is usually the case.