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I've been wanting to buy nice furniture for a very long time... unfortunately the housing crisis has prevented my from ever having a sense of permanence. If I h

by scoofy 3y ago

I've been wanting to buy nice furniture for a very long time... unfortunately the housing crisis has prevented my from ever having a sense of permanence. If I had known I'd live in my last place for nearly a decade I would have purchased nice things, but as it stands, until I have a mortgage of my own, I refuse to spend good money on something I may need to replace next year.

ghaff 3y ago
Sofas, perhaps especially, are pretty hard to fit for non built-in furniture. I bought a used sofa off my brother. (Ironically, their replacements ended up being terrible because they lasted about a year with their dogs.) I was also very lucky though. I thought I could configure the sectional in a couple different ways. Turned out I rolled the dice the right way because I couldn't. And only discovered this after many months because I was on crutches at the time and couldn't do anything about the sofa sitting in my garage.
neilv 3y ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one. The buying up of precious housing as investments by non-residents should mostly be banned, starting with institutional and overseas investors. AirBnb should also be banned. And the people who profited off that startup, who must've known they were creating illegal hotels and destroying rental markets, should be hit with devastating fines, maybe also imprisoned.
- maxerickson 3y ago
  We should just build lots of housing.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
    Lets do both :)
    - maxerickson 3y ago
      I really don't expect that appointing a committee to decide if your use of a space is acceptable is going to improve the problems caused in large part by having a committee decide how space should be used.
      - BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
        I think my committee is good and other committee is bad
- gruez 3y ago
  >The buying up of precious housing as investments by non-residents should mostly be banned, starting with institutional and overseas investors. What's the issue with them buying houses as investments, as long as they're being rented out? If that's the case, their net effect on the housing supply is zero. >maybe also imprisoned. I find it extremely disturbing that people are effectively demanding for bill of attainders for jail sentences for what are basically zoning violations.
  - cdchn 3y ago
    >What's the issue with them buying houses as investments, as long as they're being rented out? Because it prevents people from owning and now have to be permanent renters because of somebody's greedy rent seeking behavior.
    - gruez 3y ago
      Sounds like the actual problem is that landlords can engage in "greedy rent seeking behavior" at all. Allowing people to opt out, but only if they can afford a 6 figure downpayment and keep 7 figure amounts of their wealth parked in a single non-productive asset that's highly correlated with their job prospects is an imperfect solution to say the least. Everyone deserve protections from "greedy rent seeking behavior", not just the people who are in a position to buy.
      - Repulsion9513 3y ago
        How does that happen when all the houses are being purchased as investments to rent out (or not, as often happens)?
      - Spivak 3y ago
        Good lord man what first time homebuyer is putting down $100k down payments? I just bought a nice house in a well established in demand neighborhood and my total cost down was less than $30k. No assistance program, no special deal, definitely not a cheap house oof this market. Are you trying to buy 2M+ houses?
- cdchn 3y ago
  Be careful what you say here about businesses that try to "disrupt an industry" aka "operate quasi-legally until someone tries to stop them."
- duped 3y ago
  > starting with institutional and overseas investors. This would do next to nothing. The landlords buying up real estate are mom-and-pops with fewer than 10 properties. Which makes sense, because residential property is a pretty decent passive income that's only accessible to people with wealth but are not a good asset for large institutions. Otherwise banks wouldn't sell foreclosed homes at a discount, they'd hold onto them if it was more profitable. (1) https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investors-havent-bought-44-of-homes-this-year/ https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investor...
  - Dah00n 3y ago
    >The landlords buying up real estate are mom-and-pops with fewer than 10 properties. That might be true, but there are lots of companies that own more than 1000 homes. 1-3 should be the limit.
    - duped 3y ago
      You might want to read into data like this (1) to get a better view of how much housing stock those companies own as a proportion of the total market (it's very little). The data is kind of hard to get, because many small landlords have incorporated as LLCs/LLPs and they make up the bulk of "corporate" ownership. But it's pretty clear that the big time owners like institutional investors/REITs/etc own less than 2% of all units. (1) https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R47332.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R47332.pdf
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ProDemoNo 3y ago
  [dead]
- al_borland 3y ago
  Airbnb was never meant to be what it has become. It started out as an easy way for people to rent out a spare room. The name “Airbnb” came from air mattresses on the floor. It’s the get-rich-quick types who decided to be professional Airbnb landlords. Short term leases make no sense at all to anyone actual invested in rental properties, without something like Airbnb to back it. A long term tenant who pays on time should be the dream of every landlord, but with all the Airbnbs, it’s not even considered. I don’t know if this is the fault of the early investors, but I’m all for pulling the rug out from under the the people who own dozens of properties for the sole purpose of doing Airbnb. They are likely extremely leveraged, due to the low interest rates from years past, so they’d be screwed and be forced to sell fast. I agree on the international investors as well. Priority should always go to people who will actual live in a place. All those multi-million dollar places in NYC that sit vacant are a horrible. What’s the point of housing if no one is there to live in it.
- ohialehua 3y ago
  I’m 40 years old and trying to buy a home in a high COLA city with my partner and our child. We are currently renting. Everything is either absurdly priced or surrounded by people of color and crime. This realization has convinced me that it’s not a supply problem. I go on Zillow and there’s HUNDREDS of affordable condos and single family homes and 2 flats on offer. I can buy many of them cash. But they are in the ghetto. And ghettos are not some sort of act of god or timey-wimey opopsie-dasie. They are deliberate creations of a society. Similarly, I look on Zillow at houses in second-tier cities an hour or two drive and everything is reasonable. My partner and I work in person five days a week, and yet millennials and Gen Zers working remotely except for once a month have no legitimate reason to be in high COLA markets except for their love of marg towers. It’s not a supply problem. It’s an “I’m a racist white person and I’m okay with the carceral industrial complex” problem. All the crime I see in these areas that frankly makes living in them a threat to my female partner’s survival is due to 60+ years of stupid welfare policy and 50+ years of the War on Drugs removing fathers from homes and incentivizing criminal culture.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
Good furniture holds value especially buying used good furniture. If it doesn’t work out next year you can sell it for about what you paid if you haven’t destroyed it. Hard wood holds up to abuse much better than the particle board stuff too.

by scoofy 3y ago

ghaff 3y ago

Sofas, perhaps especially, are pretty hard to fit for non built-in furniture. I bought a used sofa off my brother. (Ironically, their replacements ended up being terrible because they lasted about a year with their dogs.) I was also very lucky though. I thought I could configure the sectional in a couple different ways. Turned out I rolled the dice the right way because I couldn't. And only discovered this after many months because I was on crutches at the time and couldn't do anything about the sofa sitting in my garage.

neilv 3y ago

I'm glad I'm not the only one. The buying up of precious housing as investments by non-residents should mostly be banned, starting with institutional and overseas investors. AirBnb should also be banned. And the people who profited off that startup, who must've known they were creating illegal hotels and destroying rental markets, should be hit with devastating fines, maybe also imprisoned.

maxerickson 3y ago
We should just build lots of housing.
- BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
  Lets do both :)
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    I really don't expect that appointing a committee to decide if your use of a space is acceptable is going to improve the problems caused in large part by having a committee decide how space should be used.
    - BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
      I think my committee is good and other committee is bad
gruez 3y ago
>The buying up of precious housing as investments by non-residents should mostly be banned, starting with institutional and overseas investors. What's the issue with them buying houses as investments, as long as they're being rented out? If that's the case, their net effect on the housing supply is zero. >maybe also imprisoned. I find it extremely disturbing that people are effectively demanding for bill of attainders for jail sentences for what are basically zoning violations.
- cdchn 3y ago
  >What's the issue with them buying houses as investments, as long as they're being rented out? Because it prevents people from owning and now have to be permanent renters because of somebody's greedy rent seeking behavior.
  - gruez 3y ago
    Sounds like the actual problem is that landlords can engage in "greedy rent seeking behavior" at all. Allowing people to opt out, but only if they can afford a 6 figure downpayment and keep 7 figure amounts of their wealth parked in a single non-productive asset that's highly correlated with their job prospects is an imperfect solution to say the least. Everyone deserve protections from "greedy rent seeking behavior", not just the people who are in a position to buy.
    - Repulsion9513 3y ago
      How does that happen when all the houses are being purchased as investments to rent out (or not, as often happens)?
    - Spivak 3y ago
      Good lord man what first time homebuyer is putting down $100k down payments? I just bought a nice house in a well established in demand neighborhood and my total cost down was less than $30k. No assistance program, no special deal, definitely not a cheap house oof this market. Are you trying to buy 2M+ houses?
cdchn 3y ago
Be careful what you say here about businesses that try to "disrupt an industry" aka "operate quasi-legally until someone tries to stop them."
duped 3y ago
> starting with institutional and overseas investors. This would do next to nothing. The landlords buying up real estate are mom-and-pops with fewer than 10 properties. Which makes sense, because residential property is a pretty decent passive income that's only accessible to people with wealth but are not a good asset for large institutions. Otherwise banks wouldn't sell foreclosed homes at a discount, they'd hold onto them if it was more profitable. (1) https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investors-havent-bought-44-of-homes-this-year/ https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investor...
- Dah00n 3y ago
  >The landlords buying up real estate are mom-and-pops with fewer than 10 properties. That might be true, but there are lots of companies that own more than 1000 homes. 1-3 should be the limit.
  - duped 3y ago
    You might want to read into data like this (1) to get a better view of how much housing stock those companies own as a proportion of the total market (it's very little). The data is kind of hard to get, because many small landlords have incorporated as LLCs/LLPs and they make up the bulk of "corporate" ownership. But it's pretty clear that the big time owners like institutional investors/REITs/etc own less than 2% of all units. (1) https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R47332.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R47332.pdf
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ProDemoNo 3y ago
[dead]
al_borland 3y ago
Airbnb was never meant to be what it has become. It started out as an easy way for people to rent out a spare room. The name “Airbnb” came from air mattresses on the floor. It’s the get-rich-quick types who decided to be professional Airbnb landlords. Short term leases make no sense at all to anyone actual invested in rental properties, without something like Airbnb to back it. A long term tenant who pays on time should be the dream of every landlord, but with all the Airbnbs, it’s not even considered. I don’t know if this is the fault of the early investors, but I’m all for pulling the rug out from under the the people who own dozens of properties for the sole purpose of doing Airbnb. They are likely extremely leveraged, due to the low interest rates from years past, so they’d be screwed and be forced to sell fast. I agree on the international investors as well. Priority should always go to people who will actual live in a place. All those multi-million dollar places in NYC that sit vacant are a horrible. What’s the point of housing if no one is there to live in it.
ohialehua 3y ago
I’m 40 years old and trying to buy a home in a high COLA city with my partner and our child. We are currently renting. Everything is either absurdly priced or surrounded by people of color and crime. This realization has convinced me that it’s not a supply problem. I go on Zillow and there’s HUNDREDS of affordable condos and single family homes and 2 flats on offer. I can buy many of them cash. But they are in the ghetto. And ghettos are not some sort of act of god or timey-wimey opopsie-dasie. They are deliberate creations of a society. Similarly, I look on Zillow at houses in second-tier cities an hour or two drive and everything is reasonable. My partner and I work in person five days a week, and yet millennials and Gen Zers working remotely except for once a month have no legitimate reason to be in high COLA markets except for their love of marg towers. It’s not a supply problem. It’s an “I’m a racist white person and I’m okay with the carceral industrial complex” problem. All the crime I see in these areas that frankly makes living in them a threat to my female partner’s survival is due to 60+ years of stupid welfare policy and 50+ years of the War on Drugs removing fathers from homes and incentivizing criminal culture.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

Good furniture holds value especially buying used good furniture. If it doesn’t work out next year you can sell it for about what you paid if you haven’t destroyed it. Hard wood holds up to abuse much better than the particle board stuff too.