6 ms·

Florida lawmakers stay quiet as corporations buy homes

38 points by howard941 2y ago

huitzitziltzin 2y ago
This behavior just doesn’t matter for the overall real estate market. Sorry. It’s easy to hate but it’s totally irrelevant to prices overall. It is far too small. Here’s a chart prepared by a real estate research firm, linked by a housing journalist: https://x.com/kristoncapps/status/1826701823522341065 https://x.com/kristoncapps/status/1826701823522341065 If you live in one of the very very few markets where this behavior is slightly more frequent and hate these firms… why not mess up the value of their investment and harm them financially by permitting more housing to be constructed?
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >This behavior just doesn’t matter for the overall real estate market. Sorry. It’s easy to hate but it’s totally irrelevant to prices overall. It is far too small. This reminds me of the recent move to ban AirBnB in Barcelona: they're blaming AirBnB for apartment costs being too high, but if you look at the numbers, there's only around 10k (IIRC) AirBnBs, which is a tiny fraction of the total housing stock. Putting those 10k units back on the rental market isn't going to lower rents significantly. But blaming AirBnB and banning it is easier for the politicians than changing the bureaucracy and rules that prevent more housing from being constructed. >why not mess up the value of their investment and harm them financially by permitting more housing to be constructed? The NIMBYs don't want that: "my property values!" "neighborhood character!!" "where will everyone park?!"
khafra 2y ago
Land value tax would fix this.
DidYaWipe 2y ago
This is a scourge across the country that, once again, reveals how regular citizens' lives are degraded at the behest of lobbyists. While corporations buy up entire neighborhoods and take housing off the market essentially forever, states pass sham "pro-housing" measures that serve only developers' interests by vilifying "single-family" homes and targeting them for destruction. CA of course stands as a great example; it passed a couple of measures that allow one house to be knocked down and replaced with 10 units, with no approval needed or local review allowed. And right behind corporate ownership is the scourge of HOAs. According to the U.S. Census, 82% of newly built homes sold in 2021 were a part of one of these scams.
- aeternum 2y ago
  Allowing a SFH to be knocked down to build 10 units is a good thing where additional housing is needed and it will reduce the cost of housing. Corporations are holding these homes because they are such a safe investment because they know there is so much pushback to building new housing. Those corporate owners will sell housing just as quickly if there is downside risk, look at what happened in Austin.
  - bsder 2y ago
    > Those corporate owners will sell housing just as quickly if there is downside risk, look at what happened in Austin. What happened in Austin?
    - Dig1t 2y ago
      I’m not sure, Austin is still pretty expensive.
  - xhkkffbf 2y ago
    If it's a ten unit building, how can it be anything but corporate ownership? I suppose we could pretend that all ten of the residents could create a co-op and that would be more like a single-family, owner-occupied home. But really, there's got to be a corporation there somewhere.
    - aeternum 2y ago
      More than I imagined are owned by individual investors. 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/ft_21-07-16_landlordsrenters_3-png/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/02/as-nation... Once you get to 25 units or more it is corporation dominated.
    - DidYaWipe 2y ago
      I lived in a 15-unit one in L.A. that I don't think was corporate-owned. They put it on the market for something like $8 million. It was in a pretty good neighborhood on the west side, so I though hm, this price seems pretty low when a glorified garage in Culver City was selling for $1.4 million. But when I looked at the financials, it wasn't a good deal.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
I could get on board with something related. If corps are running their own van transportation around Silicon Valley and such, and so many of us really want WFH to take hold and be embraced industry-wide, we really do need to revisit the "company town" concepts that built mining and oil type industries a century ago, not to mention the small and tight-knit communities that sprang up around national labs such as those involved in the Manhattan Project, space programs, and nuclear weapons testing. I don't know if these commercial interests in FL are thinking of employee housing right now. BUT, if a corp owns a subdivision and they can place all their employees there, then perhaps they can get away from urban sprawl and all the ugliness that goes with it. The corps can put up their own shops or subcontract with, like, Amazon or Target, and pharmacies and all the other essentials, and they can establish outposts that are more independent from typical civic matters, and insulate their employees from distractions. In 1995 I worked across the street from Apple, and our office complex featured showers, pinball and video games, a full commercial kitchen, free snacks, and the message was basically "you're family, camp out here, spend the entire day, we'll support you in your downtime." Now magnify that by 10, remove it from Cupertino's smog, and you've got a company town. It could also reduce the impulses to become a "digital nomad" or expatriate who leaves the US long-term, if employee needs are catered and they feel less burdened by everything else going on, and there's more elbow room and space for them to stretch their legs, grow a garden, do some target practice, ride horses, or encourage their children walk/bike to school unsupervised. Wouldn't that be preferable to some of our urban nightmares? Certainly data centers are already in the middle of nowhere, and nearly unstaffed, but definitely need humans hanging around, so there needs to be a contingent of workers who live conveniently close, like a nuclear power station. Sure, it has drawbacks. "Company towns" and worker indebtedness to the corporation could get out of control for some. But those structures had merit and built up some really big and powerful industries which were able to provide jobs, benefits, and pensions for thousands of families, and became the backbone of the economy, and that's where I see the IT/SWE world at a crossroads today: facing unionization, consolidation, and industrialization.
- rdzl 2y ago
  Ah yes, corporate cyberpunk dystopic towns.

38 points by howard941 2y ago

This behavior just doesn’t matter for the overall real estate market. Sorry. It’s easy to hate but it’s totally irrelevant to prices overall. It is far too small. Here’s a chart prepared by a real estate research firm, linked by a housing journalist: https://x.com/kristoncapps/status/1826701823522341065 https://x.com/kristoncapps/status/1826701823522341065 If you live in one of the very very few markets where this behavior is slightly more frequent and hate these firms… why not mess up the value of their investment and harm them financially by permitting more housing to be constructed?

shiroiushi 2y ago
>This behavior just doesn’t matter for the overall real estate market. Sorry. It’s easy to hate but it’s totally irrelevant to prices overall. It is far too small. This reminds me of the recent move to ban AirBnB in Barcelona: they're blaming AirBnB for apartment costs being too high, but if you look at the numbers, there's only around 10k (IIRC) AirBnBs, which is a tiny fraction of the total housing stock. Putting those 10k units back on the rental market isn't going to lower rents significantly. But blaming AirBnB and banning it is easier for the politicians than changing the bureaucracy and rules that prevent more housing from being constructed. >why not mess up the value of their investment and harm them financially by permitting more housing to be constructed? The NIMBYs don't want that: "my property values!" "neighborhood character!!" "where will everyone park?!"

khafra 2y ago

Land value tax would fix this.

DidYaWipe 2y ago

This is a scourge across the country that, once again, reveals how regular citizens' lives are degraded at the behest of lobbyists. While corporations buy up entire neighborhoods and take housing off the market essentially forever, states pass sham "pro-housing" measures that serve only developers' interests by vilifying "single-family" homes and targeting them for destruction. CA of course stands as a great example; it passed a couple of measures that allow one house to be knocked down and replaced with 10 units, with no approval needed or local review allowed. And right behind corporate ownership is the scourge of HOAs. According to the U.S. Census, 82% of newly built homes sold in 2021 were a part of one of these scams.

aeternum 2y ago
Allowing a SFH to be knocked down to build 10 units is a good thing where additional housing is needed and it will reduce the cost of housing. Corporations are holding these homes because they are such a safe investment because they know there is so much pushback to building new housing. Those corporate owners will sell housing just as quickly if there is downside risk, look at what happened in Austin.
- bsder 2y ago
  > Those corporate owners will sell housing just as quickly if there is downside risk, look at what happened in Austin. What happened in Austin?
  - Dig1t 2y ago
    I’m not sure, Austin is still pretty expensive.
- xhkkffbf 2y ago
  If it's a ten unit building, how can it be anything but corporate ownership? I suppose we could pretend that all ten of the residents could create a co-op and that would be more like a single-family, owner-occupied home. But really, there's got to be a corporation there somewhere.
  - aeternum 2y ago
    More than I imagined are owned by individual investors. 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/ft_21-07-16_landlordsrenters_3-png/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/02/as-nation... Once you get to 25 units or more it is corporation dominated.
  - DidYaWipe 2y ago
    I lived in a 15-unit one in L.A. that I don't think was corporate-owned. They put it on the market for something like $8 million. It was in a pretty good neighborhood on the west side, so I though hm, this price seems pretty low when a glorified garage in Culver City was selling for $1.4 million. But when I looked at the financials, it wasn't a good deal.

AStonesThrow 2y ago

I could get on board with something related. If corps are running their own van transportation around Silicon Valley and such, and so many of us really want WFH to take hold and be embraced industry-wide, we really do need to revisit the "company town" concepts that built mining and oil type industries a century ago, not to mention the small and tight-knit communities that sprang up around national labs such as those involved in the Manhattan Project, space programs, and nuclear weapons testing. I don't know if these commercial interests in FL are thinking of employee housing right now. BUT, if a corp owns a subdivision and they can place all their employees there, then perhaps they can get away from urban sprawl and all the ugliness that goes with it. The corps can put up their own shops or subcontract with, like, Amazon or Target, and pharmacies and all the other essentials, and they can establish outposts that are more independent from typical civic matters, and insulate their employees from distractions. In 1995 I worked across the street from Apple, and our office complex featured showers, pinball and video games, a full commercial kitchen, free snacks, and the message was basically "you're family, camp out here, spend the entire day, we'll support you in your downtime." Now magnify that by 10, remove it from Cupertino's smog, and you've got a company town. It could also reduce the impulses to become a "digital nomad" or expatriate who leaves the US long-term, if employee needs are catered and they feel less burdened by everything else going on, and there's more elbow room and space for them to stretch their legs, grow a garden, do some target practice, ride horses, or encourage their children walk/bike to school unsupervised. Wouldn't that be preferable to some of our urban nightmares? Certainly data centers are already in the middle of nowhere, and nearly unstaffed, but definitely need humans hanging around, so there needs to be a contingent of workers who live conveniently close, like a nuclear power station. Sure, it has drawbacks. "Company towns" and worker indebtedness to the corporation could get out of control for some. But those structures had merit and built up some really big and powerful industries which were able to provide jobs, benefits, and pensions for thousands of families, and became the backbone of the economy, and that's where I see the IT/SWE world at a crossroads today: facing unionization, consolidation, and industrialization.

rdzl 2y ago
Ah yes, corporate cyberpunk dystopic towns.