3 ms·

1. And? Most are occupied. How many unoccupied SFHs are there? 2. I am a home owner. There is a certain subset of the populace that likes to act as though rent

1. And? Most are occupied. How many unoccupied SFHs are there? 2. I am a home owner. There is a certain subset of the populace that likes to act as though renters have it so easy, because owning a home is a never ending stream of credit card swipes for the next four (or five) digit maintenance expense - when they're not posting memes talking about not having to pay property tax or insurance or even utilities, as if landlords absorb those out of the goodness of their heart. These corporations, if you read the article in the first place are colluding across other corporate landlords because if they don't get the rent they want, they would rather keep the occupancy vacant, because then they also get to claim it as a tax loss. > Capitalist countries are indeed quite amazing compared to socialist countries. That's why people flee socialist countries and try to get in the US. People don't generally flee socialism, but corruption. But hey, here we are in the US where we're doing a spectacular job of showing what a corrupt capitalist society looks like. And hey, look, the number of people trying "to get in here" is dropping like a rock.

WalterBright 1mo ago
> And? Tens of thousands is not significant wrt 94 million. > 2. If you ever owned a vacant home, not only are you still going to have to pay all the usual bills, you'll be dealing with vandalism, squatters, and that undetected roof leak that ruins the interior. Thinking that "tax losses" are the way to make money does not work. If you don't believe me, buy a rental and see how it goes as a landlord. Personally, I want nothing to do with being a landlord. > People don't generally flee socialism, but corruption The two go hand in hand. See "Learing Centers".
- FireBeyond 1mo ago
  > Thinking that "tax losses" are the way to make money does not work. Never said that. But if I'm a corporation who owns 3,000 homes and/or apartments, I can easily decide that rather than earning less than I'd like on rental income, I might keep those units vacant and claim rental loss to offset my tax burden elsewhere. Helpfully, corporations can also depreciate those dwellings as an asset. Keeping a portion of those dwellings vacant benefits me as a corporation - it doesn't benefit society or the community they're in (or the communities where the offset is going to come from). But hey, fuck society and community, we're a capitalist-over-all nation! > If you ever owned a vacant home, not only are you still going to have to pay all the usual bills, you'll be dealing with vandalism, squatters, and that undetected roof leak that ruins the interior. What "usual bills"? Property tax? Insurance? If I own 3,000 dwellings I can self-insure. I can shut off water/sewage/garbage service, I can shut off electricity, internet. Of course, if I'm a corporation with 3,000 homes, it'd be almost a certainty that I have dedicated maintenance crews who can be mitigating many of those other issues, and doing it far cheaper than you or I could (short of DIY).
  - WalterBright 1mo ago
    > Never said that. Well, you went on to say it again. > I have dedicated maintenance crews They cost money. As for shutting off utilities, that's a good way to develop mildew in the house. You'll also get rodents moving in, as well as insects. And then there are the teens who use it as a party house. (That's why home insurance is more expensive for vacant houses.) But hey, don't let me stop you. Sounds like you have a sound business plan of buying homes and leaving them vacant. Let us know how it goes!
- nrr 1mo ago
  > If you ever owned a vacant home, not only are you still going to have to pay all the usual bills, you'll be dealing with vandalism, squatters, and that undetected roof leak that ruins the interior. Maybe! That said, the improvements on the land (namely, the house itself) are only one piece of the puzzle. Housing is usually modeled as an oligopoly, where there are relatively fewer sellers than there are buyers, and this model makes some interesting assumptions. The demand for housing is relatively inelastic, landlords have market power, dwellings are not fungible for seemingly myriad reasons, and the landlord is seeking to maximize profit over occupancy. For smaller landlords, the opportunity cost inherent in leaving a property vacant is often pretty high for the reasons stated here. Paying out obligations, remediating illicit uses, remediating undetected faults in the structure, etc. For these folks, leaving the dwelling vacant is a losing proposition[0]. However, for the more institutional landlords[1] that have a lot of dwellings and, possibly, own most of the rental housing that exists in a particular market? There's an incentive to constrain the supply beyond what, e.g., exclusive-use zoning and arduous design review processes achieve. By the oligopoly model, the fewer of those dwellings they rent out, the more they can command in the price of rent. Diamond cartels, for whatever it's worth, do the same thing. The same model applies. Welcome to market power. Housing is a little more fucked in that there's also an appraisal angle, and for rental properties, the comparatives are based on the expected rent. If rents go up, the appraised value goes up. If rents go down, the appraised value goes down. The appraised value has an outsized effect on the line of credit available to a landlord to continue their investments in real estate in that they have less to offer in terms of collateral on that leverage[2]. -- 0: The only real exception that I can think of is when the housing supply is so constrained that the value of the land itself wildly outstrips the value of the improvements to that land. At that point, the land becomes a speculation vehicle, the house on it be damned. California's Proposition 13 exacerbates this by artificially lowering the opportunity cost of keeping the dwelling vacant or otherwise not redeveloping the land it sits on. 1: Real estate investment trusts count. Chances are good that anyone's retirement fund includes one of these. 2: The real estate developer Donald Trump is a notable exception to this rule. Banks, for reasons that baffle the shit out of me, continued to loan him money. There was no due diligence undertaken for most of the loans he received, and it seemed to be based entirely on vibes.
  - 1mo ago

WalterBright 1mo ago

> And? Tens of thousands is not significant wrt 94 million. > 2. If you ever owned a vacant home, not only are you still going to have to pay all the usual bills, you'll be dealing with vandalism, squatters, and that undetected roof leak that ruins the interior. Thinking that "tax losses" are the way to make money does not work. If you don't believe me, buy a rental and see how it goes as a landlord. Personally, I want nothing to do with being a landlord. > People don't generally flee socialism, but corruption The two go hand in hand. See "Learing Centers".

FireBeyond 1mo ago
> Thinking that "tax losses" are the way to make money does not work. Never said that. But if I'm a corporation who owns 3,000 homes and/or apartments, I can easily decide that rather than earning less than I'd like on rental income, I might keep those units vacant and claim rental loss to offset my tax burden elsewhere. Helpfully, corporations can also depreciate those dwellings as an asset. Keeping a portion of those dwellings vacant benefits me as a corporation - it doesn't benefit society or the community they're in (or the communities where the offset is going to come from). But hey, fuck society and community, we're a capitalist-over-all nation! > If you ever owned a vacant home, not only are you still going to have to pay all the usual bills, you'll be dealing with vandalism, squatters, and that undetected roof leak that ruins the interior. What "usual bills"? Property tax? Insurance? If I own 3,000 dwellings I can self-insure. I can shut off water/sewage/garbage service, I can shut off electricity, internet. Of course, if I'm a corporation with 3,000 homes, it'd be almost a certainty that I have dedicated maintenance crews who can be mitigating many of those other issues, and doing it far cheaper than you or I could (short of DIY).
- WalterBright 1mo ago
  > Never said that. Well, you went on to say it again. > I have dedicated maintenance crews They cost money. As for shutting off utilities, that's a good way to develop mildew in the house. You'll also get rodents moving in, as well as insects. And then there are the teens who use it as a party house. (That's why home insurance is more expensive for vacant houses.) But hey, don't let me stop you. Sounds like you have a sound business plan of buying homes and leaving them vacant. Let us know how it goes!
nrr 1mo ago
> If you ever owned a vacant home, not only are you still going to have to pay all the usual bills, you'll be dealing with vandalism, squatters, and that undetected roof leak that ruins the interior. Maybe! That said, the improvements on the land (namely, the house itself) are only one piece of the puzzle. Housing is usually modeled as an oligopoly, where there are relatively fewer sellers than there are buyers, and this model makes some interesting assumptions. The demand for housing is relatively inelastic, landlords have market power, dwellings are not fungible for seemingly myriad reasons, and the landlord is seeking to maximize profit over occupancy. For smaller landlords, the opportunity cost inherent in leaving a property vacant is often pretty high for the reasons stated here. Paying out obligations, remediating illicit uses, remediating undetected faults in the structure, etc. For these folks, leaving the dwelling vacant is a losing proposition[0]. However, for the more institutional landlords[1] that have a lot of dwellings and, possibly, own most of the rental housing that exists in a particular market? There's an incentive to constrain the supply beyond what, e.g., exclusive-use zoning and arduous design review processes achieve. By the oligopoly model, the fewer of those dwellings they rent out, the more they can command in the price of rent. Diamond cartels, for whatever it's worth, do the same thing. The same model applies. Welcome to market power. Housing is a little more fucked in that there's also an appraisal angle, and for rental properties, the comparatives are based on the expected rent. If rents go up, the appraised value goes up. If rents go down, the appraised value goes down. The appraised value has an outsized effect on the line of credit available to a landlord to continue their investments in real estate in that they have less to offer in terms of collateral on that leverage[2]. -- 0: The only real exception that I can think of is when the housing supply is so constrained that the value of the land itself wildly outstrips the value of the improvements to that land. At that point, the land becomes a speculation vehicle, the house on it be damned. California's Proposition 13 exacerbates this by artificially lowering the opportunity cost of keeping the dwelling vacant or otherwise not redeveloping the land it sits on. 1: Real estate investment trusts count. Chances are good that anyone's retirement fund includes one of these. 2: The real estate developer Donald Trump is a notable exception to this rule. Banks, for reasons that baffle the shit out of me, continued to loan him money. There was no due diligence undertaken for most of the loans he received, and it seemed to be based entirely on vibes.
- 1mo ago