It is impossible to defend democratic rights or any of the social interests of working people without seizing the unearned wealth of the billionaire parasites.
Because when you look at the total ownership, individual home owners are making the vast majority of the profit from keeping prices high. Around 65% of homes are owned by the family that lives in them, and the second largest chunk of the market is dedicated rental apartments which need to be owned by corps or they would never get built in the first place and are a needed part of the economy, then a smaller chunk is the landlord who own their home plus one rental.
Corporate ownership of non-dedicated rental buildings (houses, townhouses, etc) is still a very small percentage of the overall market.
Should it be happening at all? Probably not, but at the end of the day most of the profits of housing and land appreciation are being reaped by single home owners.
There was a news article a few days ago about a new development land purchase that just went through in Vancouver, BC. 25ish lots were purchased from individual home owners, for a total of $100 million or about 4 million dollars per lot. That cost gets passed onto the people buying the new condos going in, and the profit is going to individual home owners who probably bought those lots for hundreds of thousands over the last twenty or thirty years.
So it sounds like a rock and a hard place. Homeowners don’t want to lose money (and for many doing so would destroy their financial well-being), but they’re also incentivized by banks and realtors to ask higher and higher prices. This also affects voting patterns (i.e. “I bought at an astronomical cost and if it loses value I’m fucked”). But it all sounds like the homeowner is caught between market forces that propel prices higher. The relatively recent introduction of blackrock to corporate homeownership has an outsized impact, like your example, where they spend a ridiculous amount for a property they intend to never sell which will also inflate the property value in a region. I’d be curious to see how that difference could be quantified and understood. Honestly it all feels like 2008 again
This is just anecdotal experience, but when I bought my house I was the only bidder who needed a place to live. The seller and the people I bid against were all looking for rental properties. I honestly only got the place through a fluke
You’re right that this is a rock and a hard place. Which is why I don’t expect it to change anytime soon. What needs to happen is that home ownership rates need to drop, meaning more voters will be renters, then they will have the political clout to push through policies that make things more affordable for them by destroying home values for the now minority of owners.
I give it about 30 years or so before we see that.
I disagree here. Rent is a siphon for your money to go to the wealthy landowners, just like these rising housing prices siphon more of your money to banks.
Unless you’re saying that renters have more political leverage? Which I’m also not sure I agree with. It’s easier to evict a renter than an owner. I think we need more affordable housing, which depends on building accessible homes, controlling outrageous rent, and addressing zoning laws, but all of this depends on a strong economy for those goods and a surplus of jobs that pay enough. Systemic reform of zoning laws and lobbying is where change is
I do mean renters will have more leverage once home ownership rates drop.
We will never build enough homes to drop housing prices to affordable levels. Prices can’t just stop growing, they have to actually drop, and developers will run away from projects the moment prices start declining. We’ve already seen a slowdown in construction in the last year as home prices stagnated.
Because when you look at the total ownership, individual home owners are making the vast majority of the profit from keeping prices high. Around 65% of homes are owned by the family that lives in them, and the second largest chunk of the market is dedicated rental apartments which need to be owned by corps or they would never get built in the first place and are a needed part of the economy, then a smaller chunk is the landlord who own their home plus one rental.
Corporate ownership of non-dedicated rental buildings (houses, townhouses, etc) is still a very small percentage of the overall market.
Should it be happening at all? Probably not, but at the end of the day most of the profits of housing and land appreciation are being reaped by single home owners.
There was a news article a few days ago about a new development land purchase that just went through in Vancouver, BC. 25ish lots were purchased from individual home owners, for a total of $100 million or about 4 million dollars per lot. That cost gets passed onto the people buying the new condos going in, and the profit is going to individual home owners who probably bought those lots for hundreds of thousands over the last twenty or thirty years.
So it sounds like a rock and a hard place. Homeowners don’t want to lose money (and for many doing so would destroy their financial well-being), but they’re also incentivized by banks and realtors to ask higher and higher prices. This also affects voting patterns (i.e. “I bought at an astronomical cost and if it loses value I’m fucked”). But it all sounds like the homeowner is caught between market forces that propel prices higher. The relatively recent introduction of blackrock to corporate homeownership has an outsized impact, like your example, where they spend a ridiculous amount for a property they intend to never sell which will also inflate the property value in a region. I’d be curious to see how that difference could be quantified and understood. Honestly it all feels like 2008 again
This is just anecdotal experience, but when I bought my house I was the only bidder who needed a place to live. The seller and the people I bid against were all looking for rental properties. I honestly only got the place through a fluke
You’re right that this is a rock and a hard place. Which is why I don’t expect it to change anytime soon. What needs to happen is that home ownership rates need to drop, meaning more voters will be renters, then they will have the political clout to push through policies that make things more affordable for them by destroying home values for the now minority of owners.
I give it about 30 years or so before we see that.
I disagree here. Rent is a siphon for your money to go to the wealthy landowners, just like these rising housing prices siphon more of your money to banks.
Unless you’re saying that renters have more political leverage? Which I’m also not sure I agree with. It’s easier to evict a renter than an owner. I think we need more affordable housing, which depends on building accessible homes, controlling outrageous rent, and addressing zoning laws, but all of this depends on a strong economy for those goods and a surplus of jobs that pay enough. Systemic reform of zoning laws and lobbying is where change is
I do mean renters will have more leverage once home ownership rates drop.
We will never build enough homes to drop housing prices to affordable levels. Prices can’t just stop growing, they have to actually drop, and developers will run away from projects the moment prices start declining. We’ve already seen a slowdown in construction in the last year as home prices stagnated.