Posted on 08/04/2021 7:19:40 AM PDT by Pelham
Ordinary Americans are increasingly competing for a roof over their heads against the permanent capital of companies such as BlackRock and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which are buying single-family homes from real estate developers at double what the middle class can afford. Indeed, the country’s largest homebuilders are betting on America becoming a nation of renters, pouring billions into the built-to-rent sector with the backing of banks and private investment firms.
Entire neighborhoods are gobbled up as the stage is set for what John Burns Real Estate Consulting is calling “another speculative investor-driven home price bubble.” The firm estimates one in every five houses sold in many of the nation’s top markets is bought by someone who will never move in—in other words, as a speculative investment, often made by financial firms. Similarly, data from the Redfin real estate brokerage firm show investors bought about one of every seven homes in the first quarter of 2021. There’s even an emergent Silicon-Valley-to-Wall-Street pipeline in which private equity firms work with tech companies to buy homes before the public ever lays eyes on them.
Neoliberal media outlets like Vox have attempted to dispel concerns over Wall Street’s role in financializing homeownership, which is the foundation of the middle class. The solution, they say, is for Americans to get over their bigotry and love of open spaces, and marry mass immigration with mass real estate development, turning American residential areas into stack-and-pack metropolises, home to one billion atomized consumers.
Meanwhile, some hail the rise of new forms of “ownership” in fractional ownership models, wherein people would own stock in entities that hold commercial and residential properties in their area. But this is nominal ownership; neighborhood real-estate investment trusts given in exchange for the financialization and further managerialization of the body politic.
(Excerpt) Read more at chroniclesmagazine.org ...
The first shot was fired with the reinstating of an Obama-era fair housing rule temporarily undone under former President Donald Trump. Its purpose is to enforce the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which had already undermined constitutional property protections. The new rule to “affirmatively further fair housing” gives it lethal teeth.
Euphemistically put by HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge, the rule “will require every local government that accepts federal housing dollars to make concrete and meaningful commitments toward affirmatively furthering fair housing.” Plainly put, communities that don’t comply with the racial equity agenda by refusing to allow high-rise apartments, low-income housing, and high-density zoning in their neighborhoods will lose billions in federal funding. Under this thinking, a safe, clean community is a symptom of the disease of “structural racism”; blighting it with the squalor and anomie of the city is the cure.
“A house with a white picket fence and a big backyard for a Fourth of July barbecue may be a staple of the American dream,” explains a sympathetic USA Today reporter, “but experts and local politicians say multifamily zoning is key to combating climate change, racial injustice and the nation’s growing affordable housing crisis.”
Resistance is not only futile—it is “racist,” and HUD will financially strangle communities that resist their dispossession.
you will own nothing and be happy....OR ELSE!
Buy a piece of flat land or mountainous and build on it while you can. It’s the cheapest way to go.
I was a renter most of my life and then ten years ago, at 45 years old, finally bought some land. Had to move from FL to MO for something of decent size that we could afford. Got 8 acres in the Ozarks, South facing elevation with a decent sized flat area with good top soil. Power and phone running down the county maintained gravel road. Hard to find a small piece like that here. Took us two years to find it. I tore down a fire damaged house and used the materials to build a cabin and shop here. We’ve since picked up the adjoining 7 acres. Got about 12 acres of it fenced in a year and a half ago and have meat goats now. Small pasture pigs are next. Fruit trees, garden etc etc. Property taxes are $42/yr. Electric is cheap. No zoning or building codes so no permits to buy. Neighbor on each side are from St Louis and IL and come down on some weekends and are good people.
Wish I’d have done this 20 years ago. Our goal is to become as self sufficient as possible as the world goes down the tubes.
Good. I did this 17 years ago and now it appears to be the wisest thing I ever did.
I was starting to question the decision until covid plus the steal happened.
Writer left out the mot important part, past and current home ownership levels.
Wiki:
The home-ownership rate in the United States[1][2] is the percentage of homes that are owned by their occupants.[3] In 2009, it remained similar to that in some other post-industrial nations[4] with 67.4% of all occupied housing units being occupied by the unit’s owner. Home ownership rates vary depending on demographic characteristics of households such as ethnicity, race, type of household as well as location and type of settlement. In 2018, home-ownership dropped to a lower rate than it was in 1994, with a rate of 64.2%.[5]
Since 1960, the home-ownership rate in the United States has remained relatively stable. It has decreased 1.0% since 1960, when 65.2% of American households owned their own home. Additionally, homeowner equity has fallen steadily since World War II and is now less than 50% of the value of homes on average.[6] Home-ownership was most common in rural areas and suburbs, with three quarters of suburban households being homeowners.
Put in fruit and nut trees ... always nice to have a permanent back up to canned and dry food...
And in completely unrelated news the CDC declared an eviction moratorium, again...
A dump of a house a few doors down from my mothers sold for over 200k above asking price sight unseen. Every single house in that neighborhood is going within an hour way above asking. That neighborhood is definitely being targeted. There is no way the people I see walking that neighborhood can afford to buy at those prices.
I do have one peach tree but it came from walmart and when I did a search for the variety, the only thing I could find is that walmart sells them. It blooms too early here and we always get a freeze while it’s blooming. Seven years and I’ve gotten two peaches off it. I’m going to buy some from Gurney’s next year and get varieties that are known to be good for MO like Reliant, Contender.
Freedom and Liberty apples. Most nut trees won’t produce while I’m alive but I do plan on getting some hazelnut bushes. Might plant some pecan trees someday. Sugar maple would be cool. Elderberries & blueberries. Blueberries & blackberries grow wild here in this acid soil. Pawpaws grow wild in the Ozarks so I want to try those. We’ve got plenty of hickory trees but the variety is called bitternut and they’re no good for eating.
I’m going to mark some 4-5” oak trees to cut down in late winter/early Spring for growing shiitake mushrooms on. I did some once a few years back. I could probably do cultivated ginseng here. Keeping the goats away from things is the hard part.
I’ve got curved pipe and bought some straight sections to go with them to make a high tunnel. Should be able to grow something almost year round in it.
Incubated a dozen fertilized eggs I got from a neighbor last year. Ten were fertilized, two never hatched, one had a bad leg so the others promptly stomped it to death. One died for some unknown reason about the time they were fully feathered and then we slowly lost one by one to hawks. Got one smart little survivor of a hen left that I don’t even feed and she still lays eggs. If I let 6 or more eggs accumulate, she’ll go broody and set on them. Futile since I don’t have a rooster so I’m going to get more eggs from the neighbor so she can raise some chicks that will hopefully be low maintenance survivors like her.
I went with Kiko doe goats and a 7/8 boer, 1/8 Kiko buck. Kikos are low maintenance and boers are known for fast weight gain but higher maintenance. Even though the buck’s mostly boer, he’s as healthy as a horse and has been zero maintenance. Want to get Kunekune pigs to add some fat to the super lean goat meat.
I seem to be going all New Zealand. Fence design is NZ as are Kikos and Kunekune. The Maori people seem to have a thing for words that start with a K. To bad Kiwis won’t grow here.
If I was 20 years younger or wealthy, I’d probably have everything done by now. Root cellar is on the to do list. Gotta cool spell this week so I’m heading back out to get some things done.
So, who's buying? Go down the street and purchase a reasonably priced home.
Can I explain how much I hate JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and hedge funds, ect. They don’t build or create anything, and then lay bets and counter bets against average Americans.
There is no better peach than the Elverta.
Nothing else comes close.
What area of the country if you don’t mind saying?
In SoCal we probably have experienced this longer than most of the country.
When prices began climbing again after the crash of 2008 my realtor friends told me that they were getting above market, full cash offers from Chinese buyers. Chinese nationals, there’s no restriction on selling to foreign buyers that I’ve heard of.
That seemed to be driving the market for several years. Now someone or some group is sending out mass mailings offering to buy your house sight unseen. Two friends of mine have sold their houses this year, both taking bids $50,000 above their listing prices, which already were at the top end for comparable sales. They plan to rent for up to two years, waiting for the SoCal bubble to pop. But if prices are being driven by the likes of BlackRock and JPM they may be out of luck.
"Year-over-year changes in inventory paint a more complete picture. Compared with last year at this time, the number of active listings in the largest metro areas is down 48%. This is particularly remarkable considering they were already down 23% year over year when comparing Q2 2020 with 2019.
"Before the pandemic, we were already in the midst of a housing shortage brought on, in part, by insufficient new construction and demographic shifts. Then the already slim pickings were decimated by the events of the past year.
"This quarter marks the first time in our analysis that all 50 metros experienced a year-over-year decrease in available homes.
https://www.ocregister.com/2021/08/04/california-ranks-low-for-home-affordability-by-this-math/
Good on ya. Congrats.
We had various kinds of hens and the vari-colored Auracans did the best. They are not pure in the US (maybe named Americanas), but they seem to have better instincts left for being outside.
Or maybe not.
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