• D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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    16 days ago

    Huh… who could have predicted that falling wages and increasing home rental prices would mean that lots of rental units would be sitting vacant for longer and longer periods of time?

    Its funny, in the laugh to keep from crying in despair kind of way, that landlords as a group are inclined to keep posting higher rental prices for their units because no individual wants to be the first to “lose” money by reducing their rates to get somebody in the units.

    Is the appearance of having something that could at some future date produce “x” amount of revenue more important that actually generating revenue?

    Perfectly efficient economic system we’ve got right here. skeleton-motorcycle

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      16 days ago

      landlords as a group are inclined to keep posting higher rental prices for their units because no individual wants to be the first to “lose” money by reducing their rates to get somebody in the units.

      I was thinking about this the other day and how funny it would be if someone just destroyed the entire market overnight by cutting their losses and cashing out. Like maybe they have $10 billion invested into vacant homes, but decide it’s better to lose $5 billion now vs. waiting another decade to try and get the full $10 billion. So they sell everything off at way, way below market rates. It’s not a small amount either, so another investor can’t just swoop in and get the $10 billion by buying this person out.

      From there, it dominoes out of control where people are buying $500k homes for $200~300k. Competitors can’t keep up with how fast the homes are sold to individual families, yet they see their current investments now at risk of losing serious amounts of money.

      This would never happen because landlords wouldn’t be landlords if they had the foresight to pull it off, but I can dream of China doing it to torpedo North America’s housing market.

          • coolusername@lemmy.ml
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            15 days ago

            Chinese (individuals) have been buying US housing before the recent bubble in prices, because they were seen as a good investment, and they were proven correct. Media says it’s all corrupt “SEESEEPEE” officials trying to hide their money.

      • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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        16 days ago

        A lot of it depends upon how much it costs to hang on to a stagnant asset. If you’re not renting out a house, you’re still paying property tax on it.

        Cities can use this to a desired outcome by raising property taxes, in equal percentage points to an “Owner-Occupied” exemption. This is assuming that there aren’t tax loopholes being exploited, or that those loopholes are closed.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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      16 days ago

      Is the appearance of having something that could at some future date produce “x” amount of revenue more important that actually generating revenue?

      That’s not all, the future potential revenue can be even more important than their own lives, ask kulaks.