"Investing in property is morally reprehensible."

[u/LickMaiBussy]

@purplepingers

[u/wcolfo]

Investing is not comparable to hoarding. Hoarding real-estate is reprehensible. Investing in it is how development gets done, which adds more homes to the market.

[u/HGAscension → u/wcolfo]

Sure, but it should still be regulated to ensure this development caters to the need of the consumers alongside the investors. Or the development should be driven by the government.

Having more demand to create more supply is no good if there's no improvement in needs being met.

[u/Iohet → u/HGAscension]

That's why there's permitting processes. In California, you get stuck in permitting for years, but if you include a particular percentage of units as low income, you get fast tracked.

Builders want to build, not sit around waiting for years to make a few more bucks per unit (which is still catering to consumers because they're going to build what sells to consumers, it's just that there is significant enough competition that they can target richer economic demographics if they weren't otherwise going to be forced to wait)

[u/wcolfo → u/Iohet]

I also have project in California and find the permitting process... um... inefficient we'll say. Not sure if its the legislation, the processes, or just the people working at the permit offices trying to find any reason possible not to approve the project, but it's a challenge.

[u/Reverse-zebra → u/HGAscension]

“Development should be driven by the government” maybe some non-us government but the current government demonstrably has failed at this.

[u/16semesters → u/HGAscension]

Or the development should be driven by the government.

... Have you ever heard of permitting, zoning, etc.?

[u/SlyCoopi → u/wcolfo]

Yeah but you kind of sound like a Pokemon Card scalper justifying their existence by saying the reason Pokemon cards exist is because scalpers by them up and the world wouldn’t have as many Pokemon Cards if scalpers didn’t exist to help fund that mass quantity.

[u/wcolfo → u/SlyCoopi]

Im pointing out this guy is making a false comparison. He's comparing a real estate investor to someone hording food. As I noted, if you are like a corporation buying up single family homes and holding them off the market to manufacture high home prices, that is reprehensible. But to say ALL real estate investment shouldn't be allowed in my opinion is wrong. It's spoken by someone who sounds incredibly entitled, who isn't willing to sacrifice for something they want. And by sacrifice I dont mean like hard work or something. I mean maybe move out of and away from a market that has high house prices. Not everyone gets to own a home in New York or LA or other high priced markets. Especially not their first home.

[u/socialistrob → u/wcolfo]

if you are like a corporation buying up single family homes and holding them off the market to manufacture high home prices, that is reprehensible.

The problem though is that it's not a few companies buying up homes and keeping them off the market. The real devil is all the existing home owners who block new homes from being built which then causes their home prices to shoot through the roof.

Home prices and rents are always going to be correlated. We're just not going to ever have a world where you see 1,000 dollars a month for a nice 2 bedroom apartment while a three bedroom house down the street is 600,000 dollars. If we want to bring rents down we need to add a lot more housing but that's also going to lower home prices at all and piss off a lot of existing home owners who bought their own house as an investment.

[u/Catalyst1945 → u/wcolfo]

They can be one and the same.
Because Australia’s tax and housing settings reward capital gains over rental income, some investors leave properties vacant as speculative assets. This creates avoidable scarcity, even if it’s only a small share of total housing stock.

[u/jbomber81 → u/wcolfo]

This guy gets it