According to the Wall Street Journal, Wall Street is buying up residential properties. No good can come from it in my opinion. They will alter the landscape in their image. They don’t own much now, but their ownership is rapidly increasing, and their goals are to increase it considerably and rent out homes in traditional American neighborhoods.
Harris has made it clear that she welcomes big investors into these American neighborhoods to buy the single family home, but, of course, she would. The single family home is the American Dream.
The Wall Street Journal Reports:
Nationally, Wall Street landlords that have more than 1,000 units in their portfolios own just 1% of all of America’s family homes and 4% of all of the houses that are rented out. In most areas, their presence is still too small to have much effect on local housing dynamics. If current trends continue, though, their share of the market for single-family rentals could increase 10-fold by the end of the decade, MetLife Investment Management estimates.
There are a handful of U.S. neighborhoods where investors are densely clustered, particularly in Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas. They have bought more than 1,000 homes in 53 zip codes, putting their ownership of the local housing stock anywhere from 4% to 12%, according to data from real-estate analytics firm Parcl Labs. The data includes some houses temporarily owned by builders, as well as foreclosed properties on banks’ books, but most are held by institutional landlords.
The big investors pay cash, even for homes that need a lot of work. They get their foot in the door and then rent out the homes. They have the upper hand:
Regular home buyers find it tough to compete with these deep-pocketed investors. Corporate landlords are willing to pay in cash and to buy homes that aren’t in great shape. It is easier and faster to sell to an investor than to a first-time buyer who needs time to arrange financing and might try to negotiate on price if a house needs repairs.
They look for the three-bedroom homes, and grab up the bargains:
Wall Street housing investors tend to herd into the same neighborhoods because their algorithms spot the same opportunities. They screen the country for cities and towns with population growth and job openings—places where there is likely to be competition for homes. They prefer to own three-bedroom, suburban properties that are around 1,500 square feet in size and offer a convenient commute downtown. Young parents like these kinds of homes, and landlords like to rent to families because they become sticky tenants once their children enroll in local schools.
Big landlords are also able to sift through reams of data to spot bargains. The 53 zip codes where they are most densely clustered offer cheap housing. The median single-family home price in these areas is $345,400, based on Redfin data—around a fifth below the national level. Rents, however, are only 3% below the national median.
Democrats want to eliminate the single family home since many of the owners are Republican. Democrats are urbanized. This would be most acceptable to many of them.
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