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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 16th, 2023

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  • I came in here for this comment. When the choices are “criminal fighting the immensity of the ocean”, “guy named for all the cows and famous for shooting/being shot by other cow guys”, and literal nobility, it’s a solid deal. Of all three, one has the lowest chance of death, highest quality of life, and you pretty much got to do whatever you wanted depending on the era. The law that let you kill offending lower classes for twenty days of house arrest was only struck off the books in the mid 19th century.





  • Bro.

    The first set were, in order, a deep dive on an investment firm and their impact on residential property, the impact of private equity on multi-family residential property, the broad spectrum impact of investors on the residential market, another article on investors driving up home prices, homebuilders drawing down production and waiting out customers at the same price, and the last is a global perspective on the housing crisis by the World Economic Forum.

    If you actually read them, you’d recognize literally everything I’ve said. I get skipping the article on Blackstone, because it’s an actual research article, but it details how Blackstone and Invitation Home would buy entire neighborhoods and then use that foundation to manipulate home and rent prices in the entire area, further improving their return on profits.

    The one in the last comment was “Capitalism just working” during the pandemic lol. Which is half a joke, but to not see the relevance of the others is just wilful ignorance.


  • By selling what they’ve built? They don’t make any money while building. I don’t expect you to read all of the links I offered, but at least skim them lol. Slowing completions and reducing starts keeps per unit profits high, as the alternative, cutting prices and accelerating completions and increasing starts boosts revenue but reduces per-unit profits. Small construction outfits have no choice other than continuing to work, but the larger ones can just slow expenses and refuse to move on price until they’re purchased.

    Capitalism just tries to make as much money as possible. That’s only a benefit when human well-being and profit are aligned, and otherwise just inevitably results in monopolies if we let it.

    Have another source https://archive.is/tosob





  • Probably would have been worth clarifying that distinction earlier, but I’m not attacking families looking to pay for a home to be built. Construction companies that build new homes en masse are doing so to make money, not to address the housing shortage.

    Much like Nissan being pleasantly surprised at making more money by discontinuing production of their cheaper models, larger construction companies aren’t at some sad loss to meet demand. they acquire building permits based on how many months of completed housing supply they have waiting to be purchased. When it passes a certain level, apparently 6 months of supply, they slow down completions and reduce the number of new permits until the supply is sold at the prices they want.

    Otherwise it would be less profitable. I’m not saying there aren’t other issues, and smaller home building outfits struggle with local permitting, keeping employees, and rising prices for materials and appliances. But a huge issue with the industry is that it’s fundamentally against their best interest to solve the housing shortage. There’s a happy little feedback loop between builders and investors that keeps pumping home prices up, which lets new ones be sold for more, which pumps home prices up. Which restricts more and more of the housing market to investors, until the dystopian future where everyone rents except for the lucky souls that inherit the family property.