America could be in the middle of a major housing crisis, especially in the key metropolitan regions of the country, and there is a need to address and resolve it at the earliest, as things could disrupt the housing market at any time. Housing crunch and rental availability are some of the key factors driving this impending crisis, claim reports.
  • Belly_Beanis [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    25·
    1 month 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.mlEnglish
          2·
          29 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.netEnglish
      5·
      1 month 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.