How can we stop private equity firms like Blackstone from buying all the houses in America?

[orbit123]

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/blackstone-preparing-record-50-billion-120000092.html

Its getting ridiculous how these private equity firms are buying up all the houses in America. They already own close to 20% of the houses in America and they have plans to increase that number every year. They buy the houses then rent the houses out at ridiculous prices. In the city I live in they own 20,000 homes. This is a monopoly at this point and getting worse. I am seeing more and more homeless people as a result of this. What actions can we take right now to put an end or limit how many houses these private equity firms can buy?

 

[BillyPilgrim]

Legally speaking, inform people. Contact the recent primary winners Trump endorsed.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

You can't.

 

[Who Dares Win]

We're just going back to the order we had in the middle age.

No middle class only priests (media) and nobles (bankers) with their guards (government).

 

[Xenom0rph]

So basically we're going back to feudalism....

 

[Who Dares Win]

So basically we're going back to feudalism....

Yeah but without the horses (or fuel) and this time God wants us to invade Russia instead of the middle east....also you will go to hell if you disagree with the high sparrow fauci instead of the pope and while you can say that the earth revolves around the sun, you cant tell that if someone has a **** you're not a woman.

 

[BillyPilgrim]

There is HUGE problem in all of this in that people who currently own property tend to absolutely not give a F.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

How can we stop private equity firms like Blackstone from buying all the houses in America?

End the fed and bring back the gold standard.

 

[orbit123]

This is another example of the elites slowly trying to eliminate the middle class. They are trying to eliminate the American dream of owning a house. Owning a home is one of the best things financially that middle class Americans can do. I thoroughly believe that the citizens will rise up and not allow this to happen. One of the things I love about our country is that citizens will protest and make changes to things they don't like. In some countries the people don't stand up and their country is in shambles because they don't stand up.

 

[MatureDJ]

An easy way for a state to do so is to give a homestead exemption such that a resident homeowner doesn't have to as much (or any) property tax on the house - this would have the effect of making it cheaper for someone to buy a house than for a corporation to buy and rent it. Similarly, on the federal level, there could be a refundable tax credit given to anyone that is a homeowner, or inversely, a tax on corporation that rents out houses - but that would make renters very pisssed off. The mortgage interest deduction isn't really worth much to most folks because of the very high standard exemption, which makes it such that the interest paid would have to be very high until it starts to matter.

Of course, another way could be a supply-side pumping so that homebuilders are incentivized to build homes, but that caused problems in the early '90s and late '00s recessions. The only other way to do anything is to start taxing the wealthy and redistribute it to everyone in the form of Guaranteed Income, and this would allow some folks to move to some dirt-cheap hamlet and not really have to work (although if they could pick up anything that is work-from-home).

It should be noted that corporate home-investing is mainly being done in cities that have had relatively low housing costs relative to the vibrancy of the job market - like Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix. In essence, these places draw in folks because of the combination of being able to both get a decent job and to afford The American Dream (i.e., an owner-occupied, single-family, detached house), and the corporate house-investors are simply arbitraging that relatively low cost. These corporations aren't investing much in expensive markets because there is no arbitrage, nor in weak job markets as there is little demand.

It's OVER for AmericanDreamCels.

 

[MatureDJ]

I am seeing more and more homeless people as a result of this.

Homeless folks don't get that way because they are not able to buy homes; folks are becoming homeless because they are renters, and some emergency comes around where they can't work, and they don't have any financial backup, and once they are kicked out, they have ruined credit and the requirement of paying 2.5x the rent just to move in (and more to rent-to-own the necessary furniture), and they are barely making it at a residency hotel (that only requires weekly rent, with no deposit), and have absolutely no way of coming up with that cash.

I can remember having my first real job, on the West Coast, and even as a STEM professional, it was quite a stretch to come up with the initial cash! (I remember the landlord liking the idea that I had a full-time job with a defense contractor, instead of someone that sells T-shirts on the beach, LOL.)

 

[zekko]

If they pay good prices, I wouldn't mind selling them my house. Except I don't want to have to move again, what a pain in the neck that is.

 

[BillyPilgrim]

If they pay good prices, I wouldn't mind selling them my house. Except I don't want to have to move again, what a pain in the neck that is.

That's patriotic of you

 

[BillyPilgrim]

You can't.

Oh really?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1555945475521613825

 

[orbit123]

If they pay good prices, I wouldn't mind selling them my house. Except I don't want to have to move again, what a pain in the neck that is.

Sellout

 

[Zimbabwe]

Corporations should not be allowed to own property, they own tons of Real estate in Australia as well pricing the average Joe out of the market.

An average home in Sydney is now $1.4 million

 

[orbit123]

Corporations should not be allowed to own property, they own tons of Real estate in Australia as well pricing the average Joe out of the market.

An average home in Sydney is now $1.4 million

Wow that's outrageous

 

[zekko]

Sellout

Okay, you can knock off the name calling, I said I'm not selling my house.

 

[MatureDJ]

Corporations should not be allowed to own property, they own tons of Real estate in Australia as well pricing the average Joe out of the market.

An average home in Sydney is now $1.4 million

It's OVER for AussieDreamCels too.

 

[jaygreenb]

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/blackstone-preparing-record-50-billion-120000092.html

Its getting ridiculous how these private equity firms are buying up all the houses in America. They already own close to 20% of the houses in America and they have plans to increase that number every year. They buy the houses then rent the houses out at ridiculous prices. In the city I live in they own 20,000 homes. This is a monopoly at this point and getting worse. I am seeing more and more homeless people as a result of this. What actions can we take right now to put an end or limit how many houses these private equity firms can buy?

At a large scale not sure there is anything you can do as an individual that will turn the tide. All you can really do is prepare on a personal level, the most effective probably building yourself up financially, able to be mobile and having assets outside of the system.