interesting article on equity firms and housing - round 2

Equity firms buying up single family homes is already a thing, and as usual, the poor and people of color get screwed....

FYI - There may be a paywall on this one, depending on how often you read stuff from the Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/housing-market-investors/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F36100b2%2F620d35549d2fda34e794eab3%2F615727e2ade4e2472defe123%2F9%2F70%2F620d35549d2fda34e794eab3

I have seen more balanced articles. This article omits that the owners (not just tenants) of these homes are often impoverished folks and/or heavily minority. The homes in these neighborhoods are often appraised at lower values on account of not-so-great school districts. Said school districts denote the legacy of housing discrimination. With the housing bubble, the owners of these homes made nice profits.

When the impoverished owner and/or heavily minority owners sold, they presumably just added directly to a family's generational wealth. It's not like the investors ripped the owners off.

Since I shopped for homes in the suburbs of a large city for ten weeks in late 2021, I observed that the lower rated school districts had homes that would stay on the market much longer. The homes had still appreciated, but for the same size, were not appraised as high as the homes in better (per graduation rates et cetera) school districts.

On yet another hand, as I think all here know, increasing property values yields increasing property taxes, and this has driven out impoverished owners and minority owners. Which is appalling.

I continue to feel that housing discrimination's legacy is to keep homes from appreciating less in the less good school districts.

My current concern is that the government plays with interest rates to garner short-term support from constituents. The lowering of interest rates early in the pandemic is the biggest contributor to the housing bubble, in my opinion. Now of course the Fed is afraid to raise interest rates. They say they will. But will they do so meaningfully?

For me the issues are complicated. All I am sure of is that the government has been fabulous in promoting this country's citizens being borrowers and not savers. This now mass ethos has hurt all the little guys/gals. It has enriched corporations.

Midwest Housing Report:

I went to an open house two weeks ago. The realtor informed me the house already had three offers. All offers were over asking. He did give signs he was not wild about the terms. Meaning none were cash offers.