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Comment by zenapollo | Hacker News Reader

There’s another way to fix it. You can regulate financial speculators. In the US 1/4 of all US homes are owned by financial institutions. I doubt it’s very different in Europe unless they are regulated. This situation ensures only the rich can own a home as buyers are competing against hedge funds.

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> In the US 1/4 of all US homes are owned by financial institutions.

That is not true unless you consider having a mortgage equivalent to renting from a bank.

What is true is that in some metro-areas like Atlanta, 1/4 of sales (in certain price categories) are to investors.

Yep. Homes can either be for shelter or for investment, but not both. We are experiencing this as a global culture.

I dream of a 100% tax rate on second homes, foreign ownership, and corporations owning single family homes and condos. Or even better, make it illegal. But any politician who pushes such a bill would immediately get removed from office and the law repealed.

None that is going to make a lick of difference. Because of longevity, birth rates, and preferences for smaller households, America is short 30 million homes. You can't tweak your way out of this.

Pretty sure that stat is incorrect. There were years in which 1/4 of available supply was bought by investors but that doesn't mean they ever owned 1/4 of homes. And they don't buy and sit on them. They renovated and rented or sold them. That's perfectly fine.

Your causation is reversed.

Financial speculation happens because people believe (reasonably) that the price of a home will increase. Why do they hold this belief? Because the demand has increased while the supply is kept artificially constant.

That's what's so frustrating about all of this -- it's a complete own goal. If we all collectively do nothing at all, developers will move in to capture the consumer surplus. It will be profitable to build, not buy and hold.

Yes, the “just build houses” contingent seems unaware that people (and as Mitt Romney famously said, “corporations are people too”) can own more than one house. Supply is certainly an issue, but inequality is as well.

Mitt Romney was not talking corporate personhood. He meant corporations are run by human beings.

I don’t remember the context that well, so you may be correct about that, but I think I disagree with him then - I think corporations are made of humans, but they are machines (perhaps primitive AIs) and are as uncaring as a lawnmower.

Every time a mob of people get together responsibility becomes diffuse. You may see a corporation do something negative that was the cumulative result of 100 human beings who thought they were doing what they were supposed to. People who saw themselves as not able to directly control the outcome. Same for any large group of people up to and including nations.

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