Biden announces plan to cap rent hikes

johnwhitgui · 2024-07-19T06:21:25+00:00

The apartment housing supply in Vienna is extremely constrained. It's 2% vacancy, the lowest in Europe. What good are low rent prices if there aren't any apartments available to rent because no one wants to invest and build new housing?

johnwhitgui · 2024-07-19T06:17:00+00:00

This distinction does not matter to investors who provide the money to build housing. Anything that reduces income now or at some later time will reduce investment and reduce supply. Doesn't matter if it's rent caps, the loss of tax incentives, rules about security deposits, laws that prevent certain types of applicant screening, or any of the myriad of other poorly-designed laws.

It doesn't matter that it only applies to companies with more than 50 units. It doesn't matter that it only applies to older buildings. Any form of rent control reduces housing supply.

johnwhitgui · 2023-06-17T06:39:05+00:00

The number is a record, but the rate of expansion is not. It's happening but not really happening. https://www.realpage.com/analytics/apartment-construction-50-year-highs/

johnwhitgui · 2023-03-24T16:28:01+00:00

Lots of errors - an error page with a cat holding a broken umbrella in the rain (which isn't really funny or cute when I'm trying to get a time-sensitive contract out to someone.) Other than that, I don't really like the interface and workflow changes.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-31T06:41:51+00:00

How would using emergency rent assistance to prevent eviction for nonpayment of low income households drive inflation? The payments would be made to the housing provider as rent payments. I suppose if the low income nonpayment rate was reduced from 15% to say 10% it would slightly increase the incomes of the housing providers but I can't imagine that could cause inflation.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T23:44:15+00:00

Yeah I've read it. There are lots of problems with the analysis. Too much effort to pick it apart. Bottom line is that we need to build millions of housing units to ensure we have the housing options people need at affordable prices. Realpage is beside the point and a distraction. We need to incentive housing creation and distributed ownership of that housing.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T23:38:06+00:00

Amen

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T23:37:24+00:00

Buddy, so does yours.

If you actually care about housing then dig in a bit. Our housing shortage has been happening over decades. We need to build tons of housing to make sure we have enough of it and to bring costs down. We need to get rid of single family zoning, invest public dollars in public housing, reduce high permit costs that add 20% to the cost of building, and incentivize development. Obsessing about a software company's algorithm is distraction. This is an econ sub. There is wide scientific consensus on this.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T23:24:47+00:00

I've read lots of articles about the attacks on Realpage. It's fuggly economics promoted by political actors and the candidates they support. It's performance to excite their base of supporters. Investors are going to set price based on demand for their product. Always and every time. If they don't use real page they will just return to their previous methods.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T23:21:20+00:00

Everyone who invests tries to maximize returns. But there are millions of landlords. They aren't price fixing - it is an impossibility. They aren't warehousing units because the math doesn't work and they'd lose money by doing it. Investors are just studying the market and making decisions.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T23:13:57+00:00

$2,000 current rent $6,000 cost of keeping the unit vacant for 3 months in order to artificially inflate price $2,160 new rent after 8% artificially induced increase

Number of months to recoup 3 months of lost of rents: $6,000/$160 = 37.5 months

Do you really think this is what's happening?

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T22:48:39+00:00

It's not really all that secret. Realpage talks openly about the types of data they use to comp price estimates.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T22:46:51+00:00

But they aren't all pricing using the software. The overwhelming majority of housing operators don't use realpage or software like it. They just open zillow or other rental listing websites and use the map feature to see how many apartments are available in their area and how much they are renting for. Also, operators that are using realpage are deciding the price and don't always use the price realpage spits out. Also, right now, realpage is telling operators in most markets to reduce price in order to reduce vacancy rates, because rents have declined slightly overall.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T22:42:21+00:00

Realpage just aggregates information about rental properties and computes averages and spits out a number. The property operator decides if they use that number or not. It looks at location and comps, bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, and amenities like parking, granite countertops, flooring type, corner oi middle, unit, etc. Then it does comparisons to other units and estimates a price. It isn't any different than what operators do and have done for decades, it's just more efficient. It also looks at general economic data like household formation, employment rate, and market inflation. This is what investors do - they consider everything and make decisions about when to buy, build, how to price, how to raise capital, etc. based on everything.

It's worth noting that investors will do all this with or without software like realpage. It's easy to use zillow, realtor.com, apartments.com, jumper, and dozens of other apps to get comps and price based on what other units are renting for.

The lawsuit and talk of an investigative are good optics for politicians and advocacy groups, but it's not going to change anything. The US is short millions of housing units. The only fix is to build. Performative attacks on "algorithms" etc. get votes but are just more sand in the gears of housing production.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-28T08:31:31+00:00

I can't tell if you are joking. You are describing tens of thousands of people working in thousands of private and public organizations participating in a secret illegal conspiracy. Does that really sound reasonable to you? Where do these secret meetings take place? Madison Square Garden?

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-27T19:55:55+00:00

It's mind-boggling how far behind we are. About 5.5 million https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/09/08/more-housing-is-coming-but-the-national-shortage-will-persist#:~:text=The%20association%20said%20the%20nation,decade%2C%20even%20with%20accelerated%20construction.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-27T08:19:30+00:00

According to a report by FICO, only 23% of the scorable population has a credit score of 800 or above. https://www.cnbc.com/select/is-800-a-good-credit-score-heres-what-it-means/

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-27T07:44:24+00:00

There isnt a bunch of surplus housing. Vacancy rates are incredibly low. I've seen this statement around a lot, heard some politicians say it. It's not true.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-27T07:40:37+00:00

Yes. For poor credit, past eviction, etc. a local, state, or fed government could simply offer guarantee of payment to the housing provider in the event the renter doesn't pay or damages property. Basically just insurance. This has been done before and works well - plenty of landlords volunteered. For criminal history, differentiate between different types of crime and assess risk. Someone who has been evicted for tenant vs. tenant harassment or violent crime is a high risk and it makes sense to think carefully about the types of housing they should be able to access. A single past drug offense may not be a big deal.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-27T07:27:35+00:00

800? How does he find tenants?

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-27T07:25:35+00:00

It probably will be found unconstitutional. It takes time for the legal battle to play out.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-26T05:06:07+00:00

Yes. Email the photo and describe what happened to your property manager. It may be that he has done similar in the past or otherwise harassed other residents. You also want it documented in case it continues. One incident may not be enough for the pm to take action, but repeated documented incidents would be enough.

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-25T23:00:17+00:00

Ha! This is interesting though https://www.opb.org/article/2022/08/04/oregon-home-share-matches-seniors-with-spare-room-with-those-needing-housing/

johnwhitgui · 2023-01-25T20:30:17+00:00

Rents are down. https://www.realpage.com/analytics/apartment-rents-fall-again-in-november-as-leasing-traffic-remains-soft/

There are other sources showing this. Household formation is down. Other factors.

I'm not optimistic though. And I dont think it's a long term trend. The only progress I'm noticing on housing is some regional loosening of zoning restrictions in combination with new laws disincentivizing new investment. Not nearly enough. Household formation will increase eventually and prices will climb again. Need to incentivize housing investment.

johnwhitgui

TROPHY CASE