This is a scourge across the country that, once again, reveals how regular citizens' lives are degraded at the behest of lobbyists.
While corporations buy up entire neighborhoods and take housing off the market essentially forever, states pass sham "pro-housing" measures that serve only developers' interests by vilifying "single-family" homes and targeting them for destruction. CA of course stands as a great example; it passed a couple of measures that allow one house to be knocked down and replaced with 10 units, with no approval needed or local review allowed.
And right behind corporate ownership is the scourge of HOAs. According to the U.S. Census, 82% of newly built homes sold in 2021 were a part of one of these scams.
Allowing a SFH to be knocked down to build 10 units is a good thing where additional housing is needed and it will reduce the cost of housing.
Corporations are holding these homes because they are such a safe investment because they know there is so much pushback to building new housing. Those corporate owners will sell housing just as quickly if there is downside risk, look at what happened in Austin.
If it's a ten unit building, how can it be anything but corporate ownership? I suppose we could pretend that all ten of the residents could create a co-op and that would be more like a single-family, owner-occupied home. But really, there's got to be a corporation there somewhere.
I lived in a 15-unit one in L.A. that I don't think was corporate-owned. They put it on the market for something like $8 million.
It was in a pretty good neighborhood on the west side, so I though hm, this price seems pretty low when a glorified garage in Culver City was selling for $1.4 million. But when I looked at the financials, it wasn't a good deal.
Even if we don't pretend, and those ten residents pool their money in some way, what sort of legal vehicle would they choose to use to structure the deal? Forming a corporation is gonna be on that list.
No, it is not. First of all, those areas are already residential. Meanwhile, nearby malls sit with boarded-up anchor stores and vast parking lots growing weeds. Those tracts have already suffered the costs of "density:" trees wiped out, the ground paved over with asphalt and unable to absorb water, and "heat islands" exacerbated. Plus they already have ingress & egress routes.
After that there are the disused and blighted former commercial or light-industrial areas. See the above.
After that there are large traffic conduits that are near SFH neighborhoods but underutilized and underdeveloped. Want to get rid of some shitty strip mall and build mixed-use structures instead? Go for it!
And beyond all that: "Downtowns" are rarely "full." Downtown L.A., for example. Density is available for those who want it. There's no excuse for trying to force it on those who specifically chose something different. They didn't demand that apartments be wiped out to create yards and houses; they moved to an area set up that way.
One approach to the "housing crisis" is to tax the shit out of empty rental properties.
> While corporations buy up entire neighborhoods and take housing off the market essentially forever
Exactly why would corporations do that? They like to throw money and not make a profit? I thought corporations are profit driven, are you saying that's not the case?
presumably the OP meant take it off the ownership market, and replace with rental. AKA, the OP assumes that owning is the end all and be all, and a corp that purchases the house and never sell means there will be less ownership by the individual.
In what remote way did I say anything of the sort? What are you talking about?
Meanwhile: Unlike homeowners, corporations don't typically die and leave their houses to their children.
But when people do, and their out-of-state children want to dispose of the asset quickly, they're going to sell that house to the fat corporate all-cash offer... not to a new family who wants to move into the neighborhood.
At this point we all know that home ownership is the best way for anyone of any walk of life to build wealth. Corporations are destroying that opportunity.
While corporations buy up entire neighborhoods and take housing off the market essentially forever, states pass sham "pro-housing" measures that serve only developers' interests by vilifying "single-family" homes and targeting them for destruction. CA of course stands as a great example; it passed a couple of measures that allow one house to be knocked down and replaced with 10 units, with no approval needed or local review allowed.
And right behind corporate ownership is the scourge of HOAs. According to the U.S. Census, 82% of newly built homes sold in 2021 were a part of one of these scams.