1079
Fuck BlackRock
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
1079 points (100.0% liked)
Flippanarchy
2516 readers
276 users here now
Flippant Anarchism. A lighter take on social criticism with the aim of agitation.
Post humorous takes on capitalism and the states which prop it up. Memes, shitposting, screenshots of humorous good takes, discussions making fun of some reactionary online, it all works.
This community is anarchist-flavored. Reactionary takes won't be tolerated.
Don't take yourselves too seriously. Serious posts go to !anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Rules
-
If you post images with text, endeavour to provide the alt-text
-
If the image is a crosspost from an OP, Provide the source.
-
Absolutely no right-wing jokes. This includes "Anarcho"-Capitalist concepts.
-
Absolutely no redfash jokes. This includes anything that props up the capitalist ruling classes pretending to be communists.
-
No bigotry whatsoever. See instance rules.
-
This is an anarchist comm. You don't have to be an anarchist to post, but you should at least understand what anarchism actually is. We're not here to educate you.
-
No shaming people for being anti-electoralism. This should be obvious from the above point but apparently we need to make it obvious to the turbolibs who can't control themselves. You have the rest of lemmy to moralize.
Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Doesn't matter, because even if Berkshire Hathaway is eliminated from the bidding, when a dozen buyers with $200k or $300k in buying power are in the market and only one house is for sale because it's literally illegal for more to be built, only one of you is going to be able to get the house!
I really don't get your angle. Let's say there are 8 entities seeking a house, 3 of which are corporations. Ban corporations from owning single family homes, and there's an immediate drop in demand, so the current supply satisfies more individuals. Why are you arguing against this?
No there is not. Those corporations exist to make profit, and profit (in the long run) only comes from either tenants paying to occupy the house or selling it on to some other owner who will then either occupy it themselves or find tenants of their own. Even if it's a speculative bubble right now, sooner or later that game of musical chairs has to end and people have to sit down; otherwise they lose.
i think the problem of institutional investors is mostly that they're unnecessary middle-men, taking a slice of the cake while not actually providing anything of value.
they buy the house, then rent it out to the local population. in the end, they make a profit that way, otherwise they wouldn't do it. that is money that could have gone into the local community instead.
either you need local middlemen, like the municipality (which i am advocating for!) or people need to buy the houses directly themselves. i remember reading an article that renting is often better for inhabitants since they don't need to do a down-payment and also they carry less risk that way. also interestingly many can build more wealth by renting+investing instead of house buying. ~~https://www.moneydigest.com/1580083/renting-vs-owning-both-can-help-you-build-wealth-according-to-personal-finance-expert/~~
edit: damn it i can't find the article anymore
How many properties is BH sitting on unsold? How many are going to open up with the death of the Boomer homeowner generation?
Between 13.1 million and 14.6 million Boomers are projected to "exit homeownership" between 2026 and 2036. Who will own those homes when they are gone?
Show my the corner is the country where it is illegal to build new homes
We have, if anything, an enormous vacant housing surplus. What we lack is jobs paying at the going mortgage rate
There are dumb laws in some places privileging things like sfh over apartments, to the point of exclusion. But more to their point:
Just look at any zoning map. It's all the (usually) yellow parts, i.e. the single-family-zoned areas, which make up the vast bulk of most cities' residential land area.
Sure, in the exurbs nobody actually wants to live in!
Are you claiming that you can't build homes in a residential neighborhood?
The exurbs were very popular during COVID work from home
After the lots have already had single-family houses on them and you aren't allowed to subdivide or replace them with multifamily buildings? Yes! That's exactly what I'm claiming!
Every single-family house in the close-in parts of the city represents the physical displacement of multiple families that could have lived in that space if it had been a multifamily building instead. Those families are literally forced further out into the suburbs, and then have to commute back in. That's where the traffic, high prices, lack of walkability, pollution, obesity crisis due to sedentary lifestyles, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum all come from!
Are you suggesting a housing ban is when you build a house and I can't knock your house over to build a new one with more units?
I'm getting really sick and tired of you trying to play coy with terminology, or whatever the Hell it is you're trying to do. Are you really so fucking dense that you're confused by what I wrote?
It's illegal to build multi-family (i.e. more housing) in areas zoned for single-family. What part of that did you not understand?
There is no shortage of real estate for multi-family dwelling. But, in practice, what you're advocating is more private landlords collecting rents on property the occupants don't own.
The appeal and demand of suburbia is in the prospect of real land ownership, rather than perpetual serfdom.
Why are you lying?
If there weren't unmet demand for multifamily, the NIMBYs wouldn't have to resort to a law to stop people from building it.
Brother, go actually look for a home. Tons of empty units in high density urban centers. They're all priced into the 5k+/mo range. But there's no shortage of units available.
So suddenly the law of supply and demand conveniently no longer applies? By removing demand from the market, we're not lowering prices?
Do you think these investors just have magic unlimited funds to hoard vacant housing forever? No. They exist to make a profit, which means sooner or later they either have to get occupants into those units or sell them on to somebody who will. This "additional" demand from property hoarders who apparently (according to your logic) love vacant buildings because they're fucking morons who hate money is, in the long run, fictional.
That doesn't matter! They are still inducing extra demand, which still raises prices for normal people trying to buy homes.
Look, if you want to do something about the investors because of inequality or unfairness or whatever, have at it. I'm just saying that if your goal is to fix housing prices, zoning reform would be vastly more effective as a strategy.
I did the math in another comment. The TL;DR is that the maximum benefit you could have by eliminating investors is limited to the amount they're participating in the market in the first place (which is much less than 100%). Meanwhile, simple zoning reforms are capable of doubling, 10x-ing, or more the amount of supply.
You didn't do any math, and your assertion that the change in pricing is proportional to the market share is completely wrong. That's not how pricing in markets works.
That's not at all what I said. If you're going to claim that I'm wrong at least have the decency to not misrepresent my argument.
How else am I supposed to understand this quote?
Since we were talking about the price, I assumed that the "maximum benefit" was referring to that. Otherwise you'd be ignoring my point, so I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.
The maximum it can increase the supply of housing is much less than 100%.
(Also, I realize now that's not quite right because of the way percentages work: e.g. if the investor owned all the houses and left them vacant, then eliminating the investor and putting them back on the market would technically increase the supply ∞%. The more correct way would be to say it could increase back to 100% of what it was originally.)
The point is, the amount of housing that could be made available has an upper bound of the amount that the investors are keeping vacant, which is only some fraction of the total that currently exists. Meanwhile, allowing higher density could allow orders of magnitude more housing to be created.
Are you incapable of understanding that there is more to this discussion than just the supply of housing? Why do you keep ignoring my point?
Why do you keep ignoring mine?
I'm not! I keep explicitly telling you that your point is wrong: banning property hoarders changes more than just increasing the housing supply by the amount they've hoarded, it also reduces the price of housing - and your response to that is to repeat your point.
When presented with a counterargument you should respond to it, instead of just repeating your point over and over.
The effect on the price by banning property hoarders (which, as I've said multiple times in this thread, cannot exist in the long run anyway so the problem will eventually solve itself) is so much smaller than the effect of zoning reform increasing the supply as to be damn near negligible in comparison.
Y'all keep talking about marginal gains; I'm talking about transformative ones.
ooh boy.. many of the issues of capitalism in the US stems from this outlook
Sure, you've said it multiple times, but it's still wrong. Unless you're trying to argue that the law of supply and demand doesn't hold for house prices (spoilers, it does!) it's simply wrong.
So we should let bh get the house, instead of any of us?
What purpose does bh serve here? And what drugs are you doing to believe this shit?
Why are you misrepresenting my argument? I never claimed BH served a purpose. If anything, my argument is closer to the opposite, which is that their presence or absence makes little difference at all.
What drugs are you doing to disbelieve that physical space exists and that not everybody who wants a single-family house with a yard in the middle of a fucking city gets to have one?
If it makes no difference then it needs to go. Its a huge investment of resources and planning permission. Spending that on no difference is insane at a societal level!