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A small, simple house in my neighborhood just went on the market. A hard-working low income, single mom with kids lives there. I'm pretty sure they rented it. Within hours, the people who don't need homes had descended on it and were eyeballing it for profit, before a single working class person could even view it. I spoke to one of the potential buyers. They already own a much nicer house elsewhere. They don't even need a house. They have no plan to live there. Lots of people do need housing, and can't afford any.
If they buy it and snazz it up, as is their plan, it will no longer be affordable to buy OR rent for a low income single mom with kids. It will become yet another in the ever-increasing number of houses that will be bought and lived in by people who don't even need a place to live, and don't need to make a living here.
It's happening all over. I've lived a few different places in the past 23 years, right before each area "boomed," making the COL go sky high. Very frustrating. It was only a matter of time before it started happening to Albuquerque. (Already happened to Santa Fe years ago.) Now Las Cruces. I'll bet no one ever thought it would happen there, but then again...
This is actually going on in neighborhoods built as "affordable housing" projects 10-20 years ago. As the people who bought them and occupied them for years moved on up, they've kept their initial "investment" (not realizing, that one reason the housing was affordable is that some city codes were waived to make the homes cheaper to build, and the cheapest materials were used throughout, and started giving out at the 20 year mark, requiring replacement). This is an area where every home has cement slab floors and no insulation, costing more to heat and cool.
A new start-up property management agency targeted the neighborhood, and has been going around telling LL's renting out what once were their own starter homes, that they could nearly double their rent, if the spiff the homes up a little. So those renters get pushed out, wondering what's left for them in the "affordable" category. Moving to the villages outside of SF? Lamy, Glorieta? REITs are starting to take over rentals or to build apt buildings there, that charge Santa Fe "market rates".
I don't think there are affordable homes being built. At least not that anyone wants to live in. I see corporate feedlot neighborhoods going up. I guess it looks better than an apartment if you have a family but not much better.
When I moved here I tried to buy a foreclosure home during the recession. The flippers were in cahoots with the banks and feds so a single person could not even get attention. We never even got a call back.
I don't think there are affordable homes being built. At least not that anyone wants to live in. I see corporate feedlot neighborhoods going up. I guess it looks better than an apartment if you have a family but not much better.
When I moved here I tried to buy a foreclosure home during the recession. The flippers were in cahoots with the banks and feds so a single person could not even get attention. We never even got a call back.
To me, and a lot of other people, it seems that big money is swooping in and buying up large swaths of previously "undesirable" or "not impressive" or previously non-marketable areas. Nothing impressive left for them to "rape and pillage," IMO.
15 years ago I was a penpal with someone in Vancouver, B.C. Heard a lot about what happened up there with foreigners swooping in and buying up scores of properties and driving prices way up and natives way out. Same thing happening all over the country. Seems like that's why some people are buying land and building off grid. Makes sense to me, except there could be a danger in that (bureaucracy will find a way...)
There was some TV show 'house flippers' or some poop like that. Its awful. Lets take an affordable house load it up with useless nonsense. Anyway nice thread. Its true.
I don't think there are affordable homes being built. At least not that anyone wants to live in. I see corporate feedlot neighborhoods going up. I guess it looks better than an apartment if you have a family but not much better.
When I moved here I tried to buy a foreclosure home during the recession. The flippers were in cahoots with the banks and feds so a single person could not even get attention. We never even got a call back.
REIT's moved in on the foreclosed homes market pretty quickly. They've turned those properties around and offer them as rent-to-buy schemes (dominating the Craigslist rental listings), or just plain rentals. So with that level of capital coming into a community or region with foreclosed homes, they're able to commandeer the market, buying in bulk, as it were.
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