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I have some empathy. But I agree with you about the sacrifices. I’m not willing to sacrifice my nice car, living in a nice place, being able to go out with friends, pay for running activities, etc. But, for those who were sacrificing and investors are bidding things up and offering cash, that’s when it frustrates me. Like my family, who has been saving for YEARS to find the right spot…to get outbid by cash when they’ve been trying to find something for as long as they have, it hurts. But I think that’s where I and many members of the Austin forum differ, I have some emotion when it comes to this stuff. Others have none.
I don't think it's about emotions at all. The market is the market regardless of who the competition is. It's more a matter of how much do you want it/how important it is to you. My wife and I were in a fierce market when we bought our first home and were literally house poor for at least the first 5 years. No vacations, brown bagging it every day, phone plans on minutes with no internet, a TV with rabbit ears, clunkers as cars, etc. In other words, none of the standard creature comforts so many demand on an every day basis.
I've known married couples splitting rent on a house to save. Hell, there have even been stories of IT people living in vans in parking lots.
And if I had to relive that experience again given the wealth it generated for me, I'd do it in a heartbeat (I saw the value of it at a very young age to own property in a highly desirable area). Some don't look at it that way or want to get into a pity party (boo hoo... it's just not fair). Sorry, not interested. When I want something, I'd rather spend my time on figuring out how to get it.
P.S. I should also point out that trying to discourage competition, whether it be Wall Street firms or some other type of investors is simply trying to take money from those already in the housing market. Just another form of income redistribution.
Last edited by blameyourself; 06-18-2022 at 09:48 PM..
Eh, it's easy to try and make investors the scapegoat for high prices but ultimately it's about lack of supply. There aren't that many investors to make the type of impact you claim with the current trend on population. There simply needs to be more houses built. And with supply side issues being what they are, builders still have a lot of catching up to do.
i vaguely remember reading that investors made up about 30% of houses purchased in 2021
Quote:
According to the real estate data firm CoreLogic, investors made up less than 20% of single-family homebuyers in the Austin area between 2010 and 2020. Last year, that changed: Investors bought about one-third of all the single-family houses sold in the metro area.
The huge change in values will definitely hit investors and will shift more of the tax burden to investors over homesteaders.
I have some empathy. But I agree with you about the sacrifices. I’m not willing to sacrifice my nice car, living in a nice place, being able to go out with friends, pay for running activities, etc. But, for those who were sacrificing and investors are bidding things up and offering cash, that’s when it frustrates me. Like my family, who has been saving for YEARS to find the right spot…to get outbid by cash when they’ve been trying to find something for as long as they have, it hurts. But I think that’s where I and many members of the Austin forum differ, I have some emotion when it comes to this stuff. Others have none.
You’re using emotional values and pitting them against legal principles and using your personal feelings over these matters to rationalize your choices and beliefs. The two do not coincide at all. Your parents searching and saving for years for the perfect home does not grant them an entitlement to said home over another buyer, regardless if it is a consumer or investor, much like your parents, they also have a right to interest in the property, regardless of their intent of use. I personally find that your parents have overall lived stable and healthy lives. Their home options have been about choice, not about necessity. Myself on the other hand, have not lived a very stable life until fairly recently. I’ve probably never stayed in one school for more than 2 years at the very most. We’ve been evicted … ALOT. Even woke up to a cop in my bedroom with the movers ready shuffle everything off onto the streets. We’ve worked hard countless times for that dream house or that house in the perfect budget only to be outbid by another buyer with more buying power. Does it matter what he intends to do with the property? Hell no. It isn’t ours. It’s theirs. Did I feel like we needed the property more than they did? Yeah, sometimes and as a teenager up until my mid 20’s I was also upset with the ‘privileged landlord’ because I thought they were being unreasonable… but thankfully I grew out of that.
It’s their property in the end. You are looking at the transaction of ‘cash buyers’ from a very narrow perspective and are feeling victimized over a situation where someone else has also invested just as much (or more) into their financial positioning and are able to obtain the things you desire. It’s just another form of Jealousy and we both know that leads nowhere good. Both your family and the Investors have put alot of work and time into their investment and choice of property. That dream home is fair game, for anyone and everyone, not just your parents. The seller of said dream home has financial goals as well and should not be obligated to selling it to a consumer only because the consumer ‘feels’ that they have worked harder than somebody else to obtain the property. They have a right to sell it for the profit they feel is reasonable for the property.
Again, these are transactional matters. Nobody was harmed, lost something irreplaceable or was in some way jeopardized over the matters. They will need to readjust their choices, and sometimes our first choice and pick, regardless of how much effort we put into moving toward that, just isn’t the right path.
Last edited by Need4Camaro; 06-19-2022 at 01:38 AM..
i vaguely remember reading that investors made up about 30% of houses purchased in 2021.
Uh huh. So not 30% of homes, but rather homes purchased in 2021. A little over 13k homes were sold in Austin in 2021, so based on your number that's roughly 4k. Austin growth in 2021 exceeded 53k. As stated in my previous post, that number is much more relevant and will keep the demand side of the equation high.
Eh, it's easy to try and make investors the scapegoat for high prices but ultimately it's about lack of supply. There aren't that many investors to make the type of impact you claim with the current trend on population. There simply needs to be more houses built. And with supply side issues being what they are, builders still have a lot of catching up to do.
We don't have a supply problem per se, we have a demand problem. You explained it perfectly in your post just above.
I mean, if there is a shortage, you can always say there is a supply problem. The thing is, demand has been unusually high rather than supply being unusually low. That does cause low inventory and few days on market, which people think as a "gee, there isn't enough supply".
In reality, it has just been a feeding frenzy of buying in hot markets as a result of Covid, low interest rates, retiree mobility, and work from home mobility. We pulled forward years of purchases into a 2-year time frame, so really it was just a matter of uncommonly high demand overwhelming a typical supply. Austin is one of those places that had unusually high sudden demand, on top of the usual high growth it had experienced for years previous.
That is why I saw we had a demand problem, not a supply problem. With current demand destruction, we no longer have a demand problem.
We don't have a supply problem per se, we have a demand problem. You explained it perfectly in your post just above.
I mean, if there is a shortage, you can always say there is a supply problem. The thing is, demand has been unusually high rather than supply being unusually low. That does cause low inventory and few days on market, which people think as a "gee, there isn't enough supply".
In reality, it has just been a feeding frenzy of buying in hot markets as a result of Covid, low interest rates, retiree mobility, and work from home mobility. We pulled forward years of purchases into a 2-year time frame, so really it was just a matter of uncommonly high demand overwhelming a typical supply. Austin is one of those places that had unusually high sudden demand, on top of the usual high growth it had experienced for years previous.
That is why I saw we had a demand problem, not a supply problem. With current demand destruction, we no longer have a demand problem.
This sounds like semantics, but it is not.
Actually your comment really is semantics, but it's saying the same thing so no need to squabble about it. If the population growth stays consistent, you can either accept the fact that this is the new normal (and therefore you have to increase supply) or sit there and dwell on supply being what it is based on a previous norm (which is no longer realistic) and say it's about demand.
We don't have a supply problem per se, we have a demand problem. You explained it perfectly in your post just above.
I mean, if there is a shortage, you can always say there is a supply problem. The thing is, demand has been unusually high rather than supply being unusually low. That does cause low inventory and few days on market, which people think as a "gee, there isn't enough supply".
In reality, it has just been a feeding frenzy of buying in hot markets as a result of Covid, low interest rates, retiree mobility, and work from home mobility. We pulled forward years of purchases into a 2-year time frame, so really it was just a matter of uncommonly high demand overwhelming a typical supply. Austin (and many American cities for that matter) is one of those places that had unusually high sudden demand, on top of the usual high growth it had experienced for years previous.
That is why I saw we had a demand problem, not a supply problem. With current demand destruction, we no longer have a demand problem.
This sounds like semantics, but it is not.
It’s a supply problem.
Austin has been short of supplying sufficient housing even before the pandemic. Demand increased yes but a lot of people who would have normally sold during 2020, didn’t sell for multitudes of reasons (Fears of strangers passing the virus to them in their own home while doing showings, economy, nowhere else to go, ect)... Thus a lot of inventory that would have normally came online that year, did not. Add on to the issue that it takes a long time to push approvals for new housing developments through the city and now it’s taking builders a long time to obtain sufficient material, Austin is falling behind by the day to meet housing demand.
Eh, it's easy to try and make investors the scapegoat for high prices but ultimately it's about lack of supply. There aren't that many investors to make the type of impact you claim with the current trend on population. There simply needs to be more houses built. And with supply side issues being what they are, builders still have a lot of catching up to do.
This. A neighbor sold their house last year at the height of the madneess and got 12 offers. Only 2 were investors.
I’m not here to argue about my opinion. I go through this with several posters every time I bring up my perspective.I was just sharing the news story. It’s important that people see/here different perspectives. Living in a bubble is never good.
I’m not here to argue about my opinion. I go through this with several posters every time I bring up my perspective.I was just sharing the news story. It’s important that people see/here different perspectives. Living in a bubble is never good.
No one here seems to be living in a bubble. As a matter of fact, most seem well aware of people like the father in your video that feel things aren't fair if they're not able to purchase real estate at a price they want. And in order to appease him (or your family members that have SAVED for years) someone would have to sell their property at a discount from the market value (so essentially they are having money taken out of their pockets and gifted to this father or your family members). A perfect example of income redistribution and hardly some definition of fairness. In fact an argument could be made that people that expect that are indeed quite selfish and only looking out for their own self-interest. Admittedly I don't think looking out for one's own self-interest is selfish. I simply find it hypocritical to define people in such a way (or call others greedy whether it be a Wall Street investor or someone else) when it's human nature to do this and well within the boundaries of the law.
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