California Spent $17B on Homelessness. It’s Not Working

Re:California Spent $17B on Homelessness. It’s Not Working by HDThoreaun on Friday June 02, 2023 @05:47PM (#36171215)

Large corporations don't actually own many homes. It is true that they started buying them during covid, but that is mostly because they realized they are extremely good investments due zoning making it hard to build them. In order for housing to be affordable it can't be an investment. It needs to maintain its real value over time, meaning the wage to price ratio remains constant. If housing wasn't a good investment it wouldn't be owned by corporations. So I'd say your idea is on the right track, but just misses the last step which is just make housing affordable by allowing it to be built.

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Re:California Spent $17B on Homelessness. It’s Not Working by Brainfood on Friday June 02, 2023 @07:11PM (#36172010)

Wow thanks everyone for the replies!

I hear you on homes but housing overall - apartments included should not be owned by corporations for investment purposes imho.

Rough stats I’ve seen are 25% of homes are now owned by institutional investors. And 44% of CA residents are renters. Having a quarter of the inventory taken off the market means the prices are going to go up.

Land is expensive. We can build more. We can also stop allowing those who have more than enough already continue to apply downward pressure.

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Re:California Spent $17B on Homelessness. It’s Not Working by _jab on Friday June 02, 2023 @08:44PM (#36172609)

I'd been of the impression that corporate home ownership is mostly surging in places like the South and Sun Belt, where housing prices themselves are surging. Housing prices in California have been pretty stagnant since Covid, at least compared to much of the rest of the country. California real estate isn't actually a great investment for these companies right now.

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Re:California Spent $17B on Homelessness. It’s Not Working by rcpt on Friday June 02, 2023 @10:40PM (#36173194)

Right. Price to rent ratios in California means that when you buy the only thing you get is a bet on real estate. New landlords are cash flow negative by wide margins.

Wild speculation with no fundamentals isn't attractive to big firms.

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Re:California Spent $17B on Homelessness. It’s Not Working by philwelch on Saturday June 03, 2023 @12:51PM (#36178214)

> I hear you on homes but housing overall - apartments included should not be owned by corporations for investment purposes imho.

A single apartment building (or complex) might have around a hundred tenants and a handful of employees. That's a large enough operation that it's straight up irresponsible not to set up an LLC or corporation for it.

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