[HN Gopher] Zillow, Other Tech Firms Are in an 'Arms Race' to Bu...
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Zillow, Other Tech Firms Are in an 'Arms Race' to Buy Up American
Homes
Author : rcfaj7obqrkayhn
Score : 22 points
Date : 2021-08-13 20:15 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| molyss wrote:
| I have come to see house flipping as a horrendous scam that kills
| the economy and is all but sustainable. And real estate agent are
| complicit and making the problem worse because it's making them
| money
|
| One of my accountances is a professional house flipper. They
| claim to regularly make over 100k of profit on a single house in
| less that 3 months. Keep in mind they contract out all the manual
| labour.
|
| The 1st step is obviously to find a house, preferably before it
| hits the market. Then, contact the seller's agent and promise
| them that if they sell you the house for a good price you'll go
| through them when you sell the house after having flipped it. At
| this point, the agent's incentive is disconnected from the
| seller's: If they can convince to sell off market, they'll sell
| quicker, make the commission on a lower price but expects to make
| a much higher commission on the 2nd sale than what the 1st one
| would have fetched. The seller gets fucked.
|
| Then, the flipper finds the cheapest contractor with immediate
| availability. cheap+available is usually a bad sign in term of
| quality. They have them do the minimal work to make the house
| "look good". No deep electricity, certainly no plumbing, rooftop
| or foundations.
|
| After a couple of months. Put on the market. At this point, you
| want to put it on the market at (original price paid+original
| agent's fees+second sale agent's fees+remodel cost+your sizeable
| margin) that ends up easily increasing the original pricd by 30%,
| sometimes more.
|
| The buyer gets fucked too because they pay extra for shitty work.
| They'll have to do more work on the house, both short term and
| long term.
|
| But the ones who get really fucked are the other potential buyers
| : it's super hard to find a house that wasn't flipped, prices go
| up because everyone wants whatever the neighbors house got sold
| for, there's even less contractors available
|
| I'm convince flippers have a negative impact on society at large.
| Overton-Window wrote:
| > World Economic Forum: Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no
| privacy, and life has never been better
|
| https://twitter.com/wef/status/849459333486317568
| smt88 wrote:
| It's an issue, but this article is about flipping houses
| between homeowners, not holding homes as rental assets.
| [deleted]
| inostia wrote:
| I can't believe they actually posted that.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Poor Ida Auken. All she does is write a mildly provocative
| title, and look what happens.
|
| Peter Bilmer's response in that thread is visually _very_
| clever, even if his politics are probably terrible. I 'd like
| to know what the image at top right is. Some kind of startup
| accelerator?
| fakedang wrote:
| I think it might be one of those WeLive "communes".
| omeze wrote:
| Is this a relevant critique? You arent renting from these
| marketplaces (at least not today) - they're just facilitating
| transactions
| Overton-Window wrote:
| > "It's less about making money off that inventory, at least
| initially, and more about who can get the most inventory the
| fastest."
|
| > iBuyers have recently shifted "to a free-for-all, acquire
| at any cost strategy." At present, both Opendoor and Zillow's
| homes division are losing money in the process.
|
| > "For some families, it may be difficult to compete, when
| they are trying to buy a house, with a company like that,"
| Quercia said, referring to iBuyers. "So if this was a
| widespread practice in some neighborhoods, it may create some
| concerns about a lot of the housing stock being owned by
| investors from outside of the community as opposed to
| households and residents."
|
| > The company, which is reportedly searching out a new $2
| billion revolving credit facility, also announced this week
| that it is now willing to purchase the majority of homes in
| every one of its current markets.
|
| > That would be welcome news for people like Alex Villacorta,
| the co-founder and chief data officer of ResiShares, an
| investment management company focused on residential real
| estate. "If they can get enough inventory flow, they'll end
| up being a marketplace for investors," said Villacorta. "We
| would be more than happy to buy in bulk off of them."
| sesuximo wrote:
| I'm hopeful that this will cut the friction of buying or selling.
| Spending so much on brokers, taxes, and the various fees is out
| of hand.
| flerovium wrote:
| Does anyone remember the U.S. housing financial crisis?
|
| "Homes are a place to live, not an investment"
|
| The more things change, the more they stay the same.
| jchonphoenix wrote:
| This article mentions Opendoor more than Zillow. Misleading title
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