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The problem though isn't a lack of housing, we actually have plenty for everyone. The problem is corporations buying up homes to rent them and in the process jacking up home prices.
If all these newly made homes are left to the tender mercies of the market there won't be a slew of new homeowners. Just more rentals.
Well it is both, suburban hell doesn’t scale up, it’s meant to be exclusionary.
I've said this before, but Seattle actually had all of the rental corporations using one rental service that chose the prices for the rentals. Meaning, they were price fixing our rental market.
If you're a tourist market like Seattle, the corporations buying up apartment buildings for airbnb's is also a huge problem.
I agree that its short term rentals but I don't think it's the mom & pop places that are a problem. There are tons of apartment buildings in Seattle owned by corporations that are used for short term rentals only. Hawaii tried to get around that by requiring licenses and month long leases unless you live on the property or something. I don't know if it's working or not for them since it's been awhile since I've checked. I'm guessing Airbnb just words it to get around the laws.
I guess it would depend on where they bought it. If it was in Seattle? People would buy them in a heartbeat and then there would be a shit ton of rentals on the market which would then make the long term rentals go down. Most people eventually want a house and a yard if they have a family and/or pets. The "luxury" apartment game is for young people for the most part. They could also rent it out until the market stabilizes.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/new-lawsuit-alleges-price-fixing-at-seattle-area-apartment-buildings/
Yup. This shit needs to be illegal nationwide. They literally encourage vacancies in order to keep pricing going upward and coordinate pricing in order to keep profits maximized. It's gross and these fucks should be vilified.
Location is a major issue. A lot of empty housing stock is in places no one wants to live in anymore. There is a lack of housing in high demand areas. There's no silver bullet, but converting commercial real estate in those high demand areas is ideal to add useful housing.
But yes, corporations sucking up residential real estate needs to be tackled just the same.
To say nothing of the massive expense of remodeling those commercial properties to actually work as residential. When it comes to the big multistory buildings in the larger cities that need it most, the plumbing alone would be a nightmare, along with splitting up all the electric service so individual usage can be metered. And then you have to gut and rebuild the interiors to split everything up and still have proper fire code compliance.
I love the idea and I hope it gains traction but logistically and financially there are some tall hurdles to overcome to implement this properly.