Bill text
https://adamsmith.house.gov/_cache/files/4/e/4e6f30ad-c8f0-438d-9b6f-99f4093b1162/57491D49DB8A7DE1F076D17C08DB4F2F.2023-end-hedge-fund-control-of-american-homes-act.pdf

Our nation faces a housing affordability crisis. While some of our housing challenges, including a supply shortage, will take years to remedy, others can be addressed immediately, including a ban on hedge funds owning and controlling large parts of the housing market. American families should not have to compete with multi-billion-dollar corporations when purchasing a home. It's past time we give every American family a fair chance to become a homeowner and put an end to hedge funds taking over the housing market.

Large scale hedge fund investors are taking over the housing market at an alarming and accelerating rate. In 2011, no single entity owned over 1,000 single-family rental units. As of June 2022, the Urban Institute estimates that large hedge funds and other institutional investors owned roughly 574,000 single-family homes. Data from the first three months of 2023 shows this trend continuing, with hedge funds purchasing 27 percent of single-family homes.

Predatory hedge funds disproportionately target Black families and vulnerable single parents, as revealed in a recent House Financial Services Committee report. The report found these investors focus on neighborhoods with larger Black populations and approximately 30% more single mothers than the national average. Additionally, studies show that hedge funds are 68% more likely than small landlords to file for evictions and often impose high rent increases, inflated fees, and deteriorating housing conditions to maximize profits.

The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act seeks to put an end to this harmful practice of hedge funds buying up and owning single-family homes.

• Prevents hedge funds from continuing to purchase single-family homes - imposes an immediate 50% tax on the fair market value of any future purchase of a single-family home by a hedge fund.
• Requires large hedge funds to sell off existing ownership of all single-family homes over 10 years or face significant tax penalties.
• Each year over ten years, large hedge funds would have to sell at least 10% of the total number of single-family homes they own until they own zero. Hedge funds would be subjected to a tax penalty for each single-family home owned above the maximum allowable amount for that year.
• Tax revenues would be reserved for down payment assistance for people seeking to purchase homes sold by the hedge funds.
• Families and individuals who don't own any residential real estate are eligible for down payment assistance grants funded by the tax penalties paid by hedge funds.
• Exempts nonprofit organizations, public housing agencies and other government entities, and home builders from the taxes.
• Includes an explicit certification process for a purchaser to confirm that they do not own a majority interest in any other single family residential real estate.

The purchasing of single-family homes by hedge funds, especially in the current housing market, serves only to make profits for the investors and provides no value to the communities where these homes are located. People should not have to go up against hedge funds when they are trying to buy a home in their community. Banning hedge funds from the single-family housing market will help enable more families the opportunity to purchase a home and combat the growing large investor landlord model.

https://adamsmith.house.gov/_cache/files/7/4/74c29468-a544-4e91-abd3-79a722be6191/05756CE8D6D97AE871ABB487F724DE7F.2023-end-hedge-fund-control-of-american-homes-act-fact-sheet.pdf

For the most part a lot of this has already dried up. Total red herring and is not what is causing any sort of housing affordability issues.

This feels like DeSantis approach to involving gubmit in private businesses. Never a good idea.

Partyoftherentistodamnhigh

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Lololol

Very good.

Would be a whole lot easier to make any 30 year mortgages on the secondary market assumable by the buyer.

That would do a lot to fix the velocity issue in housing market and the hedge fund issue wouldn't be near as prevalent.

Agree with the sentiment, but don't trust the government to get any sort of regulation right.

There's also no way Congress could get a majority of its members to do anything negative against hedge funds. If you think they've bought too many homes, just wait until you find out how many Senators have been purchased.

I feel like this would be worked around in a manner of minutes by finance/corporate lawyers.

Isn't that what progressives want anyway?

As Klaus Schwab said (I paraphrase) - people will own nothing and they will like it.

All kidding aside, the government screws up everything they try to fix or regulate. I will take private market solutions over the feds every time.

I'm all for it because **** blackrock, i want to buy those properties as an individual investor! *******s keep buying them up for cash over market value driving everyone's property values through the roof. Bring back where I could bid 10k under and still have bargaining room and the ability to finance it.

I'd have to read it and think about it a bit. From the start, it seems like limiting it to 'hedge funds' seems odd.

"Hedge Funds", REIT's, Berkshire Hathaway, Private Equity, little old ladies investment clubs?

Where do you draw the line?

I'm wondering how well this can be working out for them. Easy money is gone. A house in our neighborhood was bought by streetlane. In 3 years they have had 3 different renters , 1st 2 bugged out after a few months, current one has been there for a out 4 months. I think maybe they are section 8 renters.

There are 80mm+ single family homes in the US so 500k is <1%

Spare me

Let's start by disallowing foreign ownership of American land. As in 0.00%. 100% domestic requirement of a citizen, Domestic banks, and/or corporation.

And how exactly are they going to define a "hedge fund"??

Are there other laws that restrict ownership of private assets like this?

Also, I don't think Black Rock is the culprit, it's Black Stone:

"Blackstone Bets $6 Billion on Buying and Renting Homes

Deal for Home Partners of America, owner of over 17,000 houses in U.S., is latest sign Wall Street believes housing market will stay hot"

That's from WSJ

I actually think this is a problem for a few reasons, but the ownership is scattered across so many hedge funds, public companies, mom and pops, partnerships it's going to take more than just targeting "hedge funds" to have any impact at all

Libs all lining up to support this trash.

The answer is absolutely, positively, unequivocally NEVER more government regulation.

Unintended consequences loom large.

Terrible idea.

One thing to keep in mind is short term rentals have turned many single family homes into hotels essentially. Long term I actually think this is good for single family home owners and a negative for traditional hotels but this dynamic will have to work itself out over the next decade. M9re flexible solutions for your home and paths to generate cash is good. For the housing market but will certainly tighten supply initially until an equilibrium and new norm is established.

define hedge funds. i can find a tax attorney to buy houses legally as soon as you do.

Pretty soon we are going to be trading derivatives backed by single family homes all over again. That turned out bad.

So what happens to all the individuals that own houses when hedge funds are forced to dump the properties they own? I'd think the average homeowner would be pissed if their home value dropped 10 or more percent because home ownership became regulated to only be available to individuals.

I thought this was the vehicle to implement the Great Reset? Herr Schwab is going to take corrective action against these Dems soon.

Saltwater Assassin said:

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The answer is absolutely, positively, unequivocally NEVER more government regulation.

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I disagree. Monopolies are not a good thing, so regulation against monopolies are good.

All games have rules, so even a market should have some rules.

I'm not saying regulation against hedge funds in relation to housing is needed right now, but corporations owning homes and land is something to watch for the middle class.

Home and land ownership should be in the hands of the people. It's a wealth builder.

Beat40 said:

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Saltwater Assassin said:

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The answer is absolutely, positively, unequivocally NEVER more government regulation.

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I disagree. Monopolies are not a good thing, so regulation against monopolies are good.

All games have rules, so even a market should have some rules.

I'm not saying regulation against hedge funds in relation to housing is needed right now, but corporations owning homes and land is something to watch for the middle class.

Home and land ownership should be in the hands of the people. It's a wealth builder.

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Define monopoly. If I create a product and have intellectual property rights in that product, I have a monopoly. Why is that not a good thing? Why should that be regulated?

It is the anti-competitive nature of certain businesses that is concerning, whether they're monopolies or not. And the regulation itself could be the problem. A lot of the regulation actually PROTECTS the bigger companies since they have the power and money to buy politicians and have them enact more regulation -- which is a cheap way for the bigger company to force out smaller competitors who can't afford either the regulatory costs or the lobbying expenses. democrats figured this out in the '90s and flipped Wall Street from 80-90% Republican to that much democrat. It became their own "pay to play" scheme.

Regulation is NOT the answer.

The conservatives on this board constantly talk about how the WEF and Klaus Schwab are bad, and how they don't want to "own nothing and be happy". But when it finally comes time to take action against these people, they cower away because they're afraid of any kind of regulation.

While yall are busy arguing over hedge fund rights, these hedge funds are actively working on destroying the future financial security of your children.

The weekly thread mixing up Blackrock and Blackstone….

Speaking of mixups, where's the act to end hedge threads?

91AggieLawyer said:

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Beat40 said:

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Saltwater Assassin said:

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The answer is absolutely, positively, unequivocally NEVER more government regulation.

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I disagree. Monopolies are not a good thing, so regulation against monopolies are good.

All games have rules, so even a market should have some rules.

I'm not saying regulation against hedge funds in relation to housing is needed right now, but corporations owning homes and land is something to watch for the middle class.

Home and land ownership should be in the hands of the people. It's a wealth builder.

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Define monopoly. If I create a product and have intellectual property rights in that product, I have a monopoly. Why is that not a good thing? Why should that be regulated?

It is the anti-competitive nature of certain businesses that is concerning, whether they're monopolies or not. And the regulation itself could be the problem. A lot of the regulation actually PROTECTS the bigger companies since they have the power and money to buy politicians and have them enact more regulation -- which is a cheap way for the bigger company to force out smaller competitors who can't afford either the regulatory costs or the lobbying expenses. democrats figured this out in the '90s and flipped Wall Street from 80-90% Republican to that much democrat. It became their own "pay to play" scheme.

Regulation is NOT the answer.

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A monopoly is an enterprise that has exclusive control over a commodity or supply with no competition.

You ask why monopolies are bad? The same reason we don't want an industry to be nationalized. Nationalization is a government monopoly of that industry and you know how that turns out. It's communism.

Competition is best for the consumer. A monopoly who has complete control over a commodity or supply has power, and more often than not, that power leads to corruption. Again, it's why we prefer private industries to nationalized industries.

Every sport you love or every game you play has regulation to a degree. The regulation is actually for completion, which is better for the consumer of the sport and the player of the sport.

I'm not arguing for tons of regulation, just making the overall argument that regulation isn't inherently bad. Some is actually necessary to breed competition.

I'm a hedge fund that buys homes. We buy homes in such disrepair they are unlendable. We also offer owner finance to people who are unbankable. I'm currently raising 4 million dollars to buy 81 homes outside of cleburne all cash to repair and dispo over the next 10 years. Now I'll have the government as a partner on that deal? How's that work?

Beat40 said:

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Sal****er Assassin said:

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The answer is absolutely, positively, unequivocally NEVER more government regulation.

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I disagree. Monopolies are not a good thing, so regulation against monopolies are good.

All games have rules, so even a market should have some rules.

I'm not saying regulation against hedge funds in relation to housing is needed right now, but corporations owning homes and land is something to watch for the middle class.

Home and land ownership should be in the hands of the people. It's a wealth builder.

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I could not agree more with the bolded part. That's how I make my living (custom homes). Home ownership is a fantastic blessing

That said I simply do not trust the government to make anything better; it's a case where the cure is likely worse than the disease.

Just my opinion.

Get Off My Lawn said:

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Let's start by disallowing foreign ownership of American land. As in 0.00%. 100% domestic requirement of a citizen, Domestic banks, and/or corporation.

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Including no 'front companies' for same foreign interests.