Many of the world’s largest investment firms have launched new funds over the past couple of years aimed at acquiring or building single-family homes to use as rentals. This comes as no surprise considering that the increased cost of buying a home has forced many Americans into being tenants instead of homeowners. Arrived, a young real estate company backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, has just announced its entry into the single-family rental fund space. Arrived currently operates a f
  • Sunforged
    131·
    1 year ago

    We need to expand community land trusts to ensure people have housing. Just going to copy and paste a previous comment since I was just talking about them in a thread about HOAs.

    I live in a townhouse that is one of 30 on our lot. All of the houses are a part of a land trust program that owners have to qualify in order to buy, a minimum income set to ensure applicants can pay a mortgage and a maximum set by the average income of the city. The houses are sold at cost and buyers agree to sell at that cost, plus a small percentage of equity gain per year lived in the house. Property taxes are fixed to this valuation agreement so nobody in the program is forced out of their home from real estate bubbles.

    If the program was expanded the bar to entry could be lifted. I had to hold off on a raise that I got while we were in the middle of the buying process to make sure I didn’t go over the cap, which is hilarious (sad) since we still struggle with my current income. Friends of ours missed out and moved out of state because they were a few paltry thousand over the cap, the work in restaurants and had they not declared their tips they would have had a house in the city they love.

    A great start would be seizing these vulture’s properties that are compounding the problem.

      • Sunforged
        3·
        1 year ago

        The only reason it sucks is because the program is so limited by units available. If the program was more widespread that bar to entry could be removed entirely.

        The brightside is that it is a clear path forward out of our current situation. We just need to spread awareness and collectively demand action.

        Homestead CLT is the program if you want to know more. I highly encourage everyone to see if there is a Community Land Trust in their area.