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a_d_a_m_b_o_m_b t1_j8lkbmz wrote

I love all the extensive analysis and hand-wringing about the Vermont housing crunch. Like we don’t all know it’s investors who hoard properties as investments.

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[deleted] t1_j8md29u wrote

That is certainly a significant portion of the problem. There is also a lot to be said for Act 250 and other permitting/politics that have killed all reasonable housing development in this state. This article did a good job discussing those things as well, and how all of these things are combining to put us in the crisis we are in.

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Trajikbpm t1_j8ngjnn wrote

But people would rather be divisive. It easier to blame a neighbor than a billionaire you can't put a face to. It's how capitalism works.

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greenglasstree t1_j8sawl1 wrote

Poor people love to blame the upper middle class and lower upper class, when it's really the billionaire investor class that is doing this shit.

40 years ago dentists from Boston were also buying summer homes in Vermont but they could typically afford one per family. The billionaire investor class buys homes to speculate in the hundreds/thousands.

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greenglasstree t1_j8saq6x wrote

Ding ding ding.

People love to blame rich foreigners buying a vacation house, or an upper middle class Bostonian buying a single summer home, but the real culprit are billion dollar financial firms buying hundreds, if not thousands of houses for speculation.

Dr. Jane Everywoman from Boston who makes $200k a year as a pediatrician isn't the enemy.

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Intru t1_j8v52bl wrote

I think of that as a symptom not the cause. It's really death by a thousand cuts. We have exclusionary suburban focus zoning of the 1940s and 1950s , that bans or makes it impossible to build anything but single family housing in over 70% of residential zoned land. Preventing things like small mix used, boarding homes, hostels, duplex, triplexes, etc. Economic decline in large portions of the state's municipalities, shifting of job centers, disconnect between available stock and desired areas, car centric tourist development, bizantine building and safety codes. Rise in costs, etc. Speculative real estate markets and Airbnb are just another nail in the coffin of affordability.

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idreamofchickpea t1_j8msfby wrote

What are the investments? Why hoard the houses rather than flip, rent, whatever?

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[deleted] t1_j8n0g4u wrote

Supply and demand. Housing is in short supply, so there is opportunity to make profit off of that. Investors will buy up multiple homes/ apartments in one area in one fell swoop, sit on them for awhile and then sell them back off individually at a much higher price than they paid for them...= Profits without having to invest in upkeep, rehabilitation or becoming landlords.

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idreamofchickpea t1_j8n1xdm wrote

I get that, but they don’t seem to be selling? There was this big rush to buy when interest rates were low (which wouldn’t even matter to big-time investors) but not to resell? What is the point of sitting on the empty properties?

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[deleted] t1_j8n36xb wrote

They were still selling them back off like crazy for most of last year. The market has definitely slowed up considerably since about last November with the feds increasing the interest rates and now the threat of the national debt ceiling not being raised... A lot of those assholes are currently stuck with the bulk of what they bought up around that time.

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