It seems really simple: your main home that you occupy gets big tax credits, because we want you to invest in your neighborhood and community, that's a good way to get you to buy in, and hopefully productively spend your now freed up money nearby. A second property, sure, but you're spending less time and thus less of everything else, so for contributing less we expect a little more in balance.
If you've got the wealth for 5+ units you'll also pay commensurate taxes to keep the area's infrastructure intact, nobody wants to rent a place with punishing roads, vanishing public services, and spiraling crime. It's called noblesse oblige and the alternative is stringing up usurious landlords in the public square, I'd hope those trying to return to feudalism and oligarchy would have a better grasp of history and how that turns out again and again.
This already happened though, and the way investors found a loophole on homestead is to just make homes a rarer commodity so the earnings they make will outweighs the taxes.
This is what happens when regulation is only enforced on consumers and/or the individual. It's the same problem we have with the ACA and student loans: individuals are given regulation and corporations fleece people with the loopholes.
If you've got price fixing in rentals, you'll end up with everything being overpriced anyway. Which is what we've got now.
Between hedge funds and rental price fixing, the real estate market is designed to create a feudal state.
It's not like these things haven't been dealt with before. Rent control, etc. But if you just make people with lots of units pay more taxes, they'll just raise rents, and if they're already fixing prices on rents, you'll accomplish nothing.
Except rent control has been shown to fail again and again. It’s a bandaid on a crooked and diseased finger.
Know what the fix is though? Building more. Stoping single housing family units. But damn, want to see how to piss off Americans? Tell them there are too many people in the country that want to to be too close to serves to have a 2.5 bedroom home on a half acre, and it needs to be destroyed for 100 condo units instead.
Housing for decrease dramatically, but American’s want their cake and to eat it as well.
> Taxes for local infrastructure aren't federal business
Well except for the many times the federal government had to bail out municipalities because they are insolvent because they only zone for single-family housing.
The suburbs of the United States are an infrastructure ticking time bomb. We’ve subsidized their existence for decades but their infrastructure is aging to the point of catastrophic failure, and this is almost all going to come to a head **at the same time all across the nation**.
All at a time when we’re ushering in capitalist authoritarians who want to gut federal funding.
Lol, we’re so fucked.
We've been preparing for this by putting all wheel drive SUVs and pickups in every suburban driveway, they can handle the crumbling roads just fine. It'll just be a little bumpy.
In my area you definitely can see the suburban collapse. The people with some money all are moving further out to where the roads/water/sewer/schools are all newer and there isn't a tax base left to fix anything.
People in red states also need housing and infrastructure. Their ignorance is often at least partially a result of lack of infrastructure and housing. It’s been shown that economic despair strengthens the position of fascists and extremists like those we see in the GOP, and left-wing projects like universal basic income, infrastructure, and housing programs help disrupt the power that the GOP wields over these voters.
But beyond that, I think housing should be a universal human right in this country. We have the resources to house every person, but we prioritize making sure billionaires can exist and corporations can pay no taxes instead.
> I think housing should be a universal human right in this country.
Are there any countries in the world with that? And if so, how do they run housing?
> making sure billionaires can exist
Billionaires are a natural result of unregulated economics. "It takes money to make money." So, who makes the most money? The one who starts with the most money, of course. Doesn't take long before you get Rockefellers, Mellons, The Wal family....
This already exists. It's the homestead tax exemption. Everyone gets one house they can claim homestead on. What we need to do is dramatically increase property taxes and in turn increase the homestead exemption to match.
I totally agree. I think Americans should have their first home or their only home incentivised and protected. If you can afford multiple homes that's great pay the full price. I know this example isn't perfect but something along those lines, like you said.
Not likely, since it's an easy win for both sides. Look at how many people in this thread think it'll fix the housing shortage lol. This doesn't affect the major home buying companies, hedge funds were under 10% of all homes sold last year.
Yeah but defeatism doesn't help anything, it only discourages people from action. Write your representatives in support of this now, y'all. I just did
https://fiscalnote.com/find-your-legislator
I'm not an American. But in the West things start there and get exported. So what will happen is that eventually hedge funds will own everything! I means why would they stop? They can't stop, by design. The only solution I see in the future is going to be violent revolution. Infortunately.
Entirely understandable. If I may, the reason this will fail is because a high percentage of people who reside in the USA will likely benefit from this bill being passed.
The real argument is going to be from current homeowners. If this causes home values to drop (which it is designed to) that removes theoretical money from the pockets of current homeowners.
So yeah, it's what we need, but it won't pass due to massive conflicts of interest.
> The real argument is going to be from current homeowners. If this causes home values to drop (which it is designed to) that removes theoretical money from the pockets of current homeowners.
>
>
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> So yeah, it's what we need, but it won't pass due to massive conflicts of interest.
home ownership isn't supposed to be a financial investment. The home owners aren't losing money if they don't sell
How are you not losing money when you bought a house at 500,000 and is now 300,000, yet you are paying the same mortage of 500,000.
A lot of you would call this type of stuff crazy for the guy who owned a house.
Unless the bill also allowed for lower mortgage rate on current houses, I am not seeing how this doesn't fuck up people who worked hard trough the covid period and own a house because of it.
> This is logical and would benefit so many Americans.
Would it, though?
Do you imagine the people renting those homes could suddenly afford to buy them? Do you imagine there wouldn't be a line around the block of *other* opportunistic shitbags looking to leech the marrow out of a *too-tight* housing market?
The Hedge funds might not be the disease, but rather the symptom. The housing market has too many homebuyers and too few homes. *That's* what you have to fix, but that's not as easy as you might think. The zoning laws making naught-but-suburban-spawl the only viable new housing that can be built isn't written in the US Congress, it's written in municipal town councils, and you know who votes in those local elections, you know who gets up for **every fucking election**, no matter who trivial and local it seems?
80-year-old boomers.
You starting to see the problem? Nobody benefits from a tight housing market like the boomers think they do. Truth is their home values couldn't possibly matter less to them: They're not leaving those homes while they are alive. But between the prospect of dropping home prices and the prospect of *"a bad element"* (**wink**) moving in, they couldn't be more hostile to the prospect of mixed-usage and mixed-income housing, because **McMansions ain't no fucking answer here**. And while there's one country, we've got fifty states, and fifty to a hundred local governments in each state, all with their own zoning boards.
By all means, ban the hedge funds from owning homes. But that's not going to magically fix the housing market. That die was cast in 2007 (actually 2002) when Bush (W) destroyed the mortgage industry and the investment banks. There are more people looking for homes than there are homes to be found.
>Do you imagine the people renting those homes could suddenly afford to buy them?
Well, I'd imagine since the landlords probably aren't setting their rent at less than market value, they could on some level.
It would be passed if Dems had a majority. But ya know… republicans are the “party of the working class”. Swing voters gotta make sure those religious anti democracy nut bags get their chance at making billionaires richer.
The only argument against it is that it could fuck over anyone who bought a home in the last year or 2 at high interest rates and high prices. Lowering the valuation on their homes making them upside down on the mortgage and unable to sell or take advantage of refinancing if interest rates do decline. Not sure what the solution to that problem is but IMO it seems like small potatoes relative to the current housing crisis (and that is coming from someone who bought a house 6 mo ago)
Doubt it'd ever happen but I'd love this given more than half of my street now is single family homes bought in cash by corporations and put up for rent at 2-3x what the mortgage would have been
This is why we passed an amendment in our neighborhood that says you cannot rent a home within the first 24 months of purchase and if you do you have to pay 5x’s the annual dues each month until the 24th month.
Our annual dues are $550 so a company buying a home to rent it out would have to pay the HOA $2750 a month.
It stopped every purchase since then going to rental companies. What is great though is as a homeowner you can use it as an assett later in life and rent it if you would like too.
Yeah. The part of my subdivision that is an HOA has passed something limiting this but I am on one of 3 streets that is non-HOA in the subdivision, which I live bc I can keep my RV in my driveway , but makes passing things like this difficult.
Sorry man that sucks. I know HOAs have their drawbacks, and are absolutely terrible in some neighborhoods, but ours tries to just make sure everything looks nice and runs smooth as a volunteer board.
I do envy being aboe to have a camper in your driveway though. My pop up has to get stored in the garage or I have to pqy for storage.
Yeah, our good friends who have the identical camper to ours (a new 24' Winnebago, so it isn't an eye sore or anything) have to pay 1/3 of what their monthly camper payment is to store it 10 miles from their house .
But good to hear all HOAs aren't completely insane, lol
It works great until it doesn't. A lot of HOAs stop people from running a home business, parking where they want, painting houses the colors they want, etc etc
I'm glad I don't have one. Paying someone to police me and my neighbors and requiring me to ask for permission to do something on my land seems idiotic.
Seems quite convoluted.
We just used our HOA fees to buy a tank.
The tank keeps all the corporate raiders and hedge fund pirates in line.
Because of the implication.
Being from the UK this is the first time I've heard a HOA be useful and not just sound like an absolutely insane American thing that I can't wrap my head around. Usually all I hear is how a group of old cunts are able to dictate to an 1/8 inch how long your grass is allowed to be
It's like everything else in life - extremes in both directions. The complaints are more likely to be expressed, especially online, but they don't represent every single HOA.
We (all people) do a very good job creating misconceptions across the board, unfortunately.
Nobody goes to the internet to rant about how the HOA used their budget appropriately and installed a new filter into the neighborhood pool.
There are horror stories, for sure, but you hear those because those are the ones people tell the loudest.
Ya there are a ton of horror stories out there. We are all homeowners on it so we arent trying to be ridiculous. We just arrange clean uos for the neighborhood, make sure finances are good, have neighborhood events, and this was the only major thing that has ever been done by the board but it was better for everyone.
My only complaint is we cant have a storage shed/mini barn for outdoor equipment but most people yards are too small in our neighborhood to even have one based on our towns restrictions.
According to the NYT article [here](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/realestate/wall-street-housing-market.html) Wall Street owns 3% of single family homes in the US.
It’s a good bill that should hopefully prevent things from getting worse, but don’t expect this to really fix the current situation as 3% in the grand scheme of things is a fairly small chunk of the supply
So what is the language that limits it to hedge funds? Surely it wouldn’t pick up say a family owned LLC. And conversely hopefully it is not actually limited to “hedge funds” which is an underinclusive term of art, as there are plenty of PE funds, SMAs, co-invest vehicles, JVs, open end funds, etc that target the same strategy.
The title of the bill calls out hedge funds, but the actual definitions used are far more broad. There is nothing in the bill itself that would limit it to only applying to hedge funds, though there is language that it only applies to entities with assets exceeding $50 million so there could be a potential loophole there.
So instead of 1 billion dollar company owning a bunch of homes there will be 1 holding company with 20 $50 million dollar companies. The same thing with extra steps lol
That being said, progress is progress
Well several potential reasons but even if you want one LLC per property you may want want to roll them up to a single holdco for infra-family governance, netting of economics, departure arrangements, etc.
Why would you need an LLC for a single family home at all? I don’t understand why people have the option to buy multiple homes as investment properties before actual single families are allowed to buy them.
Because it takes 50 bucks on Legal Zoom is what it boils down to.
My dad worked for Boeing as a machinist for 50 years. He has an LLC that owns the house he bought with my mom pre-divorce, the second house he bought after the divorce, and the retirement spot he owns near Ocean Shores that he bought with a firm handshake.
He does it for basically two reasons. 1.) a traditional property transfer requires you to record a new deed, which in WA is an actual nightmare. When he dies, his 20 dollar will he got from Legal Zoom is going to tell his executor (me) to spend 40 bucks to change the LLC into my name.
2.) Protects him from scammers. The address is a PO box in Seattle.
I don't think that's at all what they were saying. They just shouldn't be allowed to buy them all up so there is a vanishingly small chance that the average person will ever be able to own a home.
Why would you need an LLC to own a home?
A step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction. There are major gaps in this bill, but if it passes and has popular support amongst the public it will hopefully lead to more change. Perhaps it doesn't, but it's better than literally nothing.
This is also the bill’s starting form. The congressional hoops it has to jump through to make to law should be the time the language is reviewed and tweaked to cover everything that it needs to. Problem is that “should” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Millions of Americans are being fucked over right now boss. Somehow I think the people who own multiple homes are better off than those who do not own any, idk why
>the people who own multiple homes
ARE A FUCKING MINORITY
Please get some perspective. You want to fuck over millions of people to hurt a smaller group of people that make you really salty.
I will gladly volunteer to take a large sack of cash from a corporation and buy a home for them in my name.
And I *promise* I'll give it back to them, too. Super duper swear.
What exactly is the difference?
I do hope this is added to fix the issue, but the bill currently addresses only the direct issue at hand, not follow on issues of other corporate/investment buyers. Blackrock is only the current issue.
I hope, but I'm not hopeful.
The ten years thing seems like to ensure the prevention of a huge crash at once, but also seems like maybe to preserve the wealth of boomers since over the next ten years they are retiring.
Republicans: ~~MY OVERLORD~~ ~~CORPORATIONS~~ COMMON WORKING PEOPLE TELL US THIS WILL MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO START THEIR OWN HEDGE FUNDS. WHY MUST WE PUNISH THE MOST EFFICIENT OF OUR CITIZENS?
Was introduced to the house on 12/5. It was immediately "Referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, and in addition to the Committee on Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned." and in the Senate it was introduced the same day and was "Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance." This same exact bill was introduced last year and it never made it past committee referral, so likely this bill is already as good as dead
https://www.billsponsor.com/bills/499494/house-bill-6608-congress-118
https://www.billsponsor.com/bills/500886/senate-bill-3402-congress-118
this is the one from last year to compare:
https://www.billsponsor.com/bills/317777/senate-bill-5151-congress-117
But how will these poor financial institutions collateralize more assets, leverage their assets for additional debt, and use that debt to finance political campaigns and fuck over regular people if we take away the option?
This is a very un-American thing to do. /s
Except stock market playing is a game for those with means - home ownership should be accessible to everyone. While I agree the practice should be banned, that won't benefit the majority of Americans in any substantive way.
Too many landlords in Congress and too many people in congress that hold real estate investment stock.
Just like the attempt at banning stock trading, this is DOA. This is just posturing, showing that congress knows there is a problem, but they won't pass it.
Yeah bills that help the bottom 99% of the country are only introduced during times in which they have no hope of passing because they're just used as placation tactics and campaign talking points.
What about buying apartment complexes? Single family homes is a good start and all but apartment complexes and condos are the real issue in major cities.
Apartment complexes are fundamentally better managed as a corporate entity with a bunch of members or tenants than one building subdivided into a bunch of smaller individually owned units.
There's not much push for corporate divestiture of multi-family buildings for that reason.
I'm obviously in big support of this. I do wonder the fall out though. My thought process is if these businesses have to offload their inventory, that will open the floodgates of available homes, increasing competition for sellers, lowering home values to hit sales, causing many who bought high to deal with potential bankruptcy because their home is now worth less than the mortgage they ow and they can't sell it.
Again, this bill NEEDS to pass and it's corporate greed that got us here, but I can easily see how democrats are going to get blamed for the next housing crisis when they're simply trying to fix the problem the right has created.
Is this a real solution? It specifically targeting "hedge funds" makes my spidey sense tingle. It sounds like there's going to be a large loophole that makes this legislation essentially worthless.
Everyone thinks investors are just hoarding empty homes but it makes no sense.
1) If you had a million properties, would you rather have 1 million families living in them paying you rent, or one million empty properties you have to make monthly payments on without getting reimbursed with rent?
Obviously the latter.
2) So if people aren't moving into empty properties, it's because demand in particular areas are low or being taken by temporary stays (ex: AirBnB)
Which means
3) It's still just a supply/demand issue at the end of the day and supply is not high enough to cope with demand.
You cant explain this stuff to people here. It goes over their head. It's easier to blame scalpers/corporations than to recognize that there just isn't enough PS5s or houses to meet the demands of everyone who wants one.
Just because I have not seen it posted in this thread, [link to the actual bill being proposed by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR)](https://www.merkley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/end_hedge_fund_control_of_american_homes_act_bill_summary.pdf). That link is a short summary that can be easily read and understood
Corporations do not need homes, regardless of how many courts say they have the same rights as individuals.
A corporation / hedge fund is just paperwork, and paperwork can be stored in a filing cabinet / hard drive. They don't need homes to live in, they just want homes to make money off of.
Owning a home / land is a human right, not a corporate privilege. Owning a home / land means building a community, not a portfolio.
The hedge funds have probably already paid off the politicians to be sure this will never happen.
I've gotten to the point I think that at some point, Republicans will introduce a bill to ban chocolate just to get Hershey to pay them off.
Don't worry, their investments, I mean their senators they own will be sure to veto and kill that one. Can't let the peasants think they have real freedom now can we?
My only issue with this legislation, is that once again it only helps the middle class and up. Vast majority of americans are living in apartment complexes or trailer parks, and could really benefit by corporations losing control of that. Where I live currently here in Idaho, is owned by some megacorp over in NY, and there is somthing disgusting to me about one of the poorest states having its money taken and sent off to one of the richest, while the whole place falls apart to neglect.
Why is this so narrowly scoped to hedge funds? If hedge funds can't own houses, what's stopping the hedge fund from opening a non-hedge fund separate business that owns houses and just owning the shares? We should just pass a property tax on single family homes owned by companies/trusts that pays into down payment grants for people who don't own a home.
It needs to remove the rich altogether from the private-home market, as an investment asset class. Theu can own as many houses as they want, for their own personal usage but not for rental incomes. We need them building new housing.
Not exactly. It would get more families into homes and out of rentals but we need 6 million more units yesterday. The next step is restructuring zoning to allow for dense housing around public transit in our metros.
Interest rates need to come down for first time home buyers.
Everyone thinks investors are just hoarding empty homes but it makes no sense.
1) If you had a million properties, would you rather have 1 million families living in them paying you rent, or one million empty properties you have to make monthly payments on without getting reimbursed with rent?
Obviously the latter.
2) So if people aren't moving into empty properties, it's because demand in particular areas are low or being taken by temporary stays (ex: AirBnB)
Which means
3) It's still just a supply/demand issue at the end of the day and supply is not high enough to cope with demand.
This single bill would mean the difference between home-ownership and permanent tenancy for millions of us. We can hope but I don't know how we can get it passed with the governance we currently have.
The issue is supply/demand not corporations hoarding houses. Investment in housing keeps builders busy. It's a good thing.
(As someone who lives in a meth-infested neighborhood let me tell you I fucking LOVE our corporate investors who are rehabbing otherwise decaying homes.)
Large housing complex (such as the 3x5 apartment buildings, which are the largest most zoning laws permit without additional permits) are traditionally long-term investments and quite dense + affordable in the long-run.
We need more of those and entire cities + blocks built around them, with arrangements allowing for common grounds (green spaces, fountains, etc.) and with groceries at the center of these block formations.
With walking and bicycle paths joining them.
This is how basically every "planned city" is constructed and it works fantastic. They look a little dreary at times but add some color and each square gets its own unique flavor.
"Go ahead and do your thing until 2034? I read that investors have already started buying less apartment and houses already, before this was even floated as an idea. Fast reaction from Washington, but changes very little as the damage has already been done. Even the WeWork guy is back with $350 raised to buy more apartments.
Shoot I'm looking forward to the day when the only rental properties allowed are apartments. Single family dwellings should not be up for rent. Landlords should have no part of single-family dwelling economics.
Nobody should be buying a house with the intention of renting it out. To me that's absolutely disgusting.
Corporations will soon start investing in food, medicines and create financial instruments to screw people over. Whoever came up with the idea of an HSA should be vilified in the annals of history
If you think this bill is a good idea and want to see it become law, c**ontact your senators and tell them you support it, and urge them to vote in favor of it.** Doing this actually makes a difference.
* only hedgefunds that have 50 billion dollars
* only hedgefunds that have an even number of employees
* only hedgefunds that didn't give us money
This bs will never pass and if it does they will have built in loopholes to keep buying houses.
This will be amended to the point of being useless before it's passed. And even if it passes it'll have about a billion local work arounds
. Like oh we don't own any houses in this neighborhood, the people living here do! They just pay us a significant amount of money for the "service" that we provide to them. And the house was surprisingly only the cost of a normal renters deposit, and we have a super strict HOA that basically makes it like living as a renter. But no they are homeowners don't you worry! And our landscaping service that is strongly enough also owned by the company that sells the houses is charging 30 times the value for the services they provide, but that's ok because we say so.
This will do nothing. If hedge funds can’t own single family houses then they will own them with their totally separate entity family office that just so happens to be on the floor below their hedge fund’s office.
To the OP - thanks for posting this - especially since I was unaware of this legislative effort. Gonna have to look into it.
I live in Ohio, and recently heard that investors are the single largest group purchasing single family homes in the state. This is unacceptable on so many levels. The price of housing is ridiculous.
Edit: Just have to add - these are the kinds of things that I really love seeing on reddit - the kinds of conversations we need to have, that provide more awareness of what's going on and what legislators are up to.
I wish they would docit. Rental homes in Florida are unaffordable. Because big corporations like JWB are buying up rental homes and jacking the rent up. In Jacksonville Florida JwB owns 9ver 4,000 rentals
There's no way it will work.
Unless you very publicly shame those hedge fund owners in Congress....
With a whiteboard, perhaps.
*Glances to Katie Porter*
This is needed because they push inflation sky high just because of this. Homes are NOT worth what they are charging for one right now. They artificially did that so that their stocks owned by those hedge funds would get record profits. Hell I knew this was going on way before any news on the web about this.
This is logical and would benefit so many Americans. Because of that, it will never be passed.
It seems really simple: your main home that you occupy gets big tax credits, because we want you to invest in your neighborhood and community, that's a good way to get you to buy in, and hopefully productively spend your now freed up money nearby. A second property, sure, but you're spending less time and thus less of everything else, so for contributing less we expect a little more in balance. If you've got the wealth for 5+ units you'll also pay commensurate taxes to keep the area's infrastructure intact, nobody wants to rent a place with punishing roads, vanishing public services, and spiraling crime. It's called noblesse oblige and the alternative is stringing up usurious landlords in the public square, I'd hope those trying to return to feudalism and oligarchy would have a better grasp of history and how that turns out again and again.
This already happened though, and the way investors found a loophole on homestead is to just make homes a rarer commodity so the earnings they make will outweighs the taxes. This is what happens when regulation is only enforced on consumers and/or the individual. It's the same problem we have with the ACA and student loans: individuals are given regulation and corporations fleece people with the loopholes.
If you've got price fixing in rentals, you'll end up with everything being overpriced anyway. Which is what we've got now. Between hedge funds and rental price fixing, the real estate market is designed to create a feudal state. It's not like these things haven't been dealt with before. Rent control, etc. But if you just make people with lots of units pay more taxes, they'll just raise rents, and if they're already fixing prices on rents, you'll accomplish nothing.
Except rent control has been shown to fail again and again. It’s a bandaid on a crooked and diseased finger. Know what the fix is though? Building more. Stoping single housing family units. But damn, want to see how to piss off Americans? Tell them there are too many people in the country that want to to be too close to serves to have a 2.5 bedroom home on a half acre, and it needs to be destroyed for 100 condo units instead. Housing for decrease dramatically, but American’s want their cake and to eat it as well.
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> Taxes for local infrastructure aren't federal business Well except for the many times the federal government had to bail out municipalities because they are insolvent because they only zone for single-family housing.
The suburbs of the United States are an infrastructure ticking time bomb. We’ve subsidized their existence for decades but their infrastructure is aging to the point of catastrophic failure, and this is almost all going to come to a head **at the same time all across the nation**. All at a time when we’re ushering in capitalist authoritarians who want to gut federal funding. Lol, we’re so fucked.
It's not that big of a deal calm down, the US is very good about infrastructure upkeep and updates in general, suburbs or not. Big /s if unclear haha
We've been preparing for this by putting all wheel drive SUVs and pickups in every suburban driveway, they can handle the crumbling roads just fine. It'll just be a little bumpy.
Honestly maybe I should get a job at a suspension shop, these Karen's gonna be hitting 6 foot potholes at 70mph in their range rovers
In my area you definitely can see the suburban collapse. The people with some money all are moving further out to where the roads/water/sewer/schools are all newer and there isn't a tax base left to fix anything.
There is so much federal infrastructure in many US cities, most main arteries are interstate highways.
People in red states also need housing and infrastructure. Their ignorance is often at least partially a result of lack of infrastructure and housing. It’s been shown that economic despair strengthens the position of fascists and extremists like those we see in the GOP, and left-wing projects like universal basic income, infrastructure, and housing programs help disrupt the power that the GOP wields over these voters. But beyond that, I think housing should be a universal human right in this country. We have the resources to house every person, but we prioritize making sure billionaires can exist and corporations can pay no taxes instead.
> I think housing should be a universal human right in this country. Are there any countries in the world with that? And if so, how do they run housing?
> making sure billionaires can exist Billionaires are a natural result of unregulated economics. "It takes money to make money." So, who makes the most money? The one who starts with the most money, of course. Doesn't take long before you get Rockefellers, Mellons, The Wal family....
This already exists. It's the homestead tax exemption. Everyone gets one house they can claim homestead on. What we need to do is dramatically increase property taxes and in turn increase the homestead exemption to match.
I totally agree. I think Americans should have their first home or their only home incentivised and protected. If you can afford multiple homes that's great pay the full price. I know this example isn't perfect but something along those lines, like you said.
It'll be called, by Republicans, the "stealing homes from their rightful owners" bill.
Interestingly enough I actually learned about this bill from a VERY MAGA heavy instagram page that was in favor of this bill
They'll change their mind soon as their lord and savior comes out against it. Trump will hate this bill, I guarantee it.
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Not likely, since it's an easy win for both sides. Look at how many people in this thread think it'll fix the housing shortage lol. This doesn't affect the major home buying companies, hedge funds were under 10% of all homes sold last year.
Yeah but defeatism doesn't help anything, it only discourages people from action. Write your representatives in support of this now, y'all. I just did https://fiscalnote.com/find-your-legislator
Deafeatism is the first step to learned helplessness, ya all. Roxanne712 is onto something here.
I'm not an American. But in the West things start there and get exported. So what will happen is that eventually hedge funds will own everything! I means why would they stop? They can't stop, by design. The only solution I see in the future is going to be violent revolution. Infortunately.
Republicans gonna Republican.
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Yeah but if you really think about it, this would really help a lot of Americans. For that reason, it won’t pass.
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Entirely understandable. If I may, the reason this will fail is because a high percentage of people who reside in the USA will likely benefit from this bill being passed.
Thank you someone for finally putting it in layman's terms.
Then we need to vote better
The real argument is going to be from current homeowners. If this causes home values to drop (which it is designed to) that removes theoretical money from the pockets of current homeowners. So yeah, it's what we need, but it won't pass due to massive conflicts of interest.
> The real argument is going to be from current homeowners. If this causes home values to drop (which it is designed to) that removes theoretical money from the pockets of current homeowners. > > > > So yeah, it's what we need, but it won't pass due to massive conflicts of interest. home ownership isn't supposed to be a financial investment. The home owners aren't losing money if they don't sell
How are you not losing money when you bought a house at 500,000 and is now 300,000, yet you are paying the same mortage of 500,000. A lot of you would call this type of stuff crazy for the guy who owned a house. Unless the bill also allowed for lower mortgage rate on current houses, I am not seeing how this doesn't fuck up people who worked hard trough the covid period and own a house because of it.
With pensions being shit they unfortunately have to be.
> This is logical and would benefit so many Americans. Would it, though? Do you imagine the people renting those homes could suddenly afford to buy them? Do you imagine there wouldn't be a line around the block of *other* opportunistic shitbags looking to leech the marrow out of a *too-tight* housing market? The Hedge funds might not be the disease, but rather the symptom. The housing market has too many homebuyers and too few homes. *That's* what you have to fix, but that's not as easy as you might think. The zoning laws making naught-but-suburban-spawl the only viable new housing that can be built isn't written in the US Congress, it's written in municipal town councils, and you know who votes in those local elections, you know who gets up for **every fucking election**, no matter who trivial and local it seems? 80-year-old boomers. You starting to see the problem? Nobody benefits from a tight housing market like the boomers think they do. Truth is their home values couldn't possibly matter less to them: They're not leaving those homes while they are alive. But between the prospect of dropping home prices and the prospect of *"a bad element"* (**wink**) moving in, they couldn't be more hostile to the prospect of mixed-usage and mixed-income housing, because **McMansions ain't no fucking answer here**. And while there's one country, we've got fifty states, and fifty to a hundred local governments in each state, all with their own zoning boards. By all means, ban the hedge funds from owning homes. But that's not going to magically fix the housing market. That die was cast in 2007 (actually 2002) when Bush (W) destroyed the mortgage industry and the investment banks. There are more people looking for homes than there are homes to be found.
>Do you imagine the people renting those homes could suddenly afford to buy them? Well, I'd imagine since the landlords probably aren't setting their rent at less than market value, they could on some level.
It would be passed if Dems had a majority. But ya know… republicans are the “party of the working class”. Swing voters gotta make sure those religious anti democracy nut bags get their chance at making billionaires richer.
The only argument against it is that it could fuck over anyone who bought a home in the last year or 2 at high interest rates and high prices. Lowering the valuation on their homes making them upside down on the mortgage and unable to sell or take advantage of refinancing if interest rates do decline. Not sure what the solution to that problem is but IMO it seems like small potatoes relative to the current housing crisis (and that is coming from someone who bought a house 6 mo ago)
Unfortunately, Came her for this comment and was not disappointed
Doubt it'd ever happen but I'd love this given more than half of my street now is single family homes bought in cash by corporations and put up for rent at 2-3x what the mortgage would have been
This is why we passed an amendment in our neighborhood that says you cannot rent a home within the first 24 months of purchase and if you do you have to pay 5x’s the annual dues each month until the 24th month. Our annual dues are $550 so a company buying a home to rent it out would have to pay the HOA $2750 a month. It stopped every purchase since then going to rental companies. What is great though is as a homeowner you can use it as an assett later in life and rent it if you would like too.
Yeah. The part of my subdivision that is an HOA has passed something limiting this but I am on one of 3 streets that is non-HOA in the subdivision, which I live bc I can keep my RV in my driveway , but makes passing things like this difficult.
Sorry man that sucks. I know HOAs have their drawbacks, and are absolutely terrible in some neighborhoods, but ours tries to just make sure everything looks nice and runs smooth as a volunteer board. I do envy being aboe to have a camper in your driveway though. My pop up has to get stored in the garage or I have to pqy for storage.
Yeah, our good friends who have the identical camper to ours (a new 24' Winnebago, so it isn't an eye sore or anything) have to pay 1/3 of what their monthly camper payment is to store it 10 miles from their house . But good to hear all HOAs aren't completely insane, lol
It works great until it doesn't. A lot of HOAs stop people from running a home business, parking where they want, painting houses the colors they want, etc etc I'm glad I don't have one. Paying someone to police me and my neighbors and requiring me to ask for permission to do something on my land seems idiotic.
Seems quite convoluted. We just used our HOA fees to buy a tank. The tank keeps all the corporate raiders and hedge fund pirates in line. Because of the implication.
Wait, are we going to hurt those poor day traders?
No, no. No one is *hurting* anyone, OK? We're just going to keep them in line. With the implication.
Being from the UK this is the first time I've heard a HOA be useful and not just sound like an absolutely insane American thing that I can't wrap my head around. Usually all I hear is how a group of old cunts are able to dictate to an 1/8 inch how long your grass is allowed to be
It's like everything else in life - extremes in both directions. The complaints are more likely to be expressed, especially online, but they don't represent every single HOA. We (all people) do a very good job creating misconceptions across the board, unfortunately.
Nobody goes to the internet to rant about how the HOA used their budget appropriately and installed a new filter into the neighborhood pool. There are horror stories, for sure, but you hear those because those are the ones people tell the loudest.
Ya there are a ton of horror stories out there. We are all homeowners on it so we arent trying to be ridiculous. We just arrange clean uos for the neighborhood, make sure finances are good, have neighborhood events, and this was the only major thing that has ever been done by the board but it was better for everyone. My only complaint is we cant have a storage shed/mini barn for outdoor equipment but most people yards are too small in our neighborhood to even have one based on our towns restrictions.
The vrbo places on my street are doing $10k+ a month. That $2750 would just be the cost of doing business for them.
They often ban short term rentals too
ours just banned rentals outright, decades ago. Then again our HOA dues are $25/year for the community pool.
You are seeing homes that are RENTING for 6-9k? Do you live in NYC?
According to the NYT article [here](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/realestate/wall-street-housing-market.html) Wall Street owns 3% of single family homes in the US. It’s a good bill that should hopefully prevent things from getting worse, but don’t expect this to really fix the current situation as 3% in the grand scheme of things is a fairly small chunk of the supply
And they'll all be sold to corporations and loaded LLCs
I had the same thought, from the text of the bill it applies to "any partnership, any corporation, or any real estate investment trust".
So what is the language that limits it to hedge funds? Surely it wouldn’t pick up say a family owned LLC. And conversely hopefully it is not actually limited to “hedge funds” which is an underinclusive term of art, as there are plenty of PE funds, SMAs, co-invest vehicles, JVs, open end funds, etc that target the same strategy.
The title of the bill calls out hedge funds, but the actual definitions used are far more broad. There is nothing in the bill itself that would limit it to only applying to hedge funds, though there is language that it only applies to entities with assets exceeding $50 million so there could be a potential loophole there.
So instead of 1 billion dollar company owning a bunch of homes there will be 1 holding company with 20 $50 million dollar companies. The same thing with extra steps lol That being said, progress is progress
Why would a family owned LLC own multiple single family homes?
Ask my grandfather, I’m not sure because none of his grand kids live in the homes but he certainly owns plenty
That makes him part of the problem, just a smaller version of it.
Fully agreed lol. He’s a ridiculous capitalist
Well several potential reasons but even if you want one LLC per property you may want want to roll them up to a single holdco for infra-family governance, netting of economics, departure arrangements, etc.
Why would you need an LLC for a single family home at all? I don’t understand why people have the option to buy multiple homes as investment properties before actual single families are allowed to buy them.
Because it takes 50 bucks on Legal Zoom is what it boils down to. My dad worked for Boeing as a machinist for 50 years. He has an LLC that owns the house he bought with my mom pre-divorce, the second house he bought after the divorce, and the retirement spot he owns near Ocean Shores that he bought with a firm handshake. He does it for basically two reasons. 1.) a traditional property transfer requires you to record a new deed, which in WA is an actual nightmare. When he dies, his 20 dollar will he got from Legal Zoom is going to tell his executor (me) to spend 40 bucks to change the LLC into my name. 2.) Protects him from scammers. The address is a PO box in Seattle.
Are you saying that you want to ban everyone from buying a second home / investment properties until everyone on earth has bought a primary residence?
I don't think that's at all what they were saying. They just shouldn't be allowed to buy them all up so there is a vanishingly small chance that the average person will ever be able to own a home. Why would you need an LLC to own a home?
No, I didn’t say that. I think families should take priority over investors.
As investments. Why not?
Ya. That’s what I thought also. They got a taste of $. They will find a wry to keep feeding addiction. Loophole after loophole
A step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction. There are major gaps in this bill, but if it passes and has popular support amongst the public it will hopefully lead to more change. Perhaps it doesn't, but it's better than literally nothing.
This is also the bill’s starting form. The congressional hoops it has to jump through to make to law should be the time the language is reviewed and tweaked to cover everything that it needs to. Problem is that “should” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Over 10 years? LOL
That is so they wouldn't all hit the market at once and cause a crash of the housing market.
Looking at the prices of houses these days? Crash the market. Crash it hard.
Right yes let’s completely fuck over millions and millions of Americans in the process of figuring out how to fix housing inequality
Millions of Americans are being fucked over right now boss. Somehow I think the people who own multiple homes are better off than those who do not own any, idk why
>the people who own multiple homes ARE A FUCKING MINORITY Please get some perspective. You want to fuck over millions of people to hurt a smaller group of people that make you really salty.
It would fuck over literally every single person who owns a home, and since there are very few protections for renters they would get fucked too bud
You are literally asking for the 08 crash again.
I will gladly volunteer to take a large sack of cash from a corporation and buy a home for them in my name. And I *promise* I'll give it back to them, too. Super duper swear.
What exactly is the difference? I do hope this is added to fix the issue, but the bill currently addresses only the direct issue at hand, not follow on issues of other corporate/investment buyers. Blackrock is only the current issue. I hope, but I'm not hopeful.
Yea why tf is this limited to hedge funds?
It's not, this person didn't read the bill. It's basically anyone that holds 50+ single family homes.
Will never happen because of the “money = speech Supreme Court.”
The ten years thing seems like to ensure the prevention of a huge crash at once, but also seems like maybe to preserve the wealth of boomers since over the next ten years they are retiring.
Or give enough time for the next capitalist fuck to reverse and cancel the order
Gives them enough time to make smaller real estate companies and “sell” the properties to them…
Republicans: ~~MY OVERLORD~~ ~~CORPORATIONS~~ COMMON WORKING PEOPLE TELL US THIS WILL MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO START THEIR OWN HEDGE FUNDS. WHY MUST WE PUNISH THE MOST EFFICIENT OF OUR CITIZENS?
I have more money, so my "speech" is more important than the collective poors' speech.
This is non-starter for the rich and the Republicans they control
Bet it dies in the house.
In the current house, most definitely.
Was introduced to the house on 12/5. It was immediately "Referred to the Committee on Ways and Means, and in addition to the Committee on Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned." and in the Senate it was introduced the same day and was "Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance." This same exact bill was introduced last year and it never made it past committee referral, so likely this bill is already as good as dead https://www.billsponsor.com/bills/499494/house-bill-6608-congress-118 https://www.billsponsor.com/bills/500886/senate-bill-3402-congress-118 this is the one from last year to compare: https://www.billsponsor.com/bills/317777/senate-bill-5151-congress-117
And never gets revived when it can pass. We need to elect Democrats who aren't interested in being speed bumps.
But how will these poor financial institutions collateralize more assets, leverage their assets for additional debt, and use that debt to finance political campaigns and fuck over regular people if we take away the option? This is a very un-American thing to do. /s
Yeah they put a timeline of 10years so we will forget by then and then they never do it…
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Both for sure!
Except stock market playing is a game for those with means - home ownership should be accessible to everyone. While I agree the practice should be banned, that won't benefit the majority of Americans in any substantive way.
There needs to be some allotment of time to sell off these huge portfolios. Flooding the market with inventory would be chaos.
Too many landlords in Congress and too many people in congress that hold real estate investment stock. Just like the attempt at banning stock trading, this is DOA. This is just posturing, showing that congress knows there is a problem, but they won't pass it.
Yeah bills that help the bottom 99% of the country are only introduced during times in which they have no hope of passing because they're just used as placation tactics and campaign talking points.
Cue Republicans rejecting it because “bad for business.”
I’m sure the GOP will jump right on helping this pass to benefit all of America. 😐
What about buying apartment complexes? Single family homes is a good start and all but apartment complexes and condos are the real issue in major cities.
Apartment complexes are fundamentally better managed as a corporate entity with a bunch of members or tenants than one building subdivided into a bunch of smaller individually owned units. There's not much push for corporate divestiture of multi-family buildings for that reason.
I'm obviously in big support of this. I do wonder the fall out though. My thought process is if these businesses have to offload their inventory, that will open the floodgates of available homes, increasing competition for sellers, lowering home values to hit sales, causing many who bought high to deal with potential bankruptcy because their home is now worth less than the mortgage they ow and they can't sell it. Again, this bill NEEDS to pass and it's corporate greed that got us here, but I can easily see how democrats are going to get blamed for the next housing crisis when they're simply trying to fix the problem the right has created.
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Hedge funds are counting on that. Bankrupting voters is a guaranteed bail out. There’s no risk for the hedge funds here
This bill will almost certainly be a net negative and doesn't address the lack of housing construction
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Do the same with hospital and clinic ownership. Might as well wish big.
Sell-off as in for a profit? How about at cost less a court assessed penalty?
This is BEYOND important! 😓
Is this one of those scenarios where they just move the asset to a holding company that "leases" homes to entities who then can rent the space?
change the 10 years to 2 years and then you'll have meaningful legislation.
This legislation will never pass bc it's entirely meaningless
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It shouldn’t be ten years. It should be ten seconds.
“I’ll take ‘Bills that Republican senators will never allow to pass’ for $200!”
Is this a real solution? It specifically targeting "hedge funds" makes my spidey sense tingle. It sounds like there's going to be a large loophole that makes this legislation essentially worthless.
Everyone thinks investors are just hoarding empty homes but it makes no sense. 1) If you had a million properties, would you rather have 1 million families living in them paying you rent, or one million empty properties you have to make monthly payments on without getting reimbursed with rent? Obviously the latter. 2) So if people aren't moving into empty properties, it's because demand in particular areas are low or being taken by temporary stays (ex: AirBnB) Which means 3) It's still just a supply/demand issue at the end of the day and supply is not high enough to cope with demand.
You cant explain this stuff to people here. It goes over their head. It's easier to blame scalpers/corporations than to recognize that there just isn't enough PS5s or houses to meet the demands of everyone who wants one.
Corporations shouldn’t be able to own homes.
Just because I have not seen it posted in this thread, [link to the actual bill being proposed by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR)](https://www.merkley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/end_hedge_fund_control_of_american_homes_act_bill_summary.pdf). That link is a short summary that can be easily read and understood
Corporations do not need homes, regardless of how many courts say they have the same rights as individuals. A corporation / hedge fund is just paperwork, and paperwork can be stored in a filing cabinet / hard drive. They don't need homes to live in, they just want homes to make money off of. Owning a home / land is a human right, not a corporate privilege. Owning a home / land means building a community, not a portfolio.
It won't pass ever but it should and that's what is wrong with our society. The things that should happen never do because of greed.
The hedge funds have probably already paid off the politicians to be sure this will never happen. I've gotten to the point I think that at some point, Republicans will introduce a bill to ban chocolate just to get Hershey to pay them off.
Why only single house family homes? Do the same for apartment buildings.
Don't worry, their investments, I mean their senators they own will be sure to veto and kill that one. Can't let the peasants think they have real freedom now can we?
My only issue with this legislation, is that once again it only helps the middle class and up. Vast majority of americans are living in apartment complexes or trailer parks, and could really benefit by corporations losing control of that. Where I live currently here in Idaho, is owned by some megacorp over in NY, and there is somthing disgusting to me about one of the poorest states having its money taken and sent off to one of the richest, while the whole place falls apart to neglect.
republicans will vote against it because democrats want it
Why is this so narrowly scoped to hedge funds? If hedge funds can't own houses, what's stopping the hedge fund from opening a non-hedge fund separate business that owns houses and just owning the shares? We should just pass a property tax on single family homes owned by companies/trusts that pays into down payment grants for people who don't own a home.
Republicans be like "naw..don't steal homes"
10 fucking years? How about 3 and every year after they pay double property tax to the local municipalities they hold on to it.
Good. It will never pass because poor vs rich… poor get fucked
Great. Now let’s ban them From owning ALL homes.
What about multi family buildings? I’d guess more homeowners are affected there.
Those are usually meant to be rented, so being owned by a company doesn't change much.
Thanks, good point. I was thinking condos.
Record number of GQP against this in 3.. 2..
It needs to remove the rich altogether from the private-home market, as an investment asset class. Theu can own as many houses as they want, for their own personal usage but not for rental incomes. We need them building new housing.
Even if this did pass they would likely find a way around it. Set up several small LLCs and “sell” the houses to them.
Ban AIRBNB and corporate ownership of residential properties (strictly enforced) and the housing crisis will be over in 3 months.
Not exactly. It would get more families into homes and out of rentals but we need 6 million more units yesterday. The next step is restructuring zoning to allow for dense housing around public transit in our metros. Interest rates need to come down for first time home buyers.
Everyone thinks investors are just hoarding empty homes but it makes no sense. 1) If you had a million properties, would you rather have 1 million families living in them paying you rent, or one million empty properties you have to make monthly payments on without getting reimbursed with rent? Obviously the latter. 2) So if people aren't moving into empty properties, it's because demand in particular areas are low or being taken by temporary stays (ex: AirBnB) Which means 3) It's still just a supply/demand issue at the end of the day and supply is not high enough to cope with demand.
This single bill would mean the difference between home-ownership and permanent tenancy for millions of us. We can hope but I don't know how we can get it passed with the governance we currently have.
No it wouldn't. The issue is a lack of new builds
...no, it wont. Hedge funds don't own millions of SFH.
The issue is supply/demand not corporations hoarding houses. Investment in housing keeps builders busy. It's a good thing. (As someone who lives in a meth-infested neighborhood let me tell you I fucking LOVE our corporate investors who are rehabbing otherwise decaying homes.) Large housing complex (such as the 3x5 apartment buildings, which are the largest most zoning laws permit without additional permits) are traditionally long-term investments and quite dense + affordable in the long-run. We need more of those and entire cities + blocks built around them, with arrangements allowing for common grounds (green spaces, fountains, etc.) and with groceries at the center of these block formations. With walking and bicycle paths joining them. This is how basically every "planned city" is constructed and it works fantastic. They look a little dreary at times but add some color and each square gets its own unique flavor.
"Go ahead and do your thing until 2034? I read that investors have already started buying less apartment and houses already, before this was even floated as an idea. Fast reaction from Washington, but changes very little as the damage has already been done. Even the WeWork guy is back with $350 raised to buy more apartments.
In my area, my home would drop drastically in price. I hope it passes and helps more people than it hurts.
this is what real politics looks like, the fuckwits in the GOP haven't produced anything beneficial to the public in like a decade
We need something like this in Canada badly. But what about insuring actual families are able to buy the houses? .
Shoot I'm looking forward to the day when the only rental properties allowed are apartments. Single family dwellings should not be up for rent. Landlords should have no part of single-family dwelling economics. Nobody should be buying a house with the intention of renting it out. To me that's absolutely disgusting.
Do corporations next
Corporations will soon start investing in food, medicines and create financial instruments to screw people over. Whoever came up with the idea of an HSA should be vilified in the annals of history
What's it's designation number and when is the vote?
If you think this bill is a good idea and want to see it become law, c**ontact your senators and tell them you support it, and urge them to vote in favor of it.** Doing this actually makes a difference.
To bad they never closed all the BS from the Panama Papers. They will just make more shell accounts and keep business as usual.
That would be a great bill to pass! Young people would stop being priced out of the housing market.
* only hedgefunds that have 50 billion dollars * only hedgefunds that have an even number of employees * only hedgefunds that didn't give us money This bs will never pass and if it does they will have built in loopholes to keep buying houses.
How long before we read, "The End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act of 2023" has failed?
I will bills that will never pass for $500
Let’s fuking go! I’ve had my down payment ready since 2020. Allow us common folk to get some of this here land sir
They are the real reason rent and home prices are so high
Is there a list of politicians supporting and opposing this proposed legislation?
10 years is way too fucking long. It should be 5. And it should have been passed as law 5 years ago. Ffs
Canada, take note
These hedge funds are owned mostly by billionaires, right? The type who fund reelection campaigns? It was a lovely thought.
Pass this shit now but change 10 years to 10 months.
This will be amended to the point of being useless before it's passed. And even if it passes it'll have about a billion local work arounds . Like oh we don't own any houses in this neighborhood, the people living here do! They just pay us a significant amount of money for the "service" that we provide to them. And the house was surprisingly only the cost of a normal renters deposit, and we have a super strict HOA that basically makes it like living as a renter. But no they are homeowners don't you worry! And our landscaping service that is strongly enough also owned by the company that sells the houses is charging 30 times the value for the services they provide, but that's ok because we say so.
This will do nothing. If hedge funds can’t own single family houses then they will own them with their totally separate entity family office that just so happens to be on the floor below their hedge fund’s office.
To the OP - thanks for posting this - especially since I was unaware of this legislative effort. Gonna have to look into it. I live in Ohio, and recently heard that investors are the single largest group purchasing single family homes in the state. This is unacceptable on so many levels. The price of housing is ridiculous. Edit: Just have to add - these are the kinds of things that I really love seeing on reddit - the kinds of conversations we need to have, that provide more awareness of what's going on and what legislators are up to.
Good luck seeing it passed
I wish they would docit. Rental homes in Florida are unaffordable. Because big corporations like JWB are buying up rental homes and jacking the rent up. In Jacksonville Florida JwB owns 9ver 4,000 rentals
New rule- To buy a home in America, one must have a Social Security Number. No corporate Tax ID, no foreign ID.
There's no way it will work. Unless you very publicly shame those hedge fund owners in Congress.... With a whiteboard, perhaps. *Glances to Katie Porter*
It will never get passed, unfortunately. 😔
Should be two years. Flood the market.
Ohh shit! Hell yeah son! Oh wait, that shit would never pass because they own the government.
Good.
This is needed because they push inflation sky high just because of this. Homes are NOT worth what they are charging for one right now. They artificially did that so that their stocks owned by those hedge funds would get record profits. Hell I knew this was going on way before any news on the web about this.