Comments by "Daniel Bradford" (@Falconlibrary) on "WORST Housing Market Since 2006 HAPPENING NOW!" video.

Big institutional investors can tap limitless funds to buy houses--I don't call them "homes" unless they're owned by individuals--and can and will swoop in and increase their holdings during this crisis. It's exactly what happened in 2010-2012, when they went as far as rigging bids in the Bay Area. Unless our government intervenes to secure housing for individuals, which it has shown zero inclination to do, by 2026, the share of houses sold to investors will go from 20% to 50% (and higher in the most desirable areas). This is demonstrably bad, since owning a house is the best route for people to build wealth for retirement. What's more, people owning their own homes provides much-needed social stability. I live in a neighborhood of duplexes that are 100% rentals and the neighborhood is constantly in flux. Nobody knows their neighbors, so nobody looks after one another. I've owned homes in the past where everyone was an owner and knowing that your neighbor is there for the long haul makes it more likely you'll befriend them. People need those social bonds; we're individuals, but we're also tribal animals and being isolated is bad for us. American society is already under severe strain not just from the pandemic but by the wage gap, and shutting people out of owning their homes may be good for investors' profits, but it's harmful for our society overall. And no, I do not want to debate anybody who bleats about the magic of the market or other Ayn Rand BS. That stuff is a fantasy. We have local, state, and federal government agencies for a reason: they're supposed to intervene and manage our society to make it as fair as possible. If you want to live in a country where there's no government, try living in Somalia for a year and then check back with me if you're still alive at the end of it.
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Elon Musk said something along those lines in the past couple of weeks: if you have free money and know that you'll be bailed out no matter how bad your decisions are, you throw caution (and money) to the wind. Let's see some of that "free market discipline" unleashed on these investors.
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Forget what "they" want. What do WE want? Nobody's going to hand the American Dream to us. We have to fight for it.
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To me, this is not a partisan nor left-right issue. Housing is a fundamental human need and for decades, our country has had an enviable level of political stability because we had a home-owning middle class. Get rid of that and we're Brazil.
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@GLRYB2GD I did what I could. I was part of a successful campaign in Beverly Hills to get the city's first rent control enacted. Rent control is one small piece of a rational, humane housing policy. Our campaign started small but when people saw some of us organizing and fighting back against the notoriously predatory Beverly Hills landlords, we turned around and found we had an army at our backs. And the elected city council noticed us, that's for sure. We got a majority of pro-tenant council members elected. This can be done, city by city, state by state, and eventually build into a national movement. I don't just mean rent control. I mean a housing policy aimed at affordable rents and affordable houses to buy.
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@maryfields877 I just remember the tight-knit neighborhood we had in my hometown in Kansas. We all fit together. There were a few families who moved in who didn't, but they didn't stay long. It was a feeling of security. One time, my little sister wandered out of our backyard when someone left the gate open and the entire neighborhood mobilized to look for her. We shared power tools and sugar and advice and had cookouts together...it was like an extended family. If there was a problem, no one one called the cops, because you could just go over to your neighbor's house and settle things peaceably. We moved away but some of our neighbors are STILL our close friends, decades later. That sense of trust, of being HOME, is what you get when people get to own their own houses and stay there and NOT be financially stressed. That's what these big investment companies are taking away from us. We can't let them.
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Homelessness exploded in LA and San Francisco with the tech boom that caused rents to skyrocket. Homelessness is horrible for the people forced into it but yes, it degrades the quality of everyone's life. My last residence in California was in Beverly Hills: I found a homeless guy in the alley behind my apartment building who had taken someone's car cover off to use for a blanket. I bought him a sleeping bag. Every time I left Beverly Hills, the tent cities of homeless were bigger than they were just a few days before. In the meantime, several members of the LA City Council were caught by the FBI taking kickbacks from real estate developers to approve more luxury housing that often sits 75% vacant.
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@MichaelBordenaro Our economy right now is worse than it was going into 2008-09. Objectively, we're screwed.
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The politicians are all bought and paid for by these investors, that's why. You don't bad mouth the boss.
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@MichaelBordenaro I'm old enough to remember the 1970s. Many women still didn't work outside the home, so when inflation got very high, women added to the family income by working part-time or full-time outside the home. It was unusual to have a classmate who was a "latchkey kid". Now that flexibility is gone for most folks.
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Their motto is "South Beach: It's Not THAT Bad!" so they do try and set realistic expectations
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@networth00 You're wrong. University of Chicago study from 2021: "More than half of people residing in homeless shelters in the United States had formal earnings in the same year they were homeless, according to a new study that deepens understanding of housing insecurity in the U.S. Among unhoused individuals who were not in shelters, about 40% had earnings from formal employment."
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The newest shortages in my area are cooking oil and canning jars. These shortages are weird and unpredictable. Makes me nostalgic for the days when it was just toilet paper.
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You must be a Boomer, Mr. Charlton. Younger folks can't save that much cash. And they shouldn't have to.
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@macmovieman1 Most of the younger people I know have to pay 50%-60% of their take home pay to rent a crappy apartment and have what they call "side hustles" (second and third jobs). Everybody but you is a lazy bum, I guess. Your age is showing and your advice is about 30 years out of date. World doesn't work like that any more.
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@macmovieman1 I don't have a LinkedIn profile. Never have had.
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