Poestis
205594
2836
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Saw this on the walk home from a free concert celebrating my city's anniversary.
Shame on them. Inflation from stupidity while ripping the hopes and dreams away from probably first time home buyers.
andydicktracymorganfairchild
I didn't know you could rent corpses this is awesome!
METROlD
This is literally what is happening with my wife and I. Prices have gone up by Abt. 80-100k in 1 years time and we are being priced out.
UsuallyARabbit
A robot? Is this AI trying to kill us?
AdultPersistentAngst
God damn pieces of shit.
andwings2go
Our corporate overlords got bored with $2200 a month tiny 1 bedroom apartments and now want $3600 for tiny 2 bedroom houses.
mmckee44
Is anybody checking to see if this entire thing was orchestrated by Blackrock? It is what they do.
Cilvaa
Corporations should not be allowed to own residential property.
snailbanana
or should be taxed exponentially higher than primary residences
Ponderpoo
But they're people too
DurendaI
Hey, I've seen this one before.
We11thatwasC00L
What do you mean? It's a new episode!
STGxDante
Businesses need to be barred from buying any residential property period. Commercial only.
hushpuppyextraordinaire
Zillow takes The fall, property management companies take the benefit , turns out property management companies owned Zillow all along.
FlashFunk253
Zillow has their own property management service. This comment makes no sense.
ToasterDent
"Take off his mask Shaggy - let's see who was behind all of this!"
Zebrahoofs
Free market Bitches and Bastards! We do what we want. We are corporations. You did not stop us before, you can't stop us now!
SaltyEsq
1st photo has r/wallstreetbets all over it
player112354
And again the workforce to fix the problems the feds can’t deal with because another party pays their silence
dorkamatic
I'm starting to think that the rich are scumbags.
DanCTheman
Thank god they didn't buy GME or there would be a fucking congressional investigation.
420supercoolusername69
It almost sounds like a federal investigation…
fpro
it's okay because that's capitalism. thank god the government doesn't regulate the market to protect people from these things!
fbutt09
The government/ politicians somehow get their slice of the corrupt pie. So I’m sure no legislation is forthcoming any time soon.
CurbYourClassWar
What are you, some type of Commie Antifa???
howcansomeonepossiblyhavethesameweirdusernamealready
I think (hope) they're being facetious.
idontenglishsorry
Your mom is being facetious
AndThenThereWereSquirrels
They are, as was the first response
acme64
what? fascism?! IN MY COMMENTS?!
Meh2360
it's not just zillow.. a lot of companies will buy houses outright with cash and sell for higher.. I know someone who sold theirs to a
Meh2360
company knowing they'd get the money with no hoops
Thankyoujameson
How does a bot buy a home?
ToasterDent
Sees listing or a house that is in an area it decides is going up in value, tells a human to make a offer of $x
Velisity
I am one of those First timers. Family makes less than $100k a year, we’re priced out of northwestern Washington state
theplantladyisabenevolentruler
Oh man, I’m from WA and we have been wanting to move back there, but watching housing for the last several years has been so discouraging
Velisity
Stay away. 2 bedroom 800sqf houses are going for $350 to $400k.
theplantladyisabenevolentruler
I hate to say it, but I live in a really expensive city and my first reaction was “oh, that’s not as bad as I thought.” And I hate that.
choicebutts2
Just in time to put a bunch of half-fixed, shitty houses on the rental market for Section 8 vouchers.
Smartnership
Section 8 has an inspection process
choicebutts2
Sold my house for crap money, new owners didn't replace the roof that was supposed to be so critically bad. It's a Sec. 8 rental now.
Smartnership
It’s easy to find fault with the government, but Sec 8 has minimum standards and while imperfect, it’s better than no standards
choicebutts2
I'm not finding fault with the government. I'm finding fault with house flippers who decimate established neighborhoods by creating 1/
choicebutts2
revolving-door rentals that do nothing to enhance existing neighborhoods, and taking housing stock away from 2/
TacoTorn
Problem is zillow hired newbs to buy homes. Not a robot. Buying up everything they can. Now they are stuck with homes they can't
TacoTorn
Remodel and flip in time which the new hires paid market price for. To offset increasing losses, the houses are being wholesale off.
TacoTorn
Most things comes down to straight incompetence. This is one of them.
frickthisshiz
Its like we’re just going to have new housing crashes in every generation that always spur laws that are retroactive but not future oriented
YourIceCreamMan
house next to ours sold for $160,000 above value- across the street: $60,000 above asking. Had nothing to do with Zillow though. Just sayin'
erroniousmaximus
That’s because Zillow is inflating housing costs. The natural result is that if THEY are getting more for their houses, YOU can too. 1/
erroniousmaximus
Normally, markets are not too conserved with the actions of singular companies, but once you get large enough and close enough to monopoly 2
erroniousmaximus
Power, you can start moving the market. In this case though, they’re more likely an oligopoly with few other major competitors.
FlashFunk253
Published by Statista Research Department, May 4, 2021 In 2020, there were 6.5 million homes sold in the U.S. and this figure was 1/
FlashFunk253
projected to increase to 7.1 million by 2021.... Zillow bought and sold around 12,000 homes in the past year. That comes out to 0.18%... 2/
FlashFunk253
Z controls 1/10 of a percent of the market. they are not inflating the market. Stop spreading unsubstantiated propaganda.
YourIceCreamMan
Thank you. People here hate facts.
Hooooooo
Stimulus checks. large families received tens of thousands of dollars = down payment + super low interest rates = skyrocketing demand.
Davidnfilms
I went on zillow the other day, they are UNLOADING shit tons of homes.
wormfood
How do you get Zillow to show homes they own but haven't fixed? The only filter on the site for them is move in ready
Scoobthedood
I’m in Coachella, ca. And Redfin is here friggin things up. House went up by 200%
CheeseborgarSoop
They're buying up inexpensive homes from the market crash and selling them for 3 - 5x what they're worth.
slinkydust
That was 10 years ago and IIRC, Zillow didn't start buying until 2018. That 3-5x times is also wrong.
CheeseborgarSoop
Found the Zillow employee.
MADchemEE
Yeah - it's actually kind of a big deal how much they fucked up. Were darn close to risking their entire business.
comacomacomacomachameleon
it's okay, they're laying off 25% of their staff
comacomacomacomachameleon
not sure if i'm imagining things or just never noticed it before, but the default sort now shows all "owned by Zillow" first?
ShadyEsperanto
This is basically the corporate version of people spending all their money to hoard toilet paper and then desperately trying to return it.
Lulabel73
It’s mental to buy at high prices. Some people might get a bargain now at least.
ColoneISanders
Just curious but are they selling them at a discount or are they still trying to sell them way high? I've been thinking of buying but 1/2
ColoneISanders
2/2 obviously with the housing market being what it is right now I've been holding off
wobblecopterrrr
Yupp, and forcing cities to ban short term rentals outright.
PopcornPotatoe
Fuck that, just regulate out the shit ppl. I travel plenty for work, why shouldn't I be able to rent out my place while I'm away?
Tezzellent
Honest question, why are short term rentals a bad thing?
elletee
It wasn’t a problem when individuals were doing it, it is now that corporations are making massive purchases and destroying communities.
elletee
Also, people often act like assholes in short term rentals, and that creates a lot of problems for people who live there.
Smartnership
If you live in a neighborhood, especially one with a lot of kids, it changes the character of the community — a constant flow of randos
coderanger
Unlicensed hotels run through AirBnB are 1) hurting lots of people, the licensing and regulation exists for a reason. and 2) drives up rents
CampbellsChunkyCyst
It means the houses in town aren't actually being lived in, so the rent/prices go up, the locals are displaced and forced to move away.
wobblecopterrrr
I don’t think they are, the issue is that rental companies are buying up huge amounts of some towns, one bigger issue is that there is-
RunsWithScizrs
They're terrible for tourist communities. There's nowhere to rent. Why rent longterm to locals when you can make a month's rent in just >
RunsWithScizrs
a few days renting to tourists? Drives monthly rent up waaay high for anybody left that's actuality renting long term to locals, too.
wobblecopterrrr
Can be, on the other hand, I used to live on a street with one other neighbor because they were all second houses.
wobblecopterrrr
-an off season usually, then the local businesses just die.
Gobjin
I’ve resigned myself to living in a rental my entire life. Its all just downhill
ToasterDent
If it's all downhill then start looking for a van - those are hard to find because they're needed for Amazon deliveries, and cheap housing.
Gobjin
I’ll just steal one from work.. which also happens to be Amazon
ToasterDent
There you go! It's the American way.
schlockchurch
I like to mention whenever this comes up how I had two clients in a week who had been approached by Zillow, asked how much they want, and >
schlockchurch
> offered $100K over that. They're destroying the housing market.
Skywatcher16
*helping. the markets being fucked by other things too. and quite a few of them equally unnatural to said market as the zillow shit
schlockchurch
Yeah, fair, but they're all borne from the same screwjob of rich ppl taking advantage of desperate ppl, shorting in the crash, buying high >
schlockchurch
< now to skew comps in certain neighborhoods ... There are myriad causes, but Zillow is pretty bad.
FlashFunk253
Lol Zillows incompetence cost them $422M in losses and 50% drop in stock price. They're not the evil geniuses you think they are.
schlockchurch
Who called them geniuses? You don't be have to be a genius to fuck something up. Their incompetence has had consequential impacts.>
FlashFunk253
It's a free market. It will correct itself. As it's doing now.
schlockchurch
< I gather you really don't understand the impact of Zillow on the market at large, regardless to their share in it. Whether it be >
schlockchurch
< the Zestimate, the poaching of Realtors from other brokerages, inflating the market in certain neighborhoods, shifting owner occupied >
ValhallaIAmComing
How does that work? Buy at a high price, sell at a low price?
ToasterDent
They'll make it up in volume!
hammersquirrel
Zillow lost money on the houses. The capture of the housing supply is the issue here since the capital companies can play the long game
FlashFunk253
Except Z obviously can not play the long game, bc they failed and are ended this part of their business.
acme64
use smaller words pls
Bhargo
heartless rich people lose money short term to buy all the houses to gain money long term renting them to desperate people
hammersquirrel
acme64
so why are they selling
hammersquirrel
Zillow was trying to make money flipping the houses. Black Rock and the rest of the PE guys are buying and not selling. For them it’s just >
DeviatedPrevert
is any of this illegal? and don't fucking dogpile on me, I am just asking a question
SomeDetroitGuy
No. None of it is illegal.
circlebreaker
Please don't consider this dog-piling, but you need to reconsider your stance. Illegal and immoral aren't mutually exclusive and visa versa.
HellaGabriella
I am going to quote this incessantly over the holidays, thank you.
skillamonth
It’s not. There was an “agreement” with the MLS & Zillow, for Z not to scalp MLS. The MLS is what your high school friend turned realtor use
skillamonth
You had to be a licensed realtor/broker to use. Now Zillow is replacing realtors/brokers with automated systems doing a superior job.
skillamonth
The MLS is the database containing rentals/house etc, that realtors get info from (this house selling) Zillow uses a robot to access
skillamonth
The agreement was that they didn’t use their platform as a replacement for realtors, they now have. More efficient, less middle men, etc
skillamonth
But this dumb algorithm running robot wanted to win, so Zillow paid $$$ than everyone. Now they’re nearly bankrupt with decaying asst
oldguyexlurker
Wow. I give a reasonable answer, with real information but no knee-jerk, emotional reaction and am downvoted to hell. 'Should've known...
tarnok
I mean laws don't actually matter to corporations..
capefling
I think the system is designed for this. At least tweaked to allow it. This is capitalism in its full glory
ChaneDawg
DOGPIIIIIIILEE!! I fucking love dogs!
Bhargo
not if you bribe the right people
snatchingbabies
The most honest answer i can give you is that its a situation with enough grey that it comes down to whose lawyers are better
briham86
Rule of thumb: if it fucks regular folks, it’s legal. If it inconveniences the wealthy, super-illegal.
lilmookie
Most laws and legislation are reactionary, when there is a new process, some 80 year old senator isn't exactly on the cutting edge.
WhiskeyRequired
Swankyformula33
Get them!
AntennaDibb
it's legally ambiguous, which is what parasitic, greedy, and evil companies rely on when they want to do their morally bankrupt things
UmbrellaCorps
Yeah just the vandalism part tho =/
TheWalkinDude19
Gotta love how this dudes original comment is widely upvotes but all follow ups are downvoted. He wants to understand, ya dicks.
Isthismicon
LA realtor here! Totally legal. If they’re offering cash (they did), no need for inspections either *Zillow shoots foot*
HaveYouEverEverFletLikeThis
Don't think it would matter even if it was its a rich corporation they get away with murder
WinstonSmith101
No. Welcome to your shithole of a country
Nuclearwaste9
It's perfect legal. There are no laws for business to do this.
kmikl
Illegal? Not strictly, no. Unethical as hell? YES.
ReneDeGames
What makes it unethical?
kmikl
The artificial inflation of the market, and then mass-transfer of property which forces buyers out of the buying market, and into a long /1
kmikl
/2 term rental market that they did not choose to be in. Not to mention the sweetheart deals with rental companies instead of selling to
kmikl
/3 the open market. THAT is unethical: I would be interested to see if there were investigations about this, it seems far too convenient.
FlashFunk253
Z did not "artificially inflate the market". They took a loss on homes bc they're incompetent, not evil genius overlords. JFC people.
HedonistBeard
It's legal enough that nobody without millions to spend on lawyers is gonna be able to challenge them on it. That's the important part.
Azawarau
I like how you have to say don't dogpile me 2ith this community.
rudyintheskywithdiamonds
Pretty sure it’s not. They made an investment genuinely thinking it would work out, and it didn’t. Selfish, not illegal.
8x2fj5nt8v350
^ this. Most of the other commenters have no clue what Zillow is doing. Zillow is actually losing money on all these priorities.
fformulaa
U fuckin pos. How dare u ask such a question? You idiot ass, dumber than a rock, fool. Oh, no dogpile. I guess, yeah? Maybe no? Idk
sciencebasedlifeform
Dude.....decaf maybe
Zeefox
Ya gotta remember the /s !
fformulaa
I know! So much hate. Like i posted a video of someone punting a poodle off a balcony or something
anengineerandacat
Don't think so, you would need to own a good portion of an area to influence the market in a tangible manner.
anengineerandacat
Zillow is just a recognized name, other companies do similar things.
cantspellmanslaughterwithoutlaughter
iBuyers is just a part of a long line of people buying up homes who have no business buying homes (ref: rich Chinese buyers in CAN/US).
cazkey
Not being a smarty pants but what’s a dog pile? Thank you.
lightfantasticem172
Jumping on one person after something happens, normally with 'merican football, but can also be used as "please don't bombard me after-"
lightfantasticem172
- I asked something that might be obvious to others"
Darkspire
JIMMY! GET THE DOGS! YEAH, THE WHOLE PILE!
WoodyGoodman
Destination:
DoAHeelHook
No this is Patrick
smithdogg22
Is this the Crusty Crab?
yourbassist
It's likely a new enough concept (scale wise) that existing laws don't cover it.
UpDownLeft
Untrue. This type.of.practice has been around for thousands of years. There is no federal restriction but some states/cities may restrict it
yourbassist
Operative being scale. This isn't like a corp buying land around its building.
LordHosk
Real estate speculation has been happening for over a century in the US, its were all of Trumps money came from his dad did it.
gamblingpoet
DOGPILE ON THE PERVERT wait no you want us to do that, don't you
OuchMouse
In America, corporations and big businesses can do what they want. Any hint of regulation is shouted down and called libtard communism.
Zebrahoofs
You are ok OP, we are not robots here. It is after all, good to ask questions
Fauxcused
Sad, but true, that you can't even ask basic questions anymore.
palmo
It's top comment with two downvotes and was when you made this comment. It is empirically not true that you can't ask questions, dipshit.
Fauxcused
Ease back there. You are being a dick.
palmo
You're reinforcing a bullshit victimhood narrative that is clearly false.
Fauxcused
zYpu called me a dipshit after making a fairly harmless statement you disagree with. That is being a dick. Stop being one.
DeviatedPrevert
yeah, but the only reason it is top comment is because I yelled at people not to be dicks
palmo
That's a specious argument. In fact, considering how ducks react to admonishment, that wouldn't do shit.
QueenSavcy
We need vacancy taxes/fines on residential homes owned by corporations. Make them high enough that corps have to fill the homes so it’s 1/
QueenSavcy
not worth letting homes sit vacant, thereby controlling the market. Make the fine half the worth of the house. Every year it’s vacant. 2/2
crossingdynasty
It’s probably legal, but it will kick people in the ass when house appraisers won’t appraise the house high enough to hit the asking price.
crossingdynasty
Which is likely why they’re selling off to equity firms and/or just renting.
Ithinkimlostagain
Seller can sell to Zillow through its site and cut out the middle man, so the sellers knew and agreed. Zillow then repaired then resold 1/
Ithinkimlostagain
them for a profit. But supply chain throttled and costs of repair went up. Also, they aren't selling fast enough. Having empty houses 2/
Ithinkimlostagain
means losing money. Last wk, they left the house buying business after a pre-tax loss of $422 million. Now they have to off-load houses. 3/3
J0k3rIX
This is exactly like scalpers
[deleted]
[deleted]
ReneDeGames
It isn't Zillow lost money, its investors lost money. It was a bad business decision, and Zillow didn't buy that many houses relatively.
SLCtechie
Just an educated guess, I would assume it’s not unless they own so much they start to venture into violating antitrust laws.
T3NM1DG3TS
Even anti-trust laws still aren’t enforced until it affects consumer prices too much
lujotu
Do we still have those?
ShadyEsperanto
Thousands of properties across the entire U.S. isn't even close to venturing into antitrust territory. Even if we did enforce those (1/2)
TheoFromSteam
"even if we enforced those laws" this is an unfortunate state. Laws are not enforced against corporations or individuals with cash
ShadyEsperanto
The truth is some of the enforcing agencies are so underfunded they can't afford to go after corps with giant checkbooks for lawyers.
ShadyEsperanto
laws. It's enough to fuck the market seriously, but you'd be extremely hard pressed to call it a monopoly. (2/2)
UndeadGopher
These aren't covered by anti trust laws, had they been this would have been challenged. But it's happening all over the country, and each
Trunkmonkay
>implying the US has enforced anti trust laws past 1999.
TheatreStreet
Its only against the law if the poores do it... /s
UndeadGopher
state has it's own real estate laws. Not a thing is going to happen to anyone other than homeowners and potential homeowners. Just like
UndeadGopher
last time. Not claiming to be an expert, but I did mortgage modifications during the crash and I was a realtor for years.
HisBabes
We’re going to have another crash aren’t we?
ilikepot8os
Even if it was in anti trust territory it's not like we enforce those laws anyway.
GreaterDog
They get enforced all the time, but sadly selectively. The last couple major chip manufacturing vendor mergers I'm aware of got shot down
GreaterDog
(TEL+AMAT, KLA+Lam)
Asadsadsadclown
But thinks like Disney/Fox were let through. Allowing Disney to have a 30-40% market share of the US box office prior to Covid.
StuffNJunk852
The laws are pretty much only enforced on mid and low class.
BlacknCrimsonRose
It's why the apes bullying hedgefunds are the ones investigated for insider trading instead of hedgefunds shorting a stock beyond 100%.
Markamanic
Like tax fraud
summershank
It’s completely legal. There is no legislation outlawing corporate entities from purchasing residential property what’s even more insane 1/2
artistkob9000
Pretty sure this is well disproven and just sad, the usa owns most in australia with england second anyway but i want computers to take over
summershank
Is that there’s no legislation prohibiting FOREIGN corporations from purchasing residential properties. China and India are buying homes
summershank
So in my town half the properties you buy are owned by Chinese shell companies cashing in on this insanely overinflated market
summershank
Canada finally stepped up and introduced a law prohibiting foreign ownership of households because the aren’t corrupt up there
Phayze87
It doesn't prohibit it, there are just stipulations. Still plenty of shady shit going on here too :(
hog0father
"as. Still plenty of messed up shit in Canada.
oldguyexlurker
No. It is not illegal. Not even realistically immoral. Obviously stupid, given the financial outcome of the venture. And destructive 1/
oldguyexlurker
to the overall market for housing. The market will probably correct causing more people pain, and probably a few to gain. Depends on 2/
oldguyexlurker
how large their impact on prices were in any given location. It does suck for a lot of people though. (Past RE licensee, 15 years 3/
oldguyexlurker
tracking and consulting on the housing market in an major USA metropolitan area.) Different actors have different impacts in different 4/
oldguyexlurker
cycles. It's an interesting thing to watch and track, but I cannot say it is always pleasant to do so.
palmo
Buying up houses in an effort to control the market for housing during an eviction crisis caused by the shit response to covid is immoral
oldguyexlurker
They were doing that before the eviction crisis. As were any number of other greedy corporations... offerup etc. Besides... the eviction >
oldguyexlurker
crisis didn't really heat up until the moratoriums were lifted recently. Also, evictions are of renters, not owners. Some investor-owners
oldguyexlurker
may have been prompted to sell under the circumstances, but you'd probably find that's not the majority of the houses purchased by Zillow. >
palmo
Oh, they were trying to artificially manipulate prices beforehand? That makes it perfectly moral that they ramped up taking advantage /s
oldguyexlurker
'Not sure where you get that. Many companies, and individual investors had started these programs before COVID was even an issue. It >
MadeYouLookAgain
Your morals are shit then!
oldguyexlurker
Noone who knows me would agree with you. I am, however, prone to flights of reality.
MadeYouLookAgain
You think it morally acceptable to fraudulently inflate the prices of homes to sell them to major corporations making average home buyers ⤵
oldguyexlurker
'Lot to unpack here... 1st. I never said the actions or motives were moral, only that they were not immoral. In fact Ireferred to them 1/?
MadeYouLookAgain
Unable to compete for holes that should be in their price range before this manipulation? Make it make sense for me please?
flarflarf
No, none of it is illegal. It should be though.
DeviatedPrevert
which part should be illegal?
thedadwhobeatshiskidwithjumpercables
1/This is essentially speculation of a limited commodity. I would call it a pump and dump scheme but seeing as they are losing a lot on
thedadwhobeatshiskidwithjumpercables
This they either didn’t intend that outcome or they are really bad at it. Either way the laws covering other assets don’t cover real estate
flarflarf
they're really bad at it, but the point is that we should not allow multibillion dollar corporations to vaccum up all the housing then rent
theLASTromanNJ
Corporations buying anything to purposely bankrupt to sell properties to a third party cheaply to rent, they HAVE to be avoiding taxes
poscduke
Zillow was buying properties to flip, lost 306 million dollars last quarter, decided to cut their losses and get out of the business
theLASTromanNJ
I feel like no CEO would ok a robot doing this and this was a scheme to get those properties to a third company for bankrupt cheap
Filanwizard
Corporations should not be allowed to own single family homes and MDUs should have to be fully local management corps.
Filanwizard
Massive investment firms should be prohibited from the residential markets. They made terrible landlords anyway. Nothing good heard
flarflarf
the part where corporations should be allowed to buy up large amount of single family homes.
flarflarf
"where corporations *ARE* allowed ..." is how that should read, sorry
SomeDetroitGuy
I don't see anything wrong with a company buying homes, fixing them up and then reselling them for a profit.
flarflarf
How do you feel about zillow raising homeprices nationwide then saying "oops" and selling them at a huge loss to REITs?
DeviatedPrevert
all corporations? only single family homes? what if they want to buy the land for redevelopment?
KansasComrade
Yes
CivilizedUndead
That's we're regulations come in.
flarflarf
the free market is not an end unto itself. It's a tool for making society better. When it fails at that job, we must step in and regulate it
flarflarf
Obviously I'm not pushing to outlaw home builders.