America's New Landlords

[BabaRa]

It’s a new phenomenon sweeping across the nation: big institutional investors buying up foreclosed homes by the hundreds – even thousands – in distressed communities.

Even though the housing market is improving, a new Morgan Stanley report says homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgage will likely have no choice but to rent, and that will result in “moving the country towards a rentership society.”

And that’s one of the big reasons why large investors are buying up so many houses so quickly.

“Looking back a year and a half ago, not one institution owned more than 1,000 single family rental homes,” says David Bragg, Managing Director at Green Street Advisors. “However, today the top six players combined own 80,000 single family rental homes.

Note: About 6 months ago, my son decided to buy a home (an inexpensive one). He bid on over 6 homes, then gave up, as each home was sold for way over listing price and for all cash. When he asked who were all these people with "all cash", he was told they were banks and wall street investment companies.

What the article below isn't saying is that: Not only are they driving the prices of homes up so that the average person can't afford them, but once the banks and investment companies own them they immediately begin raising rent prices.

[Calz]

Chinese are starting to move in as well (have mucho property and even a few towns) based on the simple fact the country is broke and has no hope of repaying all the debt.

Quite clever ... winning a war against the world's most militarized country without firing a single shot ...

Perhaps part and parcel of the same thing.

Hard to tell these days when there is such a remarkable level of corruption on so many levels.

Feds have been selling off national parks, highway systems and more ... yet the debt keeps growing exponentially ... as is expected with the tail end of Ponzi schemes ...

[modwiz]

Quite clever ... winning a war against the world's most militarized country without firing a single shot ...


Think the Chinese might have read Sun Tzu's Art of War?

Doesn't have to be this way but, it will be until we the people insert ourselves in the dialogue. Maybe racism will move them. Government has that as part of the plan. Distracting from the sale by focusing on the purchaser. A British company doing these things would go largley unnoticed. Make some lemonade with lemons.

[BabaRa]

Sometimes things play out, not as planned.

I remember in the late 80's. Japanese bought up many American resorts. A few I know of:

Pebble Beach golf course
Heavenly Valley ski resort
Camp Curry rentals - Yosemite

When their bubble broke, they had to sell many at a lose. Don't know who grabbed them up

As far as bankers/wall st buying now, perhaps they'll get caught in their own bubble they have created. . . .and as our homeless population continues to grow (sadly), the money investors may run out of renters who can afford their high prices.

[modwiz]

Landlord's and the economic paradigm they represent need to go. It is part of the old system and it thrives on abuse, with individual exceptions.

A new economic paradigm, one well thought out and workable, needs to enter our dialogues. It is inextricalbly woven with culture and society and the empowerment of given society and culture.

[BabaRa]

Landlord's and the economic paradigm they represent need to go. It is part of the old system and it thrives on abuse, with individual exceptions.

A new economic paradigm, one well thought out and workable, needs to enter our dialogues. It is inextricalbly woven with culture and society and the empowerment of given society and culture.

I couldn't agree more.

There was a time when I hoped the Zeitgeist Movement and Venus Project would be the beginning of that dialogue. But many saw it as a Fascist movement. I'm not saying either of those were right on, but I do believe they could have been a starting point. I believe the Zeitgeist Movement is still going. I went to some of the meetings several years ago. I thought it had merit as a beginning point and found the originator to be an open and kindly person with the right intentions.

But the majority on PA didn't see it that way.

My feeling was: don't just say "that won't work" and go back to doing nothing but complaining about the Paradigm we've been stuck in. I tried to encourage dialogue with questions like: So how could you see it differently, or can you see a way to change it. . . . but no response, so I saw it wasn't time.

Is it time now????

[modwiz]

I couldn't agree more.

There was a time when I hoped the Zeitgeist Movement and Venus Project would be the beginning of that dialogue. But many saw it as a Fascist movement. I'm not saying either of those were right on, but I do believe they could have been a starting point. I believe the Zeitgeist Movement is still going. I went to some of the meetings several years ago. I thought it had merit as a beginning point and found the originator to be an open and kindly person with the right intentions.

But the majority on PA didn't see it that way.

My feeling was: don't just say "that won't work" and go back to doing nothing but complaining about the Paradigm we've been stuck in. I tried to encourage dialogue with questions like: So how could you see it differently, or can you see a way to change it. . . . but no response, so I saw it wasn't time.

Is it time now????

It is. I see and feel it.

The camel and the eye of a needle metaphor applies here. Where we are headed will not be accessible to those with too much 'baggage'. More accurately, the destination will not be seen for what it is and choice will be the deciding factor.

I see the issue of free choice as a cosmic principle that is adhered to by all parties of consequence. Black or white hat.

A 'tipping point' of recognition of this principle is being reached creating conditions 'on the ground' that will affect our reality.

Where people stand on personal issues around culture, society and administration/government will define which paradigm they resonate to.

That some are very confused owes to not knowing where they stand. We have been bantering around ideas for some years now. Fruit is to be expected. The quickening is upon us and, it is upon us to keep up with it.

[shamanseeker]

Here in Italy at the moment, they're calling all the people who are trying to get our sovereignty back Fascists or Neofascists :(

These people buying up these homes have no conscious but I almost feel sorry for them because I believe they are storing up huge amounts of negative karma - and so they should!

[KosmicKat]

Make some lemonade with lemons.

Or limeys?

If it's true that the game "Monopoly" was originally intended to demonstrate the final outcome of a capitalist system allowed to run unchecked, can you rule out the probability that ultimately a single entity will accumulate all the financial resources and everything governed by them. While the other entities may not be slaves in the broadly accepted sense of the term, they will be under the absolute control of whoever holds the money.

[aKnightThatSaysNi]

Or limeys?

If it's true that the game "Monopoly" was originally intended to demonstrate the final outcome of a capitalist system allowed to run unchecked, can you rule out the probability that ultimately a single entity will accumulate all the financial resources and everything governed by them. While the other entities may not be slaves in the broadly accepted sense of the term, they will be under the absolute control of whoever holds the money.

I don't think what we have now is a capitalist system though. We have some sort of distorted mixed system that does not work mostly because of control of money and power. We have way too many regulations to be called capitalists.

A capitalist system, unchecked without the regulations we have today probably would not even allow for many rich, since there would be no entity picking the winners and losers and humans are not like bees, it would be very hard to have a legal monopoly. Most of the "monopoly's" the United States had in the past were either due to a revolutionary product or with a lot of subtle help from local and federal governments.

[Melidae]

Or limeys?

If it's true that the game "Monopoly" was originally intended to demonstrate the final outcome of a capitalist system allowed to run unchecked, can you rule out the probability that ultimately a single entity will accumulate all the financial resources and everything governed by them. While the other entities may not be slaves in the broadly accepted sense of the term, they will be under the absolute control of whoever holds the money.

Good point, KK.

The terms 'two-edged sword' and 'unintended consequences' come to mind. As the scales tip in favor of the monied few, many affected are questioning. The 'play' is becoming obvious to even those who have believed in the lies...having been laid off from work or having unemployment run out, becoming homeless, people first complain then seek answers.

Slavery works best when one is blind to their shackles. The blinders are coming off.

[BabaRa]

Good point, KK.

The terms 'two-edged sword' and 'unintended consequences' come to mind. As the scales tip in favor of the monied few, many affected are questioning. The 'play' is becoming obvious to even those who have believed in the lies...having been laid off from work or having unemployment run out, becoming homeless, people first complain then seek answers.

Slavery works best when one is blind to their shackles. The blinders are coming off.

I agree. Something has been changing significantly. While many looked to the Mayan Calendar as a prophecy of doom, I always sensed that Carl Calleman's interpretation was correct.
The Mayan Calendar was a predictor of the growth of consciousness.

I think most of us have seen or felt this shift by now - and while the institutions of power and control are still in place, their fuel source is slowly being drained away from them - and that is the Fear of the masses.

I believe it is time for us to shift our focus from yesterday towards the potential new tomorrow. It is not prophecy that will give us this future, but our human ability to visualize it, feel it, sense it, smell it and want it to the point that we let go of what was.

[modwiz]

I believe it is time for us to shift our focus from yesterday towards the potential new tomorrow. It is not prophecy that will give us this future, but our human ability to visualize it, feel it, sense it, smell it and want it to the point that we let go of what was.

Huzzah. Amen and so mote it be. We get what we focus on.

[norman]

As i see it, The free-est 'market' is in shares, not products and services.

There are many reasons why I'm unhappy about that.

Coming from a semi socialist Europe, as I do, and having already settled myself into it's dynamics in a way that Americans have not yet done, I'm not completely against the idea of a state that partly answers to a population and that has the only powers I know of to push back against the corporatocracy that's trying ( and nearly succeeding ) to overwhelm the state and replace it, globally.

I don't really believe we little people can 'vote with our dollars' effectively enough to swing it. I think there has to be a state handbrake. That's just about all it's good for now. Even that function is handicapped by not being as global as money and the shifting of it is.

I know it's tempting right now to throw the baby out with the bath water and have a global 'people's movement' but the problem with that trend is that far too few of the 'people' are educated well enough into the dynamics of the situation to be a mass force for a beneficial shift, or even to pull up the handbrake on the advance of the corporate group tree.

My head's going blank on me. What I wanted to say, isn't really coming out right.

I'll end this for now with a call to end share trading as an "occupation". I think only states have a chance of doing such a thing. The legitimate businesses ( small or large ) that do useful work in the world should not have to be lumped in with grand crooked gambling enterprises that pass themselves off as 'businesses' and hide behind business law and, with help from the media they own, lose themselves among honest entrepreneurs and grafters.

[BabaRa]

I'll end this for now with a call to end share trading as an "occupation". I think only states have a chance of doing such a thing. The legitimate businesses ( small or large ) that do useful work in the world should not have to be lumped in with grand crooked gambling enterprises that pass themselves off as 'businesses' and hide behind business law and, with help from the media they own, lose themselves among honest entrepreneurs and grafters.


Perhaps the one (grass roots) will push the other (the states) into action.

I agree all businesses (big and small) are not bad. But some of the ways listed above are about grasping the control out of the corrupt - not calling all corrupt. And some listed above are the temporary potential interim methods to get us to the next place - not necessarily a permanent way of life.

[norman]

Perhaps the one (grass roots) will push the other (the states) into action.



I'd like to see convincing signs of that, but I'm quite worried that the 'grass roots' we have is being primed and dumbed, and is chewing up the states faster than it's chewing up the corporatocracy.

In a big-picture sort of way, it's actually doing the work of the corporatoctracy for them. Their global economic float to the top ( like all good scum does ) is quite glad to see misguided grassrooters slashing and burning their countries to the ground.

I heard somewhere, that Twitter was a CIA/NSA operation from the get go. I don't know if it's really true, but it sure fits the frame and wouldn't surprise me in the least. It's a near perfect spoon to stir up a chaotic 'grass roots' movement, isn't it?

[norman]

I heard somewhere, that Twitter was a CIA/NSA operation from the get go. I don't know if it's really true, but it sure fits the frame and wouldn't surprise me in the least. It's a near perfect spoon to stir up a chaotic 'grass roots' movement, isn't it?



Also, the new alternative currencies, like Bitcoin are not backed by, and their value guaranteed, by nation states. Nor can nation states gain revenue by taxing them. These new currencies seem to cut the nation states right out of the loop.

That looks to me like a very niffty way for the economic corporatocracy to strangle the most potent opposition to it's goals.

[aKnightThatSaysNi]

Also, the new alternative currencies, like Bitcoin are not backed by, and their value guaranteed, by nation states. Nor can nation states gain revenue by taxing them. These new currencies seem to cut the nation states right out of the loop.

That looks to me like a very niffty way for the economic corporatocracy to strangle the most potent opposition to it's goals.

Nation states controlling currency is not working out too well. Not saying crpyto's are the answer but they certainly seem better than the fed.

[aKnightThatSaysNi]

Perhaps the one (grass roots) will push the other (the states) into action..

Good people are better off without a state. We just need to convince the majority that they are good people. Most are, just don't know.

[KosmicKat]

Rule yourself. Rather than be without a ruler. Autarchy.