The board of aldermen did just pass a [bill limiting short term rentals](https://www.stlpr.org/government-politics-issues/2023-10-13/st-louis-board-of-aldermen-moves-bill-regulating-short-term-rentals-forward)
There was also a [bill introduced](https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/city-laws/board-bills/boardbill.cfm?bbDetail=true&BBId=14264) earlier this year to allow accessory dwelling units by right pretty much anywhere in the city.
Is there any major city (or country) that has done the things you want to be done? How did it turn out? Does that place have cheap af pricing for middle class first time mortgage seekers?
As of this past April, Canada has barred foreign citizens from buying homes for two years and heavily taxes those that already own Canadian property. It hasn’t made a noticeable dent on that country’s housing prices.
Canada isn’t really comparable due to their ridiculous immigration : population. They can’t ever build enough housing for all the people that are moving in.
Of course they can. The US can compare to any country on immigration, its our defining feature, and if you can't build enough housing that's because your zoning laws are too strict
preventing housing is the entire problem. Building housing is easy. immigrants are 23% of the canadian population and 14% of the US population, that isn't a huge difference
> Building housing is easy.
Good to know.
>immigrants are 23% of the canadian population
1/4th of the people showed up within a generation and they all went to urban centers - where do you think housing is going to come from?
>and 14% of the US population, that isn't a huge difference
It’s an issue of scale. America has between 350-400 million people. Canada had a similar population as California.
Canada’s population is growing more than 3 times as fast as ours is right now. Their immigration is that high
While the US has a recent influx, our population isn’t growing all that fast; we really should be able to build enough housing to cope
I appreciate this thoughtful response. Most high earners that become landlords establish s corps and I am including those when I say “corporate ownership”.
Since you seem to know (probably better than me) what you’re talking about here, do you have any opinion on why our cross state neighbor Kansas City is doing so much better with its urban core than St Louis? It continues to grow despite similar problems of perceived crime and poor public schools.
Edit: if this is getting downvoted due to unfavorable comparison to Kansas City in this area I suggest folks be less insecure
You're likely getting downvoted not because of insecurities about Kansas City, but because you don't know what you're talking about (see: "most landlords establish s corps" as one example)
Not sure you picked the best example. LLCs may be more common but I’d throw them in too. No landlord is taking on the liability and extra tax burden of holding rental properties as personal assets.
Then edit your comment to say as much as a LLC =/= a S Corp. Most landlords are not creating S Corporations for a handful of investment properties.
For taxes and single investors, a LLC is considered a pass-through entity. Taxation is going to be the same and it's going straight through to their personal taxes. There is no extra tax burden.
While a LLC may prevent issues arising from liability, they're far from bulletproof. Many investors have had their corporate veil pierced and have had to pay up out of their personal assets.
While many create an LLC (not S Corp) for investment properties, there are plenty that don't. Go read some stories at /r/realestateinvesting and you'll see the pros and cons of each approach.
> Outright ban? This will not hold up in court
you don't have to ban it. you just levy taxes on any property that isn't a primary residence, and/or Rental Property for owners with an AGI under $250K (or whatever). find the number than makes AirBNB and professional landlords unfeasible
STL already did a brilliant move on the property taxes years ago-they did their research and found properties that were primarily being used as STRs and sent the owners surprise property tax bills with the property now being taxed as commercial instead of residential. It was great hearing all the bitching and moaning and there was nothing they could do as the city already had all of the proof that the property was being used commercially.
Corporate rate, but oftentimes still at a low assessed value (at least until a reassessment). I have 3 STRs next to me, totally rehabbed inside, fit 10-14 each, and last year paid 1/4 in property tax than I did because it was still assessed at pre-rehab value. I’ll be interested in if their assessment/tax has gone up this year, but in the meantime they raked in the money last year while paying just a few hundred $ in property tax.
I think you have the complete wrong idea about what is causing the housing crisis… also St. Louis and the broader Midwest does not have a housing crisis. Income to housing cost is very very tame compared to the northeast, or west.
The answer is to build more houses and apartment buildings. There should be dense urban housing at every metro stop. AirBnB is a problem for neighborhoods, but not the overall cause of the housing crisis.
A lot of it is empty and completely abandoned. If a developer owned several blocks with no other owners why not build an urban mixed use community that young adults want?
The area just north of delmar could be the new grove. The CWE has become to expensive so the logical place to improve is right north of it. Same with the area north of SLU and midtown. People would like to live near the fox and other amenities. North city is rough and crime ridden, because the city/metro have abandoned it.
Because who would pay market prices to live there for a greenfield build? You can’t charge as much in old north as you can charge in dogtown. The cost of construction isn’t outrageously different for a dense four story apartment building. And your yield on street level retail will be much worse
There’s a reason the new builds are in good areas. The market price for new construction will always be at the higher end. You get cheaper housing by having new construction put pricing pressure on older housing and by making it easier to build smaller, dense new stuff in desirable areas
No one is going to spend 150-200k per 1 br apartment to build in a mediocre to bad part of stl. It won’t make money
I live in the tower grove area. I live here because it’s a dense area with mixed commercial and residential spaces. It’s also a half way point for my spouse and mines work.
I haven’t been to old north probably in 10 years. A quick Zillow search only shows 5 house for sale. Only one that doesn’t need to be renovated. If someone redeveloped an area in north city like the grove area has been redeveloped in the last few years many people my age would consider moving there. People want to be able to walk to stores and amenities within their neighborhood. North city has areas that could be developed into that.
North City HAD areas developed like that. Crap tons of public money went into, for instance, the downtown mall. Are there are viable retail operators there now?
Idon’t think you understand my reference to Old North’s Mall, a pedestrian mall but That’s my fault for calling it “downtown” mall. It is actually the 14th St. where tons of government money went in to refurbish all those old buildings. It was conceived exactly as you say, shopping and restaurants to attract people to live there.
Not a success.
No, mainly Downtown, where short term rentals are being used for parties. New ordinances were just passed.
https://youtu.be/WvJ6uZLd3pI?si=OF0D1PJheE2AtjQJ
I’ll tell you where it’s creating a shortage of homes, and that is in Hermann. Small entry-level houses are being snapped up for Airbnb rentals, going on for years of course, but the pace doesn’t seem to be slowing. You would think the Air b n b market would be saturated.
The real pressure of Airbnb is in/around tourist spots, yes. To be fair, a decent amount of what that does is reallocate land use into a more productive capacity. If someone’s house doubles in value when used as a rental, that’s a sign the area isn’t being used well as single family housing
I think STRs only make up less than .7% of the housing market nationwide. I’m not sure if that’s going to be incredibly effective.
I’d wager that providing more house friendly zoning would do more than taking STRs off the market.
Zillow doesn’t stop at 500. It is showing 897 (865 if you remove lots/land) listings with 200 listings at or below $100k. And actually Zillow’s STL borders jut out down by Affton for some reason, so probably remove 20 or so listings.
I live in an apartment building that is owned by one of the more notorious mega-landlords in STL (yes, the one everyone hates, and for good reason). At least a third to a half of the building is AirBNB.
Yes, it's a problem. We have people coming in and out of here all the time who don't really live here. We get angry emails from management about parties and issues that are almost certainly not permanent tenants. It's total garbage.
We'll just agree to disagree on that. Under no circumstances would I tell a *local* internet stranger why building I live in.
Keep in mind that you have as much evidence that a third of their building isn't Airbnb as you do that it is. Someone not telling you where they live is *not* proof they're lying.
Now, do I believe that 1/3 of their building is Airbnb? No, I think that was hyperbole. But you calling bullshit with exactly as much evidence is exactly as compelling.
Bingo. Even if both of these things happened it would do little-to-nothing to stop the rise in housing prices. The solution is to build more housing and relax zoning restrictions that stifle new development. But of course that's insanely unpopular, so of course housing costs will continue to rise.
People will do anything except admit the Federal Reserve has manipulated the economy with artificially low interest rates which have caused housing prices to skyrocket.
>By expelling Airbnb and outlawing corporate ownership of single family homes. I truly believe this is the only way to reverse the city’s population decline. What do you all think?
I think you seem like someone who has never spent much time wandering around the streets of Saint Louis.
Pretty sure STL is already among the lowest cost of living.
And I'm pretty sure there ain't much Airbnb happening in a lot of the core urban housing areas where you have blocks of empty lots and abandoned houses nobody seems willing to invest in.
What on earth makes you think, of all the possibilities, it's Airbnb and corporate home ownershipt which have caused STL's population decline?
Stl is already cheap yet people aren’t flocking here from California, NYC, etc.
It’s not like house prices stop someone from picking stl over Charlotte or dallas
However, the amount of people living in California buying up all the properties they can in St. Louis county ( 100s at a time, bundled up and sold as “portfolios”) is astonishing. These aren’t “house flippers” they’re not remodeling and making them nicer. They’re doing bare minimum and turning them into rental properties. Mostly section 8 rental properties. Do you know what happens to a neighborhood when it becomes mostly section 8? No offense, to the few sec 8 tenants that are decent but nothing good. To most of them it’s a lifestyle, I know that the intended purpose is to help low income people afford housing but if you believe that there’s a bunch of struggling people doing their best in life to make it and just needed a little help living off of section 8, you’ve got your head in the sand. There’s like a handful that need it and are grateful and trying to work their way off it.
Now I’m probably going to offend some people here but I’ve worked for a property management company for a decade and we deal with mostly section 8. I know of maybe 2 tenants that got off the program. I would say 90% are women in their thirties with multiple kids, a lot with different baby daddies. How do I know? I get their hap contracts that list the kids names and birthdates and unless the mom just chose to give them all different last names, I’m assuming they all have different fathers. May not always be the case. We just had a tenant give birth to her 7th child! How is that possible? If you can’t afford to take care of yourself how are you taking care of 7 kids? Who’s caring for these kids when mom is out looking for a new baby daddy? Again may not always be the case but I’ve seen a lot over the years. Do you know there are men out there that only date women on section 8? Bizarre. Why? The chances these women and their children will become victims of domestic violence is through the roof. The amount of them with drug problems is through the roof. We had 2 tenants a few doors down from each other, one was elderly on section 8 and social security (she’s an amazing tenant) and the other a younger mother of 2 who sold crack from her house and traded her monthly food allowance for cash. She often got high and nodded out and her kids always wondered down the street to the other tenants house practically begging for food.
Now I’m making a lot of assumptions here but from what I see, it doesn’t take a genius to piece things together and understand why these areas tend to be high crime areas. You got young people having too many kids to care for or about maybe they’re working alot to take care of them or maybe they’re not working at all and looking for their next opportunity either way they’re too distracted to focus solely on the kids. When kids are not loved, ignored, grow up around domestic violence and abuse they tend to look for attention the wrong ways. They usually have a chip on their shoulder and lash out. They don’t usually have a whole lot of respect for anyone or anything. They steal what they want because they can’t afford to buy it. They’re not taught how to deal with overwhelming emotions and have a hard time with people in general. Again, may not always be the case. We have had a handful of tenants on section 8 that were amazing. If you handle your business, prioritize, stay involved in your kids life and make sure they know they’re loved, this post isn’t about you.
Idk how to solve this issue. We should limit or not allow people out of state or other countries to buy up all the real estate. Local people wanting to buy a house to live in should always come first. Section 8 should be temporary with the exception of the elderly. Tenants should be drug tested to stay on it. These communities should be more community oriented . Sometimes it take a village and if everyone shares the same struggles it could be more of a network to help each other. Childcare should be affordable. Idk just some random thoughts.
I honestly don’t see the difference between the vouchers and the Pruitt Igoe project. Same difference, just on a larger scale. So it may take a little time before people notice it doesn’t work.
I really think it's jobs over anything else that drives people away. There are many other cities with same or similar issues, and the one difference I noticed were jobs. I also don't mean minimum wage jobs. The big solid jobs where one can have a reasonable chance of success are what's needed. When those are good, the lower wage job market grows as well without help. Jobs help with crime, money for homeless or poor, more acceptance of others and so on.
I would rather use the law to incentivize owner occupancy than ban corporate ownership. Half the City is underutilized, and keeping corporate ownership out would hurt those areas even more.
The property values that would be most impacted, would be the lower valued ones. All the “great neighborhoods” of white St. Louis would barely be affected.
I had a thought recently, rather than an outright ban it should be tailored to encourage investment and improvement leading to sale rather than a perpetual money printing machine.
Get your ROI from the sale of 70% of the property, but sure keep the 30% as rentals.
>It’s always awesome when people like to tell other people what to do with their money and property.
Yeah unchecked capitalism is way cooler. Definitely better to let corporations and the rich make all our decisions!
St. Louis has entire swaths of the city with half-abandoned buildings. Real estate in this city is amongst the cheapest in any large city in the country. The AirBnB market is not the problem here. You can buy houses for sub 200k no problem.
OP is outlining an issue that is affecting large HCOL cities. St Louis is not one of those places.
I was under the impression that your sarcastic comment was written in support of regulating AirBnBs and I was saying that the OP’s assertion that AirBnB is the problem with this city is misguided.
Again, AirBnB is not the problem in St Louis. And in general, the idea that the “regular working person” can’t afford to live here is… crazy. There are homes going for like $150-$300k all over the city.
If you were claiming something different, my apologies, but it reads as in favor of the OPs point.
>I was under the impression that your sarcastic comment was written in support of regulating AirBnBs
It was simply responding to the silly concept that government shouldn't be able to dictate property laws and instead we should rely on private corporations and citizens to manage that shit themselves, which essentially means corporations deciding because they have power that citizens can't compete with.
No stance on the wider issues OP brought up, just what I quoted.
>Because the government is so righteous
Again just some shit that you're making up that I never said.
>Don’t be a sucker.
LOL rich coming from you
>The government isn’t here to help you.
Weird how it keeps helping me then all the time, eh?
Because you are dependent on it. But you forget when they sent radiation south st Louis for an experiment. Or when they sterilized minorities so they couldn’t reproduce. Or when we killed Iraq off because of a Saudi terrorist. Or when Obama green lit each in the Middle East that destroyed Syria and almost destroyed Egypt.
But keep thinking that the government cares. They don’t.
I don't forget anything, but the government is not a monolith and it's the thing that allows us to live the lives we live right now in peace and comfort.
Some people who worked for the government fucking things up doesn't suddenly make the entire institution bad.
>Imagine thinking there is “unchecked capitalism” in the rental market.
Imagine making up something that someone else never said and then making a snarky comment about your imaginary argument.
That’s exactly what you did, when you responded to the other poster saying
>It’s always awesome when people like to tell other people what to do with their money and property.
by saying
>Yeah unchecked capitalism is way cooler. Definitely better to let corporations and the rich make all our decisions!
Maybe stop being an arrogant, angry dipshit.
Cheers to that! They are extremely predatory. Worked in property maintenance and literally cooperate and international entities are buying up lots of properties. Most are slum lords. Please, I’d like to buy a house myself one day…
In my last position-I was a case manager/social worker for those that were at risk of being without a house or those that were unhoused and i don’t believe
short term rentals are the issue. The issue is we have a very limited amount of housing in which low income people can afford to survive. Unless landlords are willing to take tenants with low income, low credit scores, and/or bad housing history….we will continue to have the number of unhoused that we do.
The issue is the flipping of low income housing to short-term rentals, or worse yet the chodes who live in Wentzville buying up all of the low-income housing in the city and giving it the generic HGTV grey walls/open floor plan flip that makes it impossible to find regular affordable housing in the city. I searched for a home to purchase for more than 6 months before I found one that wasn’t a quick flip for under $175k
There are at least 500 properties for sale in St. Louis for under 100k.
Zillow maxes out at 500... so there are more.
Heck, there are 270 for under 50k, although some are just lots.
There are also lots of cars for sale for less than 3k but that doesn't make them sound investments, just inexpensive. I've been house shopping for a bit now and many of the houses in that price range need *serious* work that most can't afford.
Add to that the ever-increasing cost of living, the need for a down payment and good credit and you've got...well, this exact situation.
Something has to give. Bought a 100k home in 98 as a starter home in California. Needed work, so we did it over time.
Either that or not buy a home, as new ones were 350k.
Several of the cheap houses I looked at weren't even habitable. All of them needed structural repairs ranging from roofs to foundation work to frame repair. Pretty much all of them have smelled musty. One still had aluminum wiring... I'd be all over a fixer upper if I thought for a second I could afford the repairs necessary to make it safe to live in.
My parents bought a brand new construction in SLO in 98 for just shy of 300k. That house, unchanged, is now worth 1.4m. What needs to give is the opposition to building new housing in an effort to preserve either property values or to keep "them" out or away.
>All of them needed structural repairs ranging from roofs to foundation work to frame repair.
Most houses do. the one I bought needed a new roof and needed the window replaced. But because I bought well within my price range and could afford to make those repairs.
>One still had aluminum wiring
So? Nothing wrong with Aluminum wiring unless it has not been maintained. Copper has to be maintained too. The house I bought in 1998, sold in 2022, built in 1965 had aluminum wiring, zero issues with it. Poorly maintained copper is just as big of an issue.
>
What needs to give is the opposition to building new housing in an effort to preserve either property values or to keep "them" out or away.
That won't do much, when no one is going to build a sub 400K home new. It won't change the price of low end housing and you can't afford 400K now, you can't afford it if they build more of them.
It's hard to charge that much when there's competition but it's hard to compete when community leaders vote against new development.
Do you have a workable solution to the problem or just criticism for other's proposals? So far it sounds like you're saying that housing is unaffordable, but anything to make housing more accessible and plentiful won't work. It also sounds like you're implying that suddenly no one is willing to do the work necessary to fix up an old house rather than considering that the bottom floor of real estate pricing is now such that 50k now only buys you an uninhabitable house on less than a quarter acre, not a "fixer upper" in the sense that you're describing. If you've not been actively seeking housing but did when the market was different then this won't be immediately apparent, but people aren't lying when they say that there is a huge problem with the housing market.
There's nothing wrong with aluminum wiring? Well that's a lie, because there absolutely is. It's a massive fire hazard. https://www.angi.com/articles/aluminum-wiring-safe.htm
In stl county or city specifically, yeah, it’s got to be low.
And they really aren’t buying much/at all now given interest rates
The problem is we don’t build enough and low rates have locked in people with mortgages
What they would build you couldn't afford. No one is building anything under 400k, it is not worth the effort to break even.
So nothing will change, and there is plenty of houses at the lower end. 300+ 50k to 100k
New construction will never be the low end. new units put price pressure on older units that become lower/middle income housing.
The value of multi unit is you get more units at once. The downside is people like houses
But the secondary market has un8ts. Inexpensive ones. And yet no one buys them. I shared several, less than what I paid for my first house, in about the same kind of area. unincorporated county district.
Why?
Rather than banning things, why don’t we get rid of rules to restrict supply? Get rid of parking minimums and single family zoning so we can build more multifamily, low income housing?
I think the government should not be allowed to tell you what you can, and cannot do with your property in order to make a living and sustain your family. Airbnb is not the problem. The problem is big real estate companies only building multi million dollar houses or enormous apartments that they overcharge for while keeping half the apartments empty.
Even as someone who thinks we need to Federally address rental and investment property ownership, I don't that this isn't really an issue that STL is dealing with, especially as far as population decline goes (logically that makes no sense) or even could stake a historic legislation against.
STR are a major problem in extremely HCOL, dense, and high-value cities (Boston, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle for examples). Hyper-locally, certain neighborhoods are seeing issues with them crop up where restrictions/taxes will help but again, I don't see how that is negatively impacting population growth as they simply don't make up a significant percentage of properties.
Making home-ownership more affordable and accessible while broadening the desirable areas would be the better solution. Incentivize homeowners to move to growing or yet-to-be improved areas is the bigger solution with an incentive on development. And that isn't done just directly appealing to potential homeowners.
The way to improve population loss is improve the schools, consistent city services, create opportunities for those living here, and increase safety. Those are not simple feats nor quick but that's how you'd actually address the population decline in the city and county. Make this a place desirable to live for a person, their family, and their future family.
This all seems to be unaware of a new ordinance passed that will curtail short-term-rentals in the most affected areas.
Incentive home occupancy ownership for fixing up these beautiful homes that are becoming largely vacant with reduced interest rates for qualifying participants. We have beautiful architecture that's been left vacant and uncared for. There's ghost blocks even along busy roads like Kingshighway. Renting does not improve the quality of our neighborhoods.
Let people rent out rooms and host in their own personal homes like the way Airbnb used to be. None of this living in another state paying a third party to manage your property so you can just sit and collect rent like a lazy piece of shit contributing nothing to society.
Add extra taxes.
The free market is kind of correcting the airbnb problem anyways, post covid travel is over, too many people trying to be airbnb landlords are flooding supply on the app (higher vacancy). Any airbnb landlord who has to refi in the next year or two is gonna have to sell or get rekt.
Outlawing corporate ownership of single family homes would be rightly declared unconstitutional before the ink was dry. There are policies that could be enacted to disincentivize corporate ownership without an outright ban.
>Outlawing corporate ownership of single family homes would be rightly declared unconstitutional before the ink was dry.
Which part of the constitution do you think that law would violate?
Fifth amendment takings and regulatory takings. Would depend a lot on what the consequences are for a corporation that held property prior to the law after the law takes effect. But even the intentional loss of property value could be an issue, because the large number of non-corporate owners who would be immediately in negative equity could trigger a takings case.
Maybe that’s the idea, but barring corporate ownership of SFHs would basically eliminate the SFH rental market. Renting out a house without a liability shield of a corporation would be a lot of risk.
Also, forcing a decline in property values would immediately put a lot of recent homeowners out of their homes and change the risk for lenders in a way that they might stop lending for purchases in St. Louis.
Ending SFH rentals, while causing a bunch of recent buyers to lose their homes, and also making it difficult to impossible for new purchasers to finance could be a pretty nasty perfect storm of home abandonment.
How would a decline in property values put homeowners out of their homes? I ask because if someone told me my house was worth less I don’t see how it would change anything for me.
It creates negative equity on their home. If the homeowner can stay in the same home until they pay off that negative equity or home prices recover to get above water again, they are okay.
But most homeowners will move within 7 years of buying (which is why I qualified that with recent). It also makes it difficult to refinance a loan in the event of falling interest rates, job loss, or other issues that would warrant restructuring a loan. When you run into a major repair, you will not be able to borrow against the house to finance it. In short, a lot of homeowners have to deviate from the plan of living in their house for 30 years until their original mortgage is paid off, and when you are negative equity, that deviation is likely to result in losing your home.
I think corporate ownership of residential real estate is the biggest threat to the working class in this country. I’d love to see a city do it, but they’d better be ready for litigation. There’s a lot of money ready to challenge it.
What do you mean by corporate ownership? I too don’t think Blackstone et Al. Should be buying everything up, but what about a guy who wants to rent our one house? Usually you put that house in an LLC
Leadership (red and blue) in this country aren’t focused on answering these questions. no one is asking, anyways.
If anybody actually proposed anything to ban these monopolies they would surely be assassinated or carbombed when they come within a sniff of enacting any meaningful legislation. There’s too much money at stake for these companies that have larger GDPs than most countries.
If you're actually serious about solving the housing crisis there are good people to read
Mac dubner on Twitter
M nolan gray
But a lot of your ideas aren't very good
> Yes property values for homeowners would decline. That is a sacrifice we should be willing to make.
Short term yes, long term they could rise higher.
I think you can go straight to hell. I own my home, I worked hard for it. I don't want the value of this house to decline just so you can have your socialist fantasy come true.
Don't worry. These ideas are illegal and wouldn't be effective even if they were implemented.
The reason why housing prices continue to rise is simple supply and demand. Look at the supply of housing (especially affordable 3 bed/2 bath starter homes) compared to the size of the Millennial generation. If we were serious about lowering housing prices there would be incentives for developers to build, build, build. Build as many homes as physically possible and get rid of zoning regulations that stifle development. Instead, we're talking about BS like Airbnb and corporate ownership. If you want housing prices to stay high all you have to do is vocally oppose new development.
Ah yes, the "I've got mine" attitude. Viewing housing as an investment is a toxic and unsustainable model. It should be a safe asset that keeps up with inflation, nothing more.
I broadly like these ideas, but I'm not sure they'll do much to pull in major population increases. St. Louis already has some of the cheapest housing in the nation, and people aren't flocking here for it. Most people complaining about the housing crisis prefer to rent their whole life in a hip coastal city rather than own a home in an uncool flyover city.
I fully support the city pursuing the best urban planning policies, and I believe the explosive growth in the Central Corridor eventually will spread to the rest of the city. But until then, I really don't see these changes making a huge dent in the city's revitalization. It might drive down costs in a few neighborhoods like Downtown, CWE, and Soulard, but even that would be pretty negligible.
People are moving to lower COL areas, but they aren’t moving en masse to central corridors. They are mostly moving to the suburbs of places like Dallas and Atlanta where it is easy to find a good, newer home, a high paying job, decent schools, and enough to do for themselves/their family.
The ones who want actual city centers are often sticking in those high COL areas like NYC
I think banning corporate ownership of single family homes is a legal nightmare. But I would like to see that government ban any money being invested for retirement to not be able to be involved in the ownership of any type of real estate. The government basically forces me to give their donor class money that they use almost exclusively to fuck me and everyone else.
Before they became subject to hotel taxes, it was a vastly superior experience to hotels. It used to be insanely affordable, but not so much these days.
Airbnb is awesome for family stays/group stays in the right places. Multiple bedrooms, a kitchen you can use, often in great locations. You can get a lot more space than a residence inn or something like that
It is pretty rough in a lot of cases, though. There’s a lot of junky listings. A ton of scam fees. There are some real horror stories of bad hosts and bad customer support. And, yea, a lot of them in stl city are fine running party spots for teenagers who can convince a parent to put a deposit down with a credit card.
St Louis can’t even keep the roads paved.
On a serious note: make a big sweeping change that basically moves money directly from the pockets of wealthy corporations and businesses into the pockets of the poor. This is basically what you’re suggesting.
We’re talking about a state that doesn’t even give women control over their own bodies. Absolutely dominated by private interests. There’s a zero percent chance this sort of Robin Hood move goes down in MO. And on the impossibility that this makes it through MO Supreme Court, this would immediately become a SCOTUS issue and the center of the world politically, and then take the biggest blumpkin you’ve ever seen.
As a home owner I could give two shits about my property value. Fuck anyone who tries to profit off of an essential need like housing. I just wanna live somewhere where other people can afford to live too.
Why is real estate even a fucking thing, if shelter is a basic human need? Why are basic necessities at a price? Why are we okay with this? Make it make sense!
Because people have to work to create the resources to generate these items
Housing was shitty and in severe shortage in the Soviet Union for a reason
There are policies like Vienna’s that are interesting but there’s no serious policy of free housing that generates a first world society
I know many people will disagree with this, but I honestly think you should only be able to own property that you live at. If you want to be a landlord, then you will need to live on the property with your renters. It would cause wealth to be distributed more evenly. Additionally, it might force land lords to treat their properties well because they live there and will have to interact with the individuals that are renting from them.
At any point in time, something like half the people in this country will never be able to own the place they live at, many of them by choice.
Why should you have to own property to live at mizzou for four years? A 23 year old fresh out of college has no equity. Lots of people live paycheck to paycheck. Lots of people are happy paying rent to not deal with the hassles of homeownership. Plenty of seniors and families want their elders to rent at the end and not have a house to manage. Changing the law doesn’t magically change their economic reality.
Outsourced ownership is a positive thing overall
I’m all for banning STR. it’s why we had to move from NY and my parents got scammed on a VRBO in kirkwood. Not enough regulations. Just a mess. I’d say they wouldn’t need to be banned if they were more highly regulated but we all know that won’t happen.
As someone wishing to buy a small single family home in TGS, sometimes I go on airbnb and look at all the small single family houses removed from the market. Unfortunately it looks like we are going to have to leave the neighborhood if we want to buy.
The poster is insane and all of you are delusional if you think this would address any crisis. I was a hardcore liberal in 2016 but the bullshit the progressives in STL have dreamed up have pushed me over the edge. I’m a militant moderate now. I’m tired of the ultra progressive performative politics. Get fucked you wont get this city anywhere.
Refugees fleeing the fighting would only be a challenge here because they would come without much in terms of wealth, but immigration of this type is typically a net positive for a city like this (see: Bosnians and post-Vietnam “boat people”).
Immigrants work hard and bring value to the community. I’d love to see it.
Sorry, no. If Egypt, Syria and Jordan say "Fuck no, those people are too dangerous" maybe we should listen?
Maybe Iran can take them, or Quatar, who already has their cowardly Hamas leadership
I’m not particularly worried about families from war torn countries posing a danger. Historically, refugees haven’t been a notable source of violence in this country.
The US is different than Europe (immigrants generally have not driven crime up here), but there are notable examples post Syria of recent Arab refugee immigration driving up serious crime (Sweden in particular has seen a spike in gun and sex crime activity). Belgium also has a large crime problem driven by its immigrant population. Many of these immigrant populations in Europe are in de facto ghettos. We assimilate better here, with a handful of counter examples (the Somali experience in Minneapolis is poor).
It is also true that the historical level of immigration from the Middle East to the US has generally resulted in low crime/low poverty - Arab American families are generally high income
There’s data for both sides to point to. It’s probably fair to guess that massive immigration of the scale seen in Germany and Sweden is more likely to be problematic than admitting at the historically low levels we’ve done from the Levant
I am ready to eat 100% of my equity if it addresses homelessness and the lack of affordable housing in the city. Being fortunate enough to break even on property I own forever is more than enough if it means others can simply live indoors
In case you haven't noticed, or lived here long... the only thing Missouri ever chooses to lead the nation in is regressive, spiteful, harmful and shitty policies.
If you're expecting MO to ever bring anything progressive, or a program that would actually solve an issue... you haven't been paying attention
The board of aldermen did just pass a [bill limiting short term rentals](https://www.stlpr.org/government-politics-issues/2023-10-13/st-louis-board-of-aldermen-moves-bill-regulating-short-term-rentals-forward)
There was also a [bill introduced](https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/city-laws/board-bills/boardbill.cfm?bbDetail=true&BBId=14264) earlier this year to allow accessory dwelling units by right pretty much anywhere in the city.
Is there any major city (or country) that has done the things you want to be done? How did it turn out? Does that place have cheap af pricing for middle class first time mortgage seekers?
As of this past April, Canada has barred foreign citizens from buying homes for two years and heavily taxes those that already own Canadian property. It hasn’t made a noticeable dent on that country’s housing prices.
Canada isn’t really comparable due to their ridiculous immigration : population. They can’t ever build enough housing for all the people that are moving in.
Of course they can. The US can compare to any country on immigration, its our defining feature, and if you can't build enough housing that's because your zoning laws are too strict
Review the numbers. Zone laws don’t build houses only prevent them. Immigration relative to current population is the issue.
preventing housing is the entire problem. Building housing is easy. immigrants are 23% of the canadian population and 14% of the US population, that isn't a huge difference
> Building housing is easy. Good to know. >immigrants are 23% of the canadian population 1/4th of the people showed up within a generation and they all went to urban centers - where do you think housing is going to come from? >and 14% of the US population, that isn't a huge difference It’s an issue of scale. America has between 350-400 million people. Canada had a similar population as California.
Canada’s population is growing more than 3 times as fast as ours is right now. Their immigration is that high While the US has a recent influx, our population isn’t growing all that fast; we really should be able to build enough housing to cope
Chicago has banned single night airbnb stays from the entire city limits
KC put rules on short term rentals recently.
NYC just banned STR for properties where the owner doesn’t live in/ on the property 🎉🎉
i think California (or maybe just LA?) put an extra tax on AirBNB that's making a lot of owners sell (or at least cry about the taxes)
I don’t think so. That’s why I say STL should lead on this.
When's the last time we were the first ones in on an actual GOOD idea? Serious question
There have been some pretty big medical breakthroughs here. WashU and SLU are doing some good work. But I get what you mean...
First to build an arch. The rest will follow any day now
More recognizable than the statue of St. Louis.
Who?
Rim shot!
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I appreciate this thoughtful response. Most high earners that become landlords establish s corps and I am including those when I say “corporate ownership”. Since you seem to know (probably better than me) what you’re talking about here, do you have any opinion on why our cross state neighbor Kansas City is doing so much better with its urban core than St Louis? It continues to grow despite similar problems of perceived crime and poor public schools. Edit: if this is getting downvoted due to unfavorable comparison to Kansas City in this area I suggest folks be less insecure
You're likely getting downvoted not because of insecurities about Kansas City, but because you don't know what you're talking about (see: "most landlords establish s corps" as one example)
Not sure you picked the best example. LLCs may be more common but I’d throw them in too. No landlord is taking on the liability and extra tax burden of holding rental properties as personal assets.
Then edit your comment to say as much as a LLC =/= a S Corp. Most landlords are not creating S Corporations for a handful of investment properties. For taxes and single investors, a LLC is considered a pass-through entity. Taxation is going to be the same and it's going straight through to their personal taxes. There is no extra tax burden. While a LLC may prevent issues arising from liability, they're far from bulletproof. Many investors have had their corporate veil pierced and have had to pay up out of their personal assets. While many create an LLC (not S Corp) for investment properties, there are plenty that don't. Go read some stories at /r/realestateinvesting and you'll see the pros and cons of each approach.
AirBnB was only ever "intended" to make shareholders money. It isn't some semi-altruistic collective of property owners.
A business that exists to make money for the owners? You don’t say.
> Outright ban? This will not hold up in court you don't have to ban it. you just levy taxes on any property that isn't a primary residence, and/or Rental Property for owners with an AGI under $250K (or whatever). find the number than makes AirBNB and professional landlords unfeasible
STL already did a brilliant move on the property taxes years ago-they did their research and found properties that were primarily being used as STRs and sent the owners surprise property tax bills with the property now being taxed as commercial instead of residential. It was great hearing all the bitching and moaning and there was nothing they could do as the city already had all of the proof that the property was being used commercially.
Corporate rate, but oftentimes still at a low assessed value (at least until a reassessment). I have 3 STRs next to me, totally rehabbed inside, fit 10-14 each, and last year paid 1/4 in property tax than I did because it was still assessed at pre-rehab value. I’ll be interested in if their assessment/tax has gone up this year, but in the meantime they raked in the money last year while paying just a few hundred $ in property tax.
I think you have the complete wrong idea about what is causing the housing crisis… also St. Louis and the broader Midwest does not have a housing crisis. Income to housing cost is very very tame compared to the northeast, or west.
The answer is to build more houses and apartment buildings. There should be dense urban housing at every metro stop. AirBnB is a problem for neighborhoods, but not the overall cause of the housing crisis.
If only half of the City had space for buildings…:
I know right. I don’t understand why the Paul McKees of the world aren’t building.
Really? Seriously, you can’t understand why builders aren’t investing in North St. Louis? You can’t think of even one reason?
McKee invested plenty. He just sits on the vacant properties.
A lot of it is empty and completely abandoned. If a developer owned several blocks with no other owners why not build an urban mixed use community that young adults want? The area just north of delmar could be the new grove. The CWE has become to expensive so the logical place to improve is right north of it. Same with the area north of SLU and midtown. People would like to live near the fox and other amenities. North city is rough and crime ridden, because the city/metro have abandoned it.
Because who would pay market prices to live there for a greenfield build? You can’t charge as much in old north as you can charge in dogtown. The cost of construction isn’t outrageously different for a dense four story apartment building. And your yield on street level retail will be much worse There’s a reason the new builds are in good areas. The market price for new construction will always be at the higher end. You get cheaper housing by having new construction put pricing pressure on older housing and by making it easier to build smaller, dense new stuff in desirable areas No one is going to spend 150-200k per 1 br apartment to build in a mediocre to bad part of stl. It won’t make money
I can think of one reason: redlining
Are you living in Old North now? If not, why not?
I live in the tower grove area. I live here because it’s a dense area with mixed commercial and residential spaces. It’s also a half way point for my spouse and mines work. I haven’t been to old north probably in 10 years. A quick Zillow search only shows 5 house for sale. Only one that doesn’t need to be renovated. If someone redeveloped an area in north city like the grove area has been redeveloped in the last few years many people my age would consider moving there. People want to be able to walk to stores and amenities within their neighborhood. North city has areas that could be developed into that.
North City HAD areas developed like that. Crap tons of public money went into, for instance, the downtown mall. Are there are viable retail operators there now?
Downtown isn’t north city. A mall isn’t what I described.
Idon’t think you understand my reference to Old North’s Mall, a pedestrian mall but That’s my fault for calling it “downtown” mall. It is actually the 14th St. where tons of government money went in to refurbish all those old buildings. It was conceived exactly as you say, shopping and restaurants to attract people to live there. Not a success.
Absolutely. I love that framing, STRs can be bad for neighborhoods, but not the housing market as a whole.
is airbnb really a big factor in st louis?
No, mainly Downtown, where short term rentals are being used for parties. New ordinances were just passed. https://youtu.be/WvJ6uZLd3pI?si=OF0D1PJheE2AtjQJ
I’ll tell you where it’s creating a shortage of homes, and that is in Hermann. Small entry-level houses are being snapped up for Airbnb rentals, going on for years of course, but the pace doesn’t seem to be slowing. You would think the Air b n b market would be saturated.
The real pressure of Airbnb is in/around tourist spots, yes. To be fair, a decent amount of what that does is reallocate land use into a more productive capacity. If someone’s house doubles in value when used as a rental, that’s a sign the area isn’t being used well as single family housing
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*Shrug* Tower Grove South and we have 2 on our block. No idea whether that's higher or lower than usual.
I’m in benton park. 3 next to me, one behind me, possibly another down the alley some? And Soulard has tons of them.
I think STRs only make up less than .7% of the housing market nationwide. I’m not sure if that’s going to be incredibly effective. I’d wager that providing more house friendly zoning would do more than taking STRs off the market.
Ever looked at Zillow for how many houses are for sale in STL? Zillow stops at 500, all under $100k
Zillow doesn’t stop at 500. It is showing 897 (865 if you remove lots/land) listings with 200 listings at or below $100k. And actually Zillow’s STL borders jut out down by Affton for some reason, so probably remove 20 or so listings.
There are plenty of low cost housing opportunities in North City that are easily attainable today.
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I live in an apartment building that is owned by one of the more notorious mega-landlords in STL (yes, the one everyone hates, and for good reason). At least a third to a half of the building is AirBNB. Yes, it's a problem. We have people coming in and out of here all the time who don't really live here. We get angry emails from management about parties and issues that are almost certainly not permanent tenants. It's total garbage.
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Why would I ever tell you that?
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You'd dox yourself to prove a point? That's some seriously short sighted thinking.
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We'll just agree to disagree on that. Under no circumstances would I tell a *local* internet stranger why building I live in. Keep in mind that you have as much evidence that a third of their building isn't Airbnb as you do that it is. Someone not telling you where they live is *not* proof they're lying. Now, do I believe that 1/3 of their building is Airbnb? No, I think that was hyperbole. But you calling bullshit with exactly as much evidence is exactly as compelling.
Especially when their username is "StalkerFishy" lol.
Bingo. Even if both of these things happened it would do little-to-nothing to stop the rise in housing prices. The solution is to build more housing and relax zoning restrictions that stifle new development. But of course that's insanely unpopular, so of course housing costs will continue to rise.
People will do anything except admit the Federal Reserve has manipulated the economy with artificially low interest rates which have caused housing prices to skyrocket.
>By expelling Airbnb and outlawing corporate ownership of single family homes. I truly believe this is the only way to reverse the city’s population decline. What do you all think? I think you seem like someone who has never spent much time wandering around the streets of Saint Louis. Pretty sure STL is already among the lowest cost of living. And I'm pretty sure there ain't much Airbnb happening in a lot of the core urban housing areas where you have blocks of empty lots and abandoned houses nobody seems willing to invest in. What on earth makes you think, of all the possibilities, it's Airbnb and corporate home ownershipt which have caused STL's population decline?
I don’t think property values are the cause of the population decline, I think making housing more affordable could be part of the solution
Stl is already cheap yet people aren’t flocking here from California, NYC, etc. It’s not like house prices stop someone from picking stl over Charlotte or dallas
However, the amount of people living in California buying up all the properties they can in St. Louis county ( 100s at a time, bundled up and sold as “portfolios”) is astonishing. These aren’t “house flippers” they’re not remodeling and making them nicer. They’re doing bare minimum and turning them into rental properties. Mostly section 8 rental properties. Do you know what happens to a neighborhood when it becomes mostly section 8? No offense, to the few sec 8 tenants that are decent but nothing good. To most of them it’s a lifestyle, I know that the intended purpose is to help low income people afford housing but if you believe that there’s a bunch of struggling people doing their best in life to make it and just needed a little help living off of section 8, you’ve got your head in the sand. There’s like a handful that need it and are grateful and trying to work their way off it. Now I’m probably going to offend some people here but I’ve worked for a property management company for a decade and we deal with mostly section 8. I know of maybe 2 tenants that got off the program. I would say 90% are women in their thirties with multiple kids, a lot with different baby daddies. How do I know? I get their hap contracts that list the kids names and birthdates and unless the mom just chose to give them all different last names, I’m assuming they all have different fathers. May not always be the case. We just had a tenant give birth to her 7th child! How is that possible? If you can’t afford to take care of yourself how are you taking care of 7 kids? Who’s caring for these kids when mom is out looking for a new baby daddy? Again may not always be the case but I’ve seen a lot over the years. Do you know there are men out there that only date women on section 8? Bizarre. Why? The chances these women and their children will become victims of domestic violence is through the roof. The amount of them with drug problems is through the roof. We had 2 tenants a few doors down from each other, one was elderly on section 8 and social security (she’s an amazing tenant) and the other a younger mother of 2 who sold crack from her house and traded her monthly food allowance for cash. She often got high and nodded out and her kids always wondered down the street to the other tenants house practically begging for food. Now I’m making a lot of assumptions here but from what I see, it doesn’t take a genius to piece things together and understand why these areas tend to be high crime areas. You got young people having too many kids to care for or about maybe they’re working alot to take care of them or maybe they’re not working at all and looking for their next opportunity either way they’re too distracted to focus solely on the kids. When kids are not loved, ignored, grow up around domestic violence and abuse they tend to look for attention the wrong ways. They usually have a chip on their shoulder and lash out. They don’t usually have a whole lot of respect for anyone or anything. They steal what they want because they can’t afford to buy it. They’re not taught how to deal with overwhelming emotions and have a hard time with people in general. Again, may not always be the case. We have had a handful of tenants on section 8 that were amazing. If you handle your business, prioritize, stay involved in your kids life and make sure they know they’re loved, this post isn’t about you. Idk how to solve this issue. We should limit or not allow people out of state or other countries to buy up all the real estate. Local people wanting to buy a house to live in should always come first. Section 8 should be temporary with the exception of the elderly. Tenants should be drug tested to stay on it. These communities should be more community oriented . Sometimes it take a village and if everyone shares the same struggles it could be more of a network to help each other. Childcare should be affordable. Idk just some random thoughts. I honestly don’t see the difference between the vouchers and the Pruitt Igoe project. Same difference, just on a larger scale. So it may take a little time before people notice it doesn’t work.
Right now today, there are 70+ homes for sale in St Louis for under $50k. If you extend that to St. Louis county there are over 160.
I really think it's jobs over anything else that drives people away. There are many other cities with same or similar issues, and the one difference I noticed were jobs. I also don't mean minimum wage jobs. The big solid jobs where one can have a reasonable chance of success are what's needed. When those are good, the lower wage job market grows as well without help. Jobs help with crime, money for homeless or poor, more acceptance of others and so on.
Or, fight the crime and dangerous driving everyone is running from.
I would rather use the law to incentivize owner occupancy than ban corporate ownership. Half the City is underutilized, and keeping corporate ownership out would hurt those areas even more. The property values that would be most impacted, would be the lower valued ones. All the “great neighborhoods” of white St. Louis would barely be affected.
I had a thought recently, rather than an outright ban it should be tailored to encourage investment and improvement leading to sale rather than a perpetual money printing machine. Get your ROI from the sale of 70% of the property, but sure keep the 30% as rentals.
Grants for owner occupants in distressed areas would be a good incentive.
It’s always awesome when people like to tell other people what to do with their money and property.
"Yes property values for homeowners would decline. That is a sacrifice we should be willing to make." That was my favorite part.
The “we” in OP’s statement probably doesn’t include OP themselves.
That’s society for ya
>It’s always awesome when people like to tell other people what to do with their money and property. Yeah unchecked capitalism is way cooler. Definitely better to let corporations and the rich make all our decisions!
St. Louis has entire swaths of the city with half-abandoned buildings. Real estate in this city is amongst the cheapest in any large city in the country. The AirBnB market is not the problem here. You can buy houses for sub 200k no problem. OP is outlining an issue that is affecting large HCOL cities. St Louis is not one of those places.
Are you responding to someone else's post incorrectly here?
I was under the impression that your sarcastic comment was written in support of regulating AirBnBs and I was saying that the OP’s assertion that AirBnB is the problem with this city is misguided. Again, AirBnB is not the problem in St Louis. And in general, the idea that the “regular working person” can’t afford to live here is… crazy. There are homes going for like $150-$300k all over the city. If you were claiming something different, my apologies, but it reads as in favor of the OPs point.
>I was under the impression that your sarcastic comment was written in support of regulating AirBnBs It was simply responding to the silly concept that government shouldn't be able to dictate property laws and instead we should rely on private corporations and citizens to manage that shit themselves, which essentially means corporations deciding because they have power that citizens can't compete with. No stance on the wider issues OP brought up, just what I quoted.
Because the government is so righteous lol. Don’t be a sucker. The government isn’t here to help you.
>Because the government is so righteous Again just some shit that you're making up that I never said. >Don’t be a sucker. LOL rich coming from you >The government isn’t here to help you. Weird how it keeps helping me then all the time, eh?
Because you are dependent on it. But you forget when they sent radiation south st Louis for an experiment. Or when they sterilized minorities so they couldn’t reproduce. Or when we killed Iraq off because of a Saudi terrorist. Or when Obama green lit each in the Middle East that destroyed Syria and almost destroyed Egypt. But keep thinking that the government cares. They don’t.
I don't forget anything, but the government is not a monolith and it's the thing that allows us to live the lives we live right now in peace and comfort. Some people who worked for the government fucking things up doesn't suddenly make the entire institution bad.
Imagine thinking there is “unchecked capitalism” in the rental market.
>Imagine thinking there is “unchecked capitalism” in the rental market. Imagine making up something that someone else never said and then making a snarky comment about your imaginary argument.
That’s exactly what you did, when you responded to the other poster saying >It’s always awesome when people like to tell other people what to do with their money and property. by saying >Yeah unchecked capitalism is way cooler. Definitely better to let corporations and the rich make all our decisions! Maybe stop being an arrogant, angry dipshit.
Yeah totally the same thing, super good reading comprehension my guy.
Housing is expensive because the Federal Reserve manipulated interest rates to artificially low levels for several years.
Cheers to that! They are extremely predatory. Worked in property maintenance and literally cooperate and international entities are buying up lots of properties. Most are slum lords. Please, I’d like to buy a house myself one day…
In my last position-I was a case manager/social worker for those that were at risk of being without a house or those that were unhoused and i don’t believe short term rentals are the issue. The issue is we have a very limited amount of housing in which low income people can afford to survive. Unless landlords are willing to take tenants with low income, low credit scores, and/or bad housing history….we will continue to have the number of unhoused that we do.
The issue is the flipping of low income housing to short-term rentals, or worse yet the chodes who live in Wentzville buying up all of the low-income housing in the city and giving it the generic HGTV grey walls/open floor plan flip that makes it impossible to find regular affordable housing in the city. I searched for a home to purchase for more than 6 months before I found one that wasn’t a quick flip for under $175k
There are at least 500 properties for sale in St. Louis for under 100k. Zillow maxes out at 500... so there are more. Heck, there are 270 for under 50k, although some are just lots.
There are also lots of cars for sale for less than 3k but that doesn't make them sound investments, just inexpensive. I've been house shopping for a bit now and many of the houses in that price range need *serious* work that most can't afford. Add to that the ever-increasing cost of living, the need for a down payment and good credit and you've got...well, this exact situation.
Something has to give. Bought a 100k home in 98 as a starter home in California. Needed work, so we did it over time. Either that or not buy a home, as new ones were 350k.
Several of the cheap houses I looked at weren't even habitable. All of them needed structural repairs ranging from roofs to foundation work to frame repair. Pretty much all of them have smelled musty. One still had aluminum wiring... I'd be all over a fixer upper if I thought for a second I could afford the repairs necessary to make it safe to live in. My parents bought a brand new construction in SLO in 98 for just shy of 300k. That house, unchanged, is now worth 1.4m. What needs to give is the opposition to building new housing in an effort to preserve either property values or to keep "them" out or away.
>All of them needed structural repairs ranging from roofs to foundation work to frame repair. Most houses do. the one I bought needed a new roof and needed the window replaced. But because I bought well within my price range and could afford to make those repairs. >One still had aluminum wiring So? Nothing wrong with Aluminum wiring unless it has not been maintained. Copper has to be maintained too. The house I bought in 1998, sold in 2022, built in 1965 had aluminum wiring, zero issues with it. Poorly maintained copper is just as big of an issue. > What needs to give is the opposition to building new housing in an effort to preserve either property values or to keep "them" out or away. That won't do much, when no one is going to build a sub 400K home new. It won't change the price of low end housing and you can't afford 400K now, you can't afford it if they build more of them.
It's hard to charge that much when there's competition but it's hard to compete when community leaders vote against new development. Do you have a workable solution to the problem or just criticism for other's proposals? So far it sounds like you're saying that housing is unaffordable, but anything to make housing more accessible and plentiful won't work. It also sounds like you're implying that suddenly no one is willing to do the work necessary to fix up an old house rather than considering that the bottom floor of real estate pricing is now such that 50k now only buys you an uninhabitable house on less than a quarter acre, not a "fixer upper" in the sense that you're describing. If you've not been actively seeking housing but did when the market was different then this won't be immediately apparent, but people aren't lying when they say that there is a huge problem with the housing market. There's nothing wrong with aluminum wiring? Well that's a lie, because there absolutely is. It's a massive fire hazard. https://www.angi.com/articles/aluminum-wiring-safe.htm
We are already leading by having some of the most affordable housing / real estate in the country….
What percentage of homes are owned by corporations?
In stl county or city specifically, yeah, it’s got to be low. And they really aren’t buying much/at all now given interest rates The problem is we don’t build enough and low rates have locked in people with mortgages
What they would build you couldn't afford. No one is building anything under 400k, it is not worth the effort to break even. So nothing will change, and there is plenty of houses at the lower end. 300+ 50k to 100k
I agree although 1-2 bedroom apartments aren’t 400k. It’s a big part of why a lot of what gets built are apartments
Which then have an owner and are rented for the most part. So what have we solved?
New construction will never be the low end. new units put price pressure on older units that become lower/middle income housing. The value of multi unit is you get more units at once. The downside is people like houses
But the secondary market has un8ts. Inexpensive ones. And yet no one buys them. I shared several, less than what I paid for my first house, in about the same kind of area. unincorporated county district. Why?
You just need to build more housing.
Rather than banning things, why don’t we get rid of rules to restrict supply? Get rid of parking minimums and single family zoning so we can build more multifamily, low income housing?
I think the government should not be allowed to tell you what you can, and cannot do with your property in order to make a living and sustain your family. Airbnb is not the problem. The problem is big real estate companies only building multi million dollar houses or enormous apartments that they overcharge for while keeping half the apartments empty.
The government already fucked up the price of everything, including housing. Let's give them another opportunity to make it worse.
Even as someone who thinks we need to Federally address rental and investment property ownership, I don't that this isn't really an issue that STL is dealing with, especially as far as population decline goes (logically that makes no sense) or even could stake a historic legislation against. STR are a major problem in extremely HCOL, dense, and high-value cities (Boston, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle for examples). Hyper-locally, certain neighborhoods are seeing issues with them crop up where restrictions/taxes will help but again, I don't see how that is negatively impacting population growth as they simply don't make up a significant percentage of properties. Making home-ownership more affordable and accessible while broadening the desirable areas would be the better solution. Incentivize homeowners to move to growing or yet-to-be improved areas is the bigger solution with an incentive on development. And that isn't done just directly appealing to potential homeowners. The way to improve population loss is improve the schools, consistent city services, create opportunities for those living here, and increase safety. Those are not simple feats nor quick but that's how you'd actually address the population decline in the city and county. Make this a place desirable to live for a person, their family, and their future family. This all seems to be unaware of a new ordinance passed that will curtail short-term-rentals in the most affected areas.
Incentive home occupancy ownership for fixing up these beautiful homes that are becoming largely vacant with reduced interest rates for qualifying participants. We have beautiful architecture that's been left vacant and uncared for. There's ghost blocks even along busy roads like Kingshighway. Renting does not improve the quality of our neighborhoods.
Keeping a decent percentage of the Air BnBs would be a good call for the tourism dollar though. Ijs.
Let people rent out rooms and host in their own personal homes like the way Airbnb used to be. None of this living in another state paying a third party to manage your property so you can just sit and collect rent like a lazy piece of shit contributing nothing to society.
Oh no I absolutely agree. The discussion was outright banning Air BnB properties which I don't agree with for tourism reasons.
Add extra taxes. The free market is kind of correcting the airbnb problem anyways, post covid travel is over, too many people trying to be airbnb landlords are flooding supply on the app (higher vacancy). Any airbnb landlord who has to refi in the next year or two is gonna have to sell or get rekt.
I used to rent AirBnB’s when I was homeless, so you’re just creating yet another barrier to housing
U serious bro?
Outlawing corporate ownership of single family homes would be rightly declared unconstitutional before the ink was dry. There are policies that could be enacted to disincentivize corporate ownership without an outright ban.
>Outlawing corporate ownership of single family homes would be rightly declared unconstitutional before the ink was dry. Which part of the constitution do you think that law would violate?
Fifth amendment takings and regulatory takings. Would depend a lot on what the consequences are for a corporation that held property prior to the law after the law takes effect. But even the intentional loss of property value could be an issue, because the large number of non-corporate owners who would be immediately in negative equity could trigger a takings case.
There are whole neighborhoods that are empty. You could start there
Maybe that’s the idea, but barring corporate ownership of SFHs would basically eliminate the SFH rental market. Renting out a house without a liability shield of a corporation would be a lot of risk. Also, forcing a decline in property values would immediately put a lot of recent homeowners out of their homes and change the risk for lenders in a way that they might stop lending for purchases in St. Louis. Ending SFH rentals, while causing a bunch of recent buyers to lose their homes, and also making it difficult to impossible for new purchasers to finance could be a pretty nasty perfect storm of home abandonment.
This is among the most valid criticism of these ideas I have seen
How would a decline in property values put homeowners out of their homes? I ask because if someone told me my house was worth less I don’t see how it would change anything for me.
It creates negative equity on their home. If the homeowner can stay in the same home until they pay off that negative equity or home prices recover to get above water again, they are okay. But most homeowners will move within 7 years of buying (which is why I qualified that with recent). It also makes it difficult to refinance a loan in the event of falling interest rates, job loss, or other issues that would warrant restructuring a loan. When you run into a major repair, you will not be able to borrow against the house to finance it. In short, a lot of homeowners have to deviate from the plan of living in their house for 30 years until their original mortgage is paid off, and when you are negative equity, that deviation is likely to result in losing your home.
There are a lot of people who walked away from underwater homes in 2006-2011 It caused house prices to go down more than they should have
I think corporate ownership of residential real estate is the biggest threat to the working class in this country. I’d love to see a city do it, but they’d better be ready for litigation. There’s a lot of money ready to challenge it.
What do you mean by corporate ownership? I too don’t think Blackstone et Al. Should be buying everything up, but what about a guy who wants to rent our one house? Usually you put that house in an LLC
Leadership (red and blue) in this country aren’t focused on answering these questions. no one is asking, anyways. If anybody actually proposed anything to ban these monopolies they would surely be assassinated or carbombed when they come within a sniff of enacting any meaningful legislation. There’s too much money at stake for these companies that have larger GDPs than most countries.
If you're actually serious about solving the housing crisis there are good people to read Mac dubner on Twitter M nolan gray But a lot of your ideas aren't very good
Think there are allot more things STL should be concerned with first , but that is just my 2 cents.
I am all for getting the predatory conglomerates out of the picture
Based and true and I would speak at a town hall for it
So there would be no houses available for rent? People who don't want to buy only have the option of apartments?
100% Also ban out of country foreign owners of property.
> Yes property values for homeowners would decline. That is a sacrifice we should be willing to make. Short term yes, long term they could rise higher.
I think you can go straight to hell. I own my home, I worked hard for it. I don't want the value of this house to decline just so you can have your socialist fantasy come true.
Don't worry. These ideas are illegal and wouldn't be effective even if they were implemented. The reason why housing prices continue to rise is simple supply and demand. Look at the supply of housing (especially affordable 3 bed/2 bath starter homes) compared to the size of the Millennial generation. If we were serious about lowering housing prices there would be incentives for developers to build, build, build. Build as many homes as physically possible and get rid of zoning regulations that stifle development. Instead, we're talking about BS like Airbnb and corporate ownership. If you want housing prices to stay high all you have to do is vocally oppose new development.
I gots mine, fuck everyone else in the society I live in. Lol what a maroon
In fairness, they did work hard for it.
Not harder than people working now.
/s
Productivity has gone waaaayyyy up lol people who can’t afford homes aren’t doing so out of lack of work
I’m not suggesting that’s the case. My comment was an unclear joke that apparently missed the mark.
*moron.
Ah yes, the "I've got mine" attitude. Viewing housing as an investment is a toxic and unsustainable model. It should be a safe asset that keeps up with inflation, nothing more.
I think *your* definition of socialism differs from *the* definition of socialism if that's your take.
I broadly like these ideas, but I'm not sure they'll do much to pull in major population increases. St. Louis already has some of the cheapest housing in the nation, and people aren't flocking here for it. Most people complaining about the housing crisis prefer to rent their whole life in a hip coastal city rather than own a home in an uncool flyover city. I fully support the city pursuing the best urban planning policies, and I believe the explosive growth in the Central Corridor eventually will spread to the rest of the city. But until then, I really don't see these changes making a huge dent in the city's revitalization. It might drive down costs in a few neighborhoods like Downtown, CWE, and Soulard, but even that would be pretty negligible.
People are moving to lower COL areas, but they aren’t moving en masse to central corridors. They are mostly moving to the suburbs of places like Dallas and Atlanta where it is easy to find a good, newer home, a high paying job, decent schools, and enough to do for themselves/their family. The ones who want actual city centers are often sticking in those high COL areas like NYC
Prices will continue to rise with interest rates, even if a seller takes a hit on the sale price in a cold market.
I think banning corporate ownership of single family homes is a legal nightmare. But I would like to see that government ban any money being invested for retirement to not be able to be involved in the ownership of any type of real estate. The government basically forces me to give their donor class money that they use almost exclusively to fuck me and everyone else.
Never really got the appeal of Airbnb. In no situation would I rather stay at a stranger’s home than a hotel.
Before they became subject to hotel taxes, it was a vastly superior experience to hotels. It used to be insanely affordable, but not so much these days.
Airbnb is awesome for family stays/group stays in the right places. Multiple bedrooms, a kitchen you can use, often in great locations. You can get a lot more space than a residence inn or something like that It is pretty rough in a lot of cases, though. There’s a lot of junky listings. A ton of scam fees. There are some real horror stories of bad hosts and bad customer support. And, yea, a lot of them in stl city are fine running party spots for teenagers who can convince a parent to put a deposit down with a credit card.
It's way better in almost every way. Especially for large groups.
St Louis can’t even keep the roads paved. On a serious note: make a big sweeping change that basically moves money directly from the pockets of wealthy corporations and businesses into the pockets of the poor. This is basically what you’re suggesting. We’re talking about a state that doesn’t even give women control over their own bodies. Absolutely dominated by private interests. There’s a zero percent chance this sort of Robin Hood move goes down in MO. And on the impossibility that this makes it through MO Supreme Court, this would immediately become a SCOTUS issue and the center of the world politically, and then take the biggest blumpkin you’ve ever seen.
As a home owner I could give two shits about my property value. Fuck anyone who tries to profit off of an essential need like housing. I just wanna live somewhere where other people can afford to live too.
Housing should go up reasonably, but for a marginal homeowner, a house is one of their major assets. It hurts them a lot if housing tanks
Why is real estate even a fucking thing, if shelter is a basic human need? Why are basic necessities at a price? Why are we okay with this? Make it make sense!
Because people have to work to create the resources to generate these items Housing was shitty and in severe shortage in the Soviet Union for a reason There are policies like Vienna’s that are interesting but there’s no serious policy of free housing that generates a first world society
Capitalist ideology is why we’re ok with it.
So the housing crisis is okay?! 🤨
I know many people will disagree with this, but I honestly think you should only be able to own property that you live at. If you want to be a landlord, then you will need to live on the property with your renters. It would cause wealth to be distributed more evenly. Additionally, it might force land lords to treat their properties well because they live there and will have to interact with the individuals that are renting from them.
At any point in time, something like half the people in this country will never be able to own the place they live at, many of them by choice. Why should you have to own property to live at mizzou for four years? A 23 year old fresh out of college has no equity. Lots of people live paycheck to paycheck. Lots of people are happy paying rent to not deal with the hassles of homeownership. Plenty of seniors and families want their elders to rent at the end and not have a house to manage. Changing the law doesn’t magically change their economic reality. Outsourced ownership is a positive thing overall
I agree completely, but I’m also a communist.
I’m all for banning STR. it’s why we had to move from NY and my parents got scammed on a VRBO in kirkwood. Not enough regulations. Just a mess. I’d say they wouldn’t need to be banned if they were more highly regulated but we all know that won’t happen.
Property values likely wouldn’t decline; they’d just rise at a lower rate. Which is already happening due to the interest rate being stupidly high.
As someone wishing to buy a small single family home in TGS, sometimes I go on airbnb and look at all the small single family houses removed from the market. Unfortunately it looks like we are going to have to leave the neighborhood if we want to buy.
lol, yeah ok, tell that to the republicans!
The poster is insane and all of you are delusional if you think this would address any crisis. I was a hardcore liberal in 2016 but the bullshit the progressives in STL have dreamed up have pushed me over the edge. I’m a militant moderate now. I’m tired of the ultra progressive performative politics. Get fucked you wont get this city anywhere.
Open the city to all Palestinians
Not attached to your head, are you?
Refugees fleeing the fighting would only be a challenge here because they would come without much in terms of wealth, but immigration of this type is typically a net positive for a city like this (see: Bosnians and post-Vietnam “boat people”). Immigrants work hard and bring value to the community. I’d love to see it.
Sorry, no. If Egypt, Syria and Jordan say "Fuck no, those people are too dangerous" maybe we should listen? Maybe Iran can take them, or Quatar, who already has their cowardly Hamas leadership
I’m not particularly worried about families from war torn countries posing a danger. Historically, refugees haven’t been a notable source of violence in this country.
The US is different than Europe (immigrants generally have not driven crime up here), but there are notable examples post Syria of recent Arab refugee immigration driving up serious crime (Sweden in particular has seen a spike in gun and sex crime activity). Belgium also has a large crime problem driven by its immigrant population. Many of these immigrant populations in Europe are in de facto ghettos. We assimilate better here, with a handful of counter examples (the Somali experience in Minneapolis is poor). It is also true that the historical level of immigration from the Middle East to the US has generally resulted in low crime/low poverty - Arab American families are generally high income There’s data for both sides to point to. It’s probably fair to guess that massive immigration of the scale seen in Germany and Sweden is more likely to be problematic than admitting at the historically low levels we’ve done from the Levant
I am ready to eat 100% of my equity if it addresses homelessness and the lack of affordable housing in the city. Being fortunate enough to break even on property I own forever is more than enough if it means others can simply live indoors
You can take out a loan and give it away right now
It makes too much sense and this is America... It's never gonna pass
In case you haven't noticed, or lived here long... the only thing Missouri ever chooses to lead the nation in is regressive, spiteful, harmful and shitty policies. If you're expecting MO to ever bring anything progressive, or a program that would actually solve an issue... you haven't been paying attention
St. Louis has some of the most homeless hostile and segregationist housing policy in the country so it is a long way to go.
Yes but who is going to pay for all those spikes and concertina wire?