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HOUSES FOR HOMES, NOT FOR PROFIT

A house/ home is a fundamental requirement for a person to live, while a company can never live in a house. Is it time to draw up a new social contract to protect one another and should we now consider banning companies from owning residential property? Not from building it or selling residential properties, just from owning them. This ban would only apply to residential property not commercial or industrial property.

UNDERSTANDING THE ISSUE .  

Before I make a few observations, I should point out that this paper is politically agnostic and has no agenda other than starting the debate on a policy change that I believe is now essential to ensuring a secure, fair and sustainable residential property market for generations to come. Anything outlined below is by way of highlighting the bigger picture and is not part of any sub agenda and should not be taken out of context.

Broadly speaking, what has been unfolding in capitalist countries over the last 100 years is a consolidation of wealth. Globalization, successful corporate lobbying, societies shift towards a materialistic value system and centralized governing systems has allowed individuals and companies amass huge amounts of wealth giving these companies and individuals significant competitive advantage.

An institutional investor might purchase 100 or more homes in a single city, creating a portfolio of properties that they can then rent out to tenants for a profit. This removes those homes from the sales market for residential buyers, making an already-low supply dip even lower. We can see that in United States as we now have US, Chinese, Russian, European, UK, South Korean and Brazilian funds to name just a few buying up U.S. residential properties in huge swathes.

There are several issues with this new landscape. The people of U.S. who require a house or home to live are now competing with corporate entities to purchase these houses. Not only can these companies never live in these houses, but they are purchasing these houses to make a profit. 

UNFAIR PLAYING FIELD

A company only pays taxes on its profits. They earn their revenue (income) then they take off all their operating costs and outgoings (wages, rent materials etc) and only then do they pay a very small amount of tax on this leftover profit figure.

Middle and lower class individuals and small businesses pay higher percentages of tax than Wall Street hedge funds and venture capitalists. 

This snowball problem will continue, where the wealth and property will continue to go to the highest bidder with the most capital available for financing. 

Since the start of the pandemic, dozens of King County houses sold just days after being listed. But unlike others in the region’s hot housing market, the homes didn’t go to buyers trying to secure their first place or searching for larger suburban homes to work from home.

The buyer was Invitation Homes, a property management company that rents some 80,000 homes across the country and was created by Wall Street giant Blackstone after the financial crisis (which has been sold to another hedge fund) 

Since 2016, Seattle-area home prices have climbed nearly 70%. Rents in the metro area rose 23% in five years. Meanwhile, Washington has seen one of the biggest increases in homelessness in the country. 

But this is not isolated to Seattle. This is occuring all over Washington as long time residents are forced further from metropolitan areas due to pricing, just to pass the burden on affecting rural towns and populations. 

The longer we wait to act, the more expensive ALL of Washington will be. 

Protection for Washington citizens and residents needs to happen now, not latter. Federal legislation can take too long, and be lost or forgotten about. 

Sign this potention to tell our representatives that we need Washington specific legislation NOW. 

 

 

 

 

*Much of this petition was written or inspired by John Mathews of Ireland, and Heidi Groover from the Seattle times, who has brought about a similar statements to stop corporate greed and keep individual home ownership up.*