PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Veranito 2025

[senslev]

Cuál va a ser el proceso del "desamparo" ?

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P.D. Sí, estoy desmoralizado.
Veo a las empresas sin empleados; empleados sin valía o sin responsabilidad, un sistema corrupto, industrias olvidadas y sobreexprimidas... terrazas llenas, 7€ una cerveza, 400€ por un mes de litera, gente pagando 150€ por unas chanclas.... ¿puede existir una sociedad sostenible sólo a base de sector terciario, pensionistas y funcionarios ?

A veces flipo un poco. Y no sé que esperais.
Gracias a idealista, luego el hilo de ir- en burbuja y aquí entendí lo que estaba pasando en el mundo, supe que estaba anunciandose la crisis desde que en 2006 empezó a desinflarse el montante de hipotecas. (será en octubre)
Me vino bien saberlo.
No vinieron pisos en tapas de yogur, pero surfeé 8 meses de paro, y la siguiente cuesta arriba de años, (dos veces emigrando) con ahorros que esperaba usar en comprar un piso que no sucedió.
Me vino bien saberlo.
Ahora sé que esta situación no va a durar. Se vienen curvas otra vez, espero que no se coman otra vez los ahorros.
Me viene bien saberlo.

El desamparo, a mi manera de verlo, es que no se va a vender "nada". Igual que en 2008. Y nosotros tampoco vamos a poder-querer comprar nada.

Lo que no entiendo es que no nos demos cuenta de lo "bien" que va todo, no comparandonos con Suiza, si no comparando con 2008-2014, donde mucha gente de mi entorno y yo mismo lo pasamos canutas. Ahora las cosas "van" relativamente "bien" con la terrible losa del ladrillo. Pero el paro no es la primera preocupación en España, lo cual está bien.

Parece mentira que me hagais defender a las empresas españolas. No todo son chiringuitos de playa. Coño, que vamos a fabricar los jets de entrenamiento del ejército. Con licencia turca, como el seicientos llevaba licencia italiana, pero fabricados aquí, no comprados de segunda mano.

Hale, ya me habeis hecho decir vivimos en el mejor mundo posible como un idiota. (Que no lo digo, eh?) Pero ya vale con el vivimos en el peor universo alternativo posible.
Que se arregle el tema del ladrillo no es que se arregle "mi" problema con el ladrillo (que ese va a ir pa largo).

No me queda claro si la parte de "España va bien" y "las empresas tan mal no funcionan" es una ironía o va en serio.
A ese punto ha llegado la astracanada que vivimos, que de verdad no sé si el siempre sensato Zelig me toma el pelo o me da en el hocico.

Una cosa es que las peluquerías y las pintauñas estén llenos y otra que estemos produciendo algo.
Una cosa es mover el dinero de bolsillo en bolsillo y otra cosa PRODUCIR algo que pueda quitar cuota de mercado a los chinos, americanos o pasíes europeos con mejor jerarquía que nosotros.
Porque sí, los rentistas gastan a gusto.
Sí, el matrimonio de funcis llega a fin de mes con vacaciones, JusEat los findes y la chica por horas.
Los gays con curro no ven nada caro
Los pensionistas ya se sabe: están los que tienen la pensión por encima del salario mediano para complementar los ingresos variables de su posición en la pirámide del langosto ladrillero... y las no contributivas de viudas de los autónomos que viven gracias a pasar vergüenza en la cola del hambre.

Peeeeeero ¿ puede sobrevivir una economía a base sólo de sector terciario, rentismo y empleos públicos ?
¿qué generamos de verdad ? ¿ tanto dinero deja el turismo extranjero que podemos vivir todos simplemente recirculando ese dinero ?

¿ de verdad no hace falta convertir árboles en lápices o sillas ? ¿ o bolitas de plástico y metal en drones o robótica para cirugía ?

Porque igual es que al que no le va bien es a mí sólo y extrapolo.... pero luego resulta que no, que yo estoy mucho mejor que los demás ! y entonces no entiendo lo que veo salvo que todos se hayan puesto de acuerdo para bailar a ritmo de trap "para abajo para abajo disfruta que se va todo al carajo" mientras el Titanic levanta uno de sus extremos decenas de metros como si fuera a tocar el cielo

Describís el sistema KK, por eso la confusión.

[Derby]

https://www.baha.com/Trump-BRICS-threat-to-dollar-like-losing-a-world-war/news/details/64420546

Trump: BRICS threat to dollar like losing a world war

United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned that efforts by BRICS nations to undermine the US dollar pose a threat comparable to "losing a major World War."

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting, Trump accused the bloc of trying to strip the dollar of its global reserve status, declaring, "The dollar is king. We're going to keep it that way." The president also warned that under weak leadership, the US could "lose the standard," adding, "We would not be the same country any longer."

[conejo]

Análisis y resumen de transacciones de vivienda en España 2014–2023

Tendencias clave del periodo

1. Desbancarización del comprador típico: el mercado ya no está dominado por compradores individuales con hipoteca, sino por fondos, sociedades e inversiones sin apalancamiento.
2. Financierización del parque inmobiliario: el crecimiento constante de las compras por sociedades indica un proceso de concentración de la propiedad, debilitando el acceso a vivienda en manos de particulares.
3. Segmentación territorial: el mercado está altamente polarizado. Madrid, Barcelona y Baleares concentran la especulación y la inversión institucional, mientras que otras regiones presentan dinámicas más familiares.

Conclusión

El mercado de vivienda en España 2014–2023 refleja una transformación estructural:

- De un mercado de propietarios con hipoteca a uno orientado al rentismo financiero.

- De la vivienda como uso y derecho a un activo especulativo.

- El 2023 representa el fin de un ciclo de expansión apalancada y el inicio de una etapa de concentración patrimonial, en la que el acceso a la vivienda vuelve a ser más difícil para la población general.



Fuentes:   
- INE: Transacciones y superficie media de viviendas. 
- Registradores: Informes de inversión institucional.

Yo veo un dato que no me cuadra. Por un lado la participación de los fondos es del 15 por ciento del total de compras, según lo que se dice en el informe. Por otro lado la conclusión es que los fondos son uno de los actores dominante en las compras a fecha de 2023 - final del informe-. ¿Y que pasa con el 85 por ciento restante? ¿No son esos los dominantes, que son muchos más?

No se, a mí el informe me parece que trata de imponer una conclusión muy cómoda y agradable - los rentistas despiadados son otros, y son malvados fondos de inversión, entes colectivos despersonalizados convenientemente- a partir de datos que dicen lo contrario - es la población en general la que participa del desmadre inmobiliario-.

Al mezclar a los fondos en la ecuación y nombrarlos explícitamente y no mencionar también por su nombre a los particulares - se usa la elipsis de la inversión sin apalancamiento- se oculta la participación de estos últimos en la burbuja.

@Tomasjos: Tiene razón, la conclusión aparece sesgada, aunque entiendo que se refiere más a la tendencia que al número total. Los mismos datos contradicen a la conclusión, como bien señala.

Lo que me parece muy interesante de su comentario es el apunte sobre la falta de datos sobre compradores extranjeros particulares. Añadiendo esa columna a la tabla queda así:

(El resumen final ‘claves sobre compradores extranjeros’ es un comentario incluido al generarse la nueva tabla, no es una interpretación posterior separada).


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PD: Por lo que se está viendo con las IAs está claro que son buenas para algunas cosas y son causa de problemas en otras. Pero como todo en esta vida: no se puede generalizar.

En el post anterior que comenta Tomasjos la búsqueda de datos (DeepSeek) y la interpretación (ChatGPT) están hechos por separado. Naturalmente es mejor dar más credibilidad a los datos, —que provienen (supuestamente) de búsquedas en las fuentes citadas—, que a la interpretación de los mismos, ya que a veces es demasiado ‘subjetiva’ o sesgada.

En cuanto a las tablas propiamente dichas son búsquedas a título personal, configuradas para tener la visión panorámica de algún asunto que me genera curiosidad, o resumir cuando me parece que un texto no explica lo suficiente. Quiero decir expresamente que no son informes científicos de nada más allá de los datos que proporciona un buscador.

Por otra parte, de paso, me sirven para probar las capacidades de las IAs para distintos usos.


Si comparto aquí estas tablas es por dos razones:

1 - para que, si a alguien le sirve, pueda ver ciertos datos estructurados en este formato (y pueda sacar sus propias conclusiones), y

2 - como en este caso, para que las critiquen y con mucho gusto poderlas corregir, mejorar o completar si es necesario.

 

[Derby]

Disonancia cognitiva.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-trump-says-he-wont-extend-august-1-deadline-after-letters-to-japan-south-korea-others-200619781.html

Trump tariffs live updates: Trump says he won't extend August 1 deadline after letters to Japan, South Korea, others

(...)Meanwhile, China warned Trump on Tuesday against restarting trade tensions and that it would hit back at countries that make deals with the US to exclude China from supply chains.

Last month, the US and China agreed on a trade framework to ease tensions, but many details remain vague. Investors are now waiting to see if this agreement can withstand a new round of trade brinkmanship.

"One conclusion is abundantly clear: dialogue and cooperation are the only correct path," the official People's Daily said in a commentary, referring to the exchanges in the current round of China-US trade tension.

https://www.baha.com/Trump-Were-getting-along-with-China-really-well/news/details/64420618

Trump: We're getting along with China really well

United States President Donald Trump expressed on Tuesday his belief that "we're getting along with China really well" concerning the talks about the two countries' trade relations.

Speaking to the press during the meeting with his cabinet, Trump pointed out frequent conversations with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. He also praised Beijing for being "very fair" in the ongoing negotiations about a trade deal.

Still, Trump also noted the importance of the US being dominant in researching and developing artificial intelligence (AI), claiming that "we're leading China a lot in AI."

[Derby]

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/response-to-china-housing-crisis-will-exacerbate-demographic-decline-by-yi-fuxian-2025-07

China’s Housing Crisis Is Worse Than It Seems



By fueling demographic collapse, Japan’s short-sighted approach to ending its “lost decades” has set the stage for “lost centuries.” Now, Chinese policymakers – who are facing an even more severe housing and demographic crisis – are at risk of making the same mistakes.

MADISON, WISCONSIN – China’s economy today bears an unsettling resemblance to Japan’s in the 1990s, when the collapse of a housing bubble led to prolonged stagnation. But Japan’s “lost decades” were not the inevitable result of irreversible trends; they reflected policy blunders, rooted in a flawed understanding of the challenges the economy faced. Will Chinese policymakers make the same mistakes?

Japan’s housing bubble was preceded by sharply rising ratios of home prices to annual income, with Tokyo’s surging from eight in 1985 to 18 in 1990. This trend was driven by a number of factors, including Japan’s land-tax policy, financial deregulation, and poor coordination of fiscal and monetary policy. But demand from first-time homebuyers – aged 39-43, on average – also made a substantial contribution.



Because homeowners felt wealthier, they consumed more. This drove up the prices of goods, services, and stocks, leading to more jobs and less unemployment. But demand for new housing soon began to fall, and demographic shifts were a key factor. In 1991, as the share of Japan’s population aged 65 and older reached 13%, the number of first-time homebuyers began to decline. Property values plummeted, the stock market collapsed, and Japan fell into a deflationary trap, characterized by falling fertility and rising unemployment.



A misdiagnosis of the problem made matters much worse: what was actually a chronic demographic disease was treated as an acute illness. Policymakers believed that Japan was grappling with yen appreciation as a result of the 1985 Plaza Accord, under which the world’s major economies agreed to devalue the dollar. So, to stem the currency’s rise, they printed money, lowered interest rates, increased the government deficit, and engaged in quantitative easing.

These policies, together with the rebound in the number of new homebuyers that began in 2001, caused home prices to start rising again – and exacerbated the underlying disease. As starting a family became more expensive, young people delayed marriage and had fewer children. The government tried to boost birth rates with interventions like increased child allowances and improved childcare services, but it achieved only limited success: the fertility rate rose from 1.26 births per woman in 2005 to a mere 1.45 a decade later.

At that point, then-Prime Minister Abe Shinzō set the goal of lifting the fertility rate to 1.8. But the relevant measures – which sought, for example, to make it easier for women to return to work after giving birth – could not offset the effects of the accommodative monetary policies that were viewed as vital to combat deflation and stimulate economic growth. Home prices continued to soar, marriages declined further, and births plummeted. Last year, Japan’s fertility rate amounted to just 1.15 births per woman.

In the past, Japan welcomed low interest rates and a weak yen, because its economy was highly dependent on exports. But the aging and shrinking of its labor force have generated upward pressure on wages, fueling domestic inflation, weakening manufacturing, and transforming Japan from a surplus country into a deficit country, thereby making it vulnerable to imported inflation. So, Japan has escaped its deflationary trap only to become ensnared in a long-term inflationary trap, which, by reducing purchasing power and parenting capacity, will reduce fertility further. By fueling a demographic collapse, Japan’s approach to ending its “lost decades” has set the stage for “lost centuries.”

This should serve as a cautionary tale for China, which is confronting real-estate and demographic crises of its own. In recent decades, rapid urbanization, policy-induced artificial land scarcity, the dependence of local governments on land sales for revenue, and heady expectations of future growth caused real-estate prices to soar. Strong demand from first-time homebuyers also helped: since young Chinese typically have no siblings, owing to decades of fertility restrictions, they tend to purchase their first home about 11 years earlier than their Japanese counterparts.

But the number of Chinese urban dwellers aged 28-32 peaked in 2019 – and the real-estate bubble burst shortly thereafter. Now, the real-estate sector – which, at its 2020-21 peak, contributed 25% of total GDP and 38% of government revenue – is blighted by weak demand, falling construction, and severe overcapacity. Declining prices have decimated household wealth, with losses equivalent to China’s annual economic output. This has undermined consumption, employment, borrowing, and investment.

The crisis that is brewing in China is more severe than the one Japan faced. For starters, China’s housing bubble is much larger. For example, residential investment, as a share of GDP, was about 1.5 times higher in China in 2020 than in Japan in 1990. Property accounted for about 70% of Chinese households’ total assets in 2020, compared to around 50% in Japan in 1990. China’s price-to-income ratio today is more than twice that of Japan in 1990.

Moreover, China’s fertility rate is lower. Whereas Japan experienced a second surge of first-time homebuyers a decade after the first, China can look forward to no such thing. The share of the population over the age of 65 is increasing much faster in China than it did in Japan: it took Japan 28 years to get where China will get between now and 2040. During that period (1997-2025), Japanese GDP growth averaged just 0.6% annually.

Finally, China faces much greater deflationary and unemployment pressures than Japan did. Chinese household consumption accounted for only 38% of GDP in 2020, compared to 50% in Japan in 1990.

But perhaps the most ominous portent is that China’s government continues to tout a potential growth rate of 5%, with some prominent figures suggesting that it could achieve rates as high as 8%. To get there, policymakers are pursuing measures with high short-term returns – such as expanding the supply of affordable housing and carrying out quantitative easing – while all but ignoring the economy’s weak fundamentals. As Hegel famously put it, “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.”

Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spearheaded the movement against China’s one-child policy and is the author of Big Country with an Empty Nest (China Development Press, 2013), which went from being banned in China to ranking first in China Publishing Today’s 100 Best Books of 2013 in China.

[asustadísimos]

[Usando la «Retórica del Desamparo» de Trump con Zelensky en la Bronca del Desamparo, en el Despacho Oval, Trump no tiene cartas para jugar a la mierda esta de los aranceles-freno contra los BRICS. A los proveedores, los aranceles les dan igual en el largo plazo. A corto, a poco planificados que estén (que lo están), tienen la infravaloración del valor en aduana y el lavado de origen.

Ponerse estrecho con BRICS es ponerle puertas al campo y empeorar la patética situación de EE. UU.

Dado que, en realidad, el mundo es tripolar (el anglo, la UE y los BRICS liderados por China, Rusia e Irán), EE. UU. solo tiene un camino posible: joder a la UE.

Los españoles nunca teníamos que haber sido tan antiaglo desde Blas de Lezo.

Cada día que pasa vemos más clara la cuestión geopolítica y cómo y cuándo EE. UU. hace ¡plof!

El día del ¡plof!, sin lugar a dudas, es el día de la bestia para el Ladrillo, aunque puede ser antes en según qué sitios.]

[conejo]

La IA está haciendo estropicios en empresas que luego necesitan a profesionales: "Cobro por solucionar problemas causados por la IA"

Testimonios de personas que están ganando dinero arreglando los problemas causados por la inteligencia artificial

 

Sólo lamento que no haya un equivalente con el tocho en cuanto que la bola de mierda reviente.

El equivalente (de momento) es: «si no lo vendo, lo alquilo» 

[Mad Men]

[Usando la «Retórica del Desamparo» usada por Trump con Zelensky en la Bronca del Desamparo, en el Despacho Oval, Trump no tiene cartas para jugar a la mierda esta de los aranceles-freno contra los BRICS. A los proveedores, los aranceles les dan igual en el largo plazo. A corto, a poco planificados que estén (que lo están), tienen la infravaloración del valor en aduana y el lavado de origen.

Ponerse estrecho con BRICS es ponerle puertas al campo y empeorar la patética situación de EE. UU.

Dado que, en realidad, el mundo es tripolar (el anglo, la UE y los BRICS liderados por China, Rusia e Irán), EE. UU. solo tiene un camino posible: joder a la UE.

Los españoles nunca teníamos que haber sido tan antiaglo desde Blas de Lezo.

Cada día que pasa vemos más clara la cuestión geopolítica y cómo y cuándo EE. UU. hace ¡plof!

El día del ¡plof!, sin lugar a dudas, es el día de la bestia para el Ladrillo, aunque puede ser antes en según qué sitios.]

Aporto mi grano de arena desde la ignorancia.


Los BRICS no es nada organizado ni países que buscan un fin común, de hecho entre ellos,muchos se llevan mal o muy mal, India y China por ejemplo.

Tampoco son una alternativa al comercio, porque no establecen sistemas comunes de cambio, ni tienen fiabilidad muchos, ni tampoco andan muy unidos, Xi y Putin no han ido, esto es muy muy importante. Y India se está distanciando porque ve que con la UE o EEUU hace mejores negocios y son más fiables.

La mayoría enviarán a cagar a los BRICS si consiguen un buen trato con EEUU.

Respecto a Trump, es un auténtico caballo de troya contra la hegemonía de EEUU. Sigo flipando con lo que hace, y cada vez se supera más. No sw si los daños que está haciendo serán temporales o estructurales, yo creo que al final serán temporales , ya veremos en las siguientes elecciones.


Respecto a España, EEUU siempre ha sido un país que nos ha jodido, apoya antes a Marruecos que a España, nos quitó filipinas y Puerto Rico, también Cuba, jodió a nuestros hermanos Mexicanos robándoles el 40% del territorio. Y siempre nos ha tratado con desprecio o indiferencia.

El mundo es bastante mierdero fuera de la UE, y algún país más.

Saludos.

[Derby]

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/investors-snap-growing-share-us-homes-traditional-buyers-123560969

Investors snap up growing share of US homes as traditional buyers struggle to afford one

Real estate investors are buying a larger share of U.S. homes as high prices and borrowing costs deter traditional buyers

LOS ANGELES -- Real estate investors are snapping up a bigger share of U.S. homes on the market as rising prices and stubbornly high borrowing costs freeze out many other would-be homebuyers.

Nearly 27% of all homes sold in the first three months of the year were bought by investors -- the highest share in at least five years, according to a report by real estate data provider BatchData.

Between 2020 and 2023, the share of homes bought by investors averaged 18.5%.

All told, investors bought 265,000 homes in the January-March quarter, an increase of 1.2% from the same period a year earlier, the firm said.

Despite the modest annual increase, the rise in the share of investor home purchases is more a reflection of how much the housing market has slowed as traditional buyers face growing affordability constraints, according to BatchData.

The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump since early 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Home sales fell last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.

They’ve remained sluggish so far this year, as many prospective homebuyers have been discouraged by elevated mortgage rates and home prices that have kept climbing, though more slowly.

As home sales have slowed, properties are taking longer to sell. That's led to a sharply higher inventory of homes on the market, benefitting investors and other home shoppers who can afford to bypass current mortgage rates by paying in cash or tapping home equity gains.

“As traditional buyers struggle with affordability, investors with cash and financing advantages are stepping in to maintain transaction volume,” according to the report.

BatchData analyzes U.S. home sales records to determine which properties were purchased by investors. These could include vacation homes or rentals, but not a homebuyer’s primary residence.

Investors bought 1.2 million homes in 2024, up from an average of 1.1 million homes a year going back to 2020, according to BatchData.

Even so, investor-owned homes account for roughly 20% of the nation's 86 million single-family homes, the firm said.

Of those, mom-and-pop investors, or those who own between 1 and 5 homes, account for 85% of all investor-owned residential properties, while those with between 6 and 10 properties account for another 5%.

Institutional investors that own 1,000 or more homes account for only about 2.2% of all investor-owned homes, the firm said.

And that number could get smaller, amid signs that large institutional investors are scaling back home purchases.

Out of a group of eight of the biggest companies that own and lease single-family houses, including Invitation Homes and American Homes 4 Rent, six sold more homes in the second quarter than they bought, according to data from Parcl Labs.

[Mad Men]

La IA está haciendo estropicios en empresas que luego necesitan a profesionales: "Cobro por solucionar problemas causados por la IA"

Testimonios de personas que están ganando dinero arreglando los problemas causados por la inteligencia artificial

 

Sólo lamento que no haya un equivalente con el tocho en cuanto que la bola de mierda reviente.

El equivalente (de momento) es: «si no lo vendo, lo alquilo» 

O peor aún,<Si no lo vendo lo cierro porque para comer no me falta>


Saludos

[conejo]

Ya que estamos veamos los últimos 20 años…

[Derby]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/07/europe-financial-sector-house-prices-politics

Across Europe, the financial sector has pushed up house prices. It’s a political timebomb, Tim White

We’ve been living in a great experiment: can finance provide basic human rights such as housing? The answer is increasingly no

“The housing crisis is now as big a threat to the EU as Russia,” Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, recently declared. “We’re running the risk of having the working and middle classes conclude that their democracies are incapable of solving their biggest problem.”

It is not hard to see where Collboni is coming from. From Dublin to Milan, residents routinely find half of their incomes swallowed up by rent, and home ownership is unthinkable for most. Major cities are witnessing spiralling house prices and some have jaw-dropping year-on-year median rent increases of more than 10%. People are being pushed into ever more precarious and cramped conditions and homelessness is rapidly rising.

As Collboni asserts, housing lies at the heart of surging political disfranchisement across mainland Europe. The crisis is fuelling the far right – linked, for example, to the support for Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the recent victory of the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom party. Housing has become a primary engine of inequality, reinforcing divisions between the asset-haves and have-nots and disproportionately affecting minority groups. Far from offering security and safety, for many in Europe housing is now a primary cause of suffering and despair.

But not everyone is suffering. At the same time it is robbing normal people of a comfortable and dignified life, the housing crisis is lining the pockets of a small number of individuals and institutions. Across Europe in recent decades the same story has unfolded, albeit in very different ways: power has shifted to those who profit from housing, and away from those who live in it.

The most striking manifestation of this shift is the large-scale ownership and control of homes by financial institutions, particularly since the 2008 global financial crisis. In 2023, $1.7tn of global real estate was managed by institutional investors such as private equity firms, insurance companies, hedge funds, banks and pension funds, up from $385bn in 2008. Spurred by loose monetary policy, these actors consider Europe’s housing a particularly lucrative and secure “asset class”. Purchases of residential property in the euro area by institutional investors tripled over the past decade. As a London-based asset manager puts it: “Real estate investors with exposure to European residential assets are the cats that got the cream,” with housing generating “stronger risk-adjusted returns than any other sector”.

The scale of institutional ownership in certain places is staggering. In Ireland, nearly half of all units delivered since 2017 were purchased by investment funds. Across Sweden, the share of private rental apartments with institutional investors as landlords has swelled to 24%. In Berlin, €40bn of housing assets are now in institutional portfolios, 10% of the total housing stock. In the four largest Dutch cities, a quarter of homes for sale in recent years were purchased by investors. Even in Vienna, a city widely heralded for its vast, subsidised housing stock, institutional players are now invested in every 10th housing unit and 42% of new private rental homes.

Not all investors are the same. But when the aim is to make money from housing it can mean only one thing: prices go up. As Leilani Farha, a former UN special rapporteur, points out, investment funds have a “fiduciary duty” to maximise returns to shareholders, which often include the pension funds on which ordinary people rely. They therefore do all they can to increase prices and reduce expenditure, including via “renoviction” (using refurbishment as an excuse to hike rents), under-maintenance and the introduction of punitive fees. When the private equity giant Blackstone acquired and renovated homes across Stockholm, it increased rents on some of the homes by up to 50%, the economic geographer Brett Christophers found. “Green” retrofits in the name of sustainability are also an increasingly common tactic.

The corporate capture of our homes has not sprung out of thin air. Decades of housing market privatisation, liberalisation and speculation have enabled the financial sector to tighten its grip on European households. From the 1980s in places such as Italy, Sweden and Germany, government-owned apartments were transferred en masse to the private market. In Berlin, for example, vast bundles of public housing were sold overnight to large corporations. In one single transaction, Deutsche Wohnen purchased 60,000 flats from the city in 2006 for €450m; just €7,500 per apartment.

With the role of welfare states in housing provision dismantled, many countries reached for demand-side interventions such as liberalising mortgage credit. This fuelled widespread speculation, pushed up house prices and encouraged extreme levels of household indebtedness. The resulting financial crisis of 2008 provided fresh opportunities for investors. Countries such as Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland became a treasure trove of “distressed” assets and mortgage debt that could be scooped up at bargain prices. Despite the widespread devastation caused by the crisis, Europe’s dependence on the financial sector for housing solutions only intensified in the years that followed.

As power has shifted to investors and speculators, and governments have become ever more reliant on them, so it has been withdrawn from residents. In order to incentivise or “de-risk” private investment, governments across Europe have weakened tenant protections, slashed planning regulations and building standards, and offered special subsidies, grants and tax breaks for entities such as real estate investment trusts. One group in particular has borne the brunt of this: renters. Renters have seen their rents skyrocket, living conditions deteriorate and their security undermined. In Europe, some investment funds have directly driven the displacement of lower-income tenants and overseen disruptive evictions.

Powerful financial actors have done a great job at framing themselves as the solution to, rather than the cause of, the prevailing crisis. They have incessantly pushed the now-dominant narrative that more real estate investment is a good thing because it will increase the supply of much-needed homes. Blackstone, for example, claims to play a “positive role in addressing the chronic undersupply of housing across the continent”. But the evidence suggests that greater involvement of financial markets has not increased aggregate home ownership or housing supply, but instead inflated house prices and rents.

The thing is, institutional investors aren’t really into producing housing. It is directly against their interests to significantly increase supply. As one asset manager concedes, housing undersupply is bad for residents but “supportive for cashflows”. Blackstone’s president famously admitted that “the big warning signs in real estate are capital and cranes”. In other words, they need shortages to keep prices high.

Where corporate capital does produce new homes, they will of course be maximally profitable. Cities such as Manchester, Brussels and Warsaw have experienced a proliferation of high-margins housing products such as micro-apartments, build-to-rent and co-living. Designed with the explicit intention of optimising cashflows, these are both unaffordable and unsuitable for most households. Common Wealth, a thinktank focusing on ownership, found that the private equity-backed build-to-rent sector, which accounts for 30% of new homes in London, caters predominantly to high-earning single people. Families represent just 5% of build-to-rent tenants compared with a quarter of the private rental sector more broadly. These overpriced corporate appendages are a stark reminder of the market’s inability to deliver homes that fit the needs and incomes of most people.

While housing lies at the heart of political disillusionment today, it is for the same reason becoming a primary trigger for mobilisation across Europe. In October 2024, 150,000 protesters marched through the streets of Madrid demanding action. Some governments, including Denmark and the Netherlands, are introducing policies to deter speculators. But real estate capital continues to hold the power, so it continues to get its way – including by exploiting loopholes, and lobbying against policies that put profits at risk. In 2021, Berliners voted in favour of expropriating and socialising apartments owned by stock-listed landlords. But under pressure from the real estate lobby, politicians have stalled this motion. That same year Blackstone – Spain’s largest landlord with 40,000 housing units – opposed plans to impose a 30% target for social housing in institutional portfolios. Struggles against the immense structural power of real-estate interests will be hard fought.

In recent decades we have been living through an ever-intensifying social experiment. Can housing, a fundamental need for all human beings, be successfully delivered under the machinations of finance capitalism? The evidence now seems overwhelming: no.

As investors have come to dominate, so the power of residents has been systematically undermined. We are left with a crisis of inconceivable proportions. While we can, and should, point the finger at corporate greed, we must remember that this is the system working precisely as it is set up to do. When profit is the prevailing force, housing provision invariably fails to align with social need – to generate the types of homes within the price ranges most desperately required. In the coming years, housing will occupy centre stage in European politics. Now is the time for fundamental structural changes that reclaim homes from the jaws of finance, re-empower residents and reinstate housing as a core priority for public provision.

Tim White is a research fellow at Queen Mary University of London and the London School of Economics studying housing, cities and inequality

[patxarana]

Ya que estamos veamos los últimos 20 años…

Por curiosidad: ¿de dónde sacas los datos de cada columna?

[Derby]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/sellers-have-gotten-tired-of-cutting-prices-in-these-real-estate-markets-so-theyre-yanking-their-houses-off-the-market-4f9e06ee

Home sellers have gotten tired of cutting prices. So they’re yanking their houses off the market.

Delistings are growing faster than the number of homes for sale, Realtor.com says — indicating frustration among sellers


Sluggish local housing markets have gotten more and more frustrating.
Photo: Getty Images
Home sellers in some of the nation’s most sluggish housing markets are tired of cutting prices. So they’re yanking their listings off the market.

Amid a multidecade slowdown in the housing market, home sellers in some areas are giving up. With few buyers looking to buy and a lack of demand, these owners are choosing to remove their homes from the market and wait it out instead.

In May, there were relatively elevated shares of delisted homes in metro areas including Miami–Fort Lauderdale–West Palm Beach in Florida, Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler in Arizona, and Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands in Texas, according to a new analysis by Realtor.com.

The increase in delistings is “an early signal that sellers may be losing patience in a market that’s taking longer to deliver desired offers,” the report said.

The share of houses that were taken off the market in May grew faster than the increase in the number of houses that were put up for sale, according to the report. In other words, more homeowners were delisting a home than listing one, the data showed.

Between last May and this May, delistings rose 47% while active-listing growth increased by about 32%. Delistings are also becoming slightly more common: They made up about 3.2% of all active listings last May, but are now about 4.1%.

The shift in sentiment among sellers comes as the housing market flips from a seller-friendly market to a buyer-friendly one. In years past, inventory was scarce, while now there’s oversupply in some markets.

The housing market is oversupplied in Arizona, Florida and Texas

That oversupply is partly due to builders adding newly constructed homes to the market. In many cities in Arizona, Florida and in Texas, for-sale listings have surged largely due to these newly built homes.

With more homes for sale, prices are pressured downward, because demand hasn’t changed all that much. In June, the median listing price was $440,950, up only 0.1% from a year ago. About 21% of listings in June had seen a price cut, which was the highest for that month since at least 2016, when Realtor.com began tracking the data.

Pulling homes off the market instead of getting into a downward spiral of price reductions in part “helped slow broader price declines,” the company said.

Eric Ravencroft, a Phoenix-based real-estate agent with the Real Broker, has been talking about delisting as a strategy with some of his clients. When talking to sellers, he advises that “it’s going to take time. It could even take up to six months for it to sell, but you need to have a plan,” the agent told MarketWatch.

If the home doesn’t get a good offer price, he suggests that owners rent it out. “A lot of people are carrying low rates, [and] they have a lot of equity,” he added, so they can rent it and earn rental income for some time.

Little downside to delisting, agent says

To be sure, seasonality plays a role in delistings, Ravenscroft, the Phoenix agent, said. Some sellers leave their home city in the summer, so they pull their listing while they’re gone, for instance.

But market dynamics are also impacting sellers’ decisions.

Builders are formidable foes for homeowners selling their homes. Unlike homeowners, builders have a lot more financial firepower through which to lure buyers. They are able to offer teaser mortgage rates as low as 3.99%, which is well below the current average rate of nearly 7% on 30-year loans. That’s hard for homeowners to compete with, Ravenscroft said.

Some sellers who decide to delist are facing little pressure to sell. For instance, people who are looking to buy a bigger home or want to downsize are not necessarily pressed to sell immediately, he said, because because “it’s not a need-to-sell; it’s more of a let’s-try-to-sell.”

Ravenscroft sees little downside to delisting a home if a seller isn’t feeling an urgency to sell, he said.

A common tactic is to delist a home and then relist at a later time. The seller can wait a few months before relisting. That resets the number of days the home has been on the market, which can be a red flag to buyers if that market-time figure is viewed as suspiciously long. The home then presents itself as a “fresh” listing and catches more eyeballs — and, it’s hoped, better offers.

But don’t expect the housing market to change dramatically if you decide to delist and wait it out, Matthew Morrison, a designated broker at Retsy/Forbes Global Properties, told MarketWatch.

“Delisting can be a useful reset button, but it’s not a strategy by itself. It may make sense temporarily while reassessing marketing, pricing or condition, especially in the Arizona luxury market, where it can be strategic,” he explained.

“If you’re serious about selling, refining your pricing and marketing is often a more effective path than hitting pause,” he added.

[tomasjos]

Asustadísimos, ha vuelto usted a acertar

China mejora la capacidad de defensa aérea de Irán con una nueva transferencia de misiles HQ-9B. – Galaxia Militar https://share.google/mOEGN2SddKOMRuSnv