Brickbat: Flipped Off

California Assemblymember Chris Ward (D–San Diego) said people who flip houses are contributing to the state's housing problems. He has introduced a bill that would impose a 25 percent tax on the profit from the sale of any house sold within three years of its purchase. Ward said home flippers are driving up housing costs, pricing lower-income people out of the market.

Comments

[Mockamodo]

So her answer to price increases due to house flipping is to increase the prices by even more so the government can get their "fair" share? Only politicians and lunatics use this kind of logic. Oh wait, I get the connection.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Why is the word "bill" capitalized throughout that linked article?

[BiPolarMoment]

That's his name.

[R Mac]

BiPolar indeed.

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[R Mac]

Only evil greedy people use their own money and sweat equity to fix up shitty houses.

[Illocust]

I'm not fully certain how this is going to effect the housing market. I doubt it will be positive. Though this does have the easy work around of turning the house into a rental for two and a half years then flip it during the last 6 months.

[R Mac]

It’s a pain in the ass renting houses to strangers. Especially if you just put in the work to fix it up then have shitty tenants that just trash the place.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Do the fixing up at the end of the 3 year rental period.

[Illocust]

Yeah, this. You don't fix things before you rent, because renters will break crap.

[CE]

There's more housing market risk to the flippers that way. If they can flip the house in 3 or 4 months, they're mostly just risking the cost of the repairs and upgrades.

[SimpleRules]

What kind of arrogance is necessary to believe house flippers provide a service no one wants? Who's going to tell him that his inability to relax zoning rules is the real problem?

[Don't look at me!]

It looks easy and profitable on tv, but it’s not.

[CE]

Just ask Zillow. In the strongest housing market maybe ever, they lost a billion dollars in just over 12 months by trying to flip houses using all of the available market data.

Real flippers make money by buying low, and by not over-improving.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Begs the question as to why it can be so profitable to "flip" houses. But don't look over there, just blame the "flippers".

[Stuck in California]

It's not flippers that are the problem.

It's a lack of inventory. And the inventory issue is caused by myriad issues, starting with taxation and exacerbated by massive investment spending by REITs that buy single family homes with cash to rent out. Coastal areas have the extra problem of AirBnB incentivizing short term rental investment instead of renting (traditionally) or living in a home.

Flippers are usually looking for a way to profit from repairs and decorating. They're as much a result of a busted market with rapidly rising prices as a cause. But they don't remove inventory for long.

[Brandybuck]

What a maroon.

[SQRLSY One]

Some of the best folks that I have known, are maroon baboons, who spurt-sport-snort-swoon all over the moon, on a spoon, all too soon! (I learned this from Al Gore Vidal Sassoon).

[Art Stone]

So an “unhoused” person who can’t afford to buy the house will find the money to fix the house up, knowing that he is stuck in the house for at least three years.

It seems more likely the person would do no repairs, not paint the outside, cut the grass or replace the roof. Once the neighborhood fills with unauthorized pharmaceutical outlets, we can have urban renewal programs to tear down the “slums” and build high rise condominiums with imported granite countertops.

Problem solved!

[Longtobefree]

Next up, a windfall tax on politicians who somehow get multi-million dollar book deals.
And a windfall tax on politicians who make a mint in the market, no matter how long they hold the stocks.
And a windfall tax on all political contributions. (start with the fact that the tax has to be 100%, because the base is 'free')
The possibilities are as endless as the democrats desire to spend on anything but oil.

[Utkonos]

Typical California politician pointing The Finger in the wrong direction. What a bird brain!

[CE]

Progressives are the only people who worry that the neighborhood might be getting better.

Flippers do the community a service by buying up undervalued and under-maintained assets and risking their own time and money to make them desirable to new buyers.

[KiwiDude]

Tarek and Christina hardest hit?