Last week I read some advertising about a real estate company that claims to be altruistic. Maybe they don’t understand that making a profit from housing isn’t altruistic. The company may also be “rent trapping” people so that they can never save up enough to buy a house.
As the housing market slows and as home prices sore there are all sorts of businesses that want to help home buyers. Some of them will buy a house and rent it back for a few years. Apparently, some of the rent money can be used toward the purchase.
In most cases, it would be less expensive to rent and then later buy a house. The rent to eventually buy companies charge a lot of rent and there are other fees too.
Always read the fine print. The companies that buy up houses are in it to make a profit, and by buying the houses they are driving up housing costs. When corporations buy single-family housing units they are depriving individuals and families of the opportunity and competing with home buyers.
There is also a company that is “making homeownership affordable” by buying up houses and by allowing people to co-own them with others. Yet another way to squeeze more money out of real estate.
None of that is altruistic. We need more housing. It needs to be built and affordable too. There are too many people living in cars and in tents.
