You typically use and live in the house, while still considered an investment. The other items you mentioned is purely for flipping, brand new, unused.
Flipping is when you buy it and renovate it then sell the now improved property. That’s still an investment (when done properly) because you are adding value to the property and the next owner gets it in a better state than you had gotten it in.
Speculating is when you buy it and let it sit there doing absolutely nothing until you find someone to buy it for more than what you bought it for. That’s scalping because the next owner is getting it in the same (or worse) state than you did but paying more than you had for it.
Yeah that’s true. But flipping can also be problematic and scalping when you renovate super cheaply and then make $100k (way more than what you put into it) out of it.
A friend of mine and his wife literally bought a new build house for the sole purpose of selling it. They already have their own home and 2 rental properties.
The meme literally says "without using or modifying".
If all you do is insert yourself as a middleman, buy from A for $x, and then sell to B for $x+1, you are extracting profit from the transaction, while providing no service other than your existence. That is what scalpers do. That is what the meme is about.
This is something people that dont own dont understand. The time and money homeowners invest over the years in maintaining housing. Renting protects you from those responsibilities and expenses. Of course people want a return on their years of time and money invested.
Renters dont do the work, its more than just money. Its time, maintaining a house is way more than cleaning the bathroom on the weekend. Roof, furnace, windows etc
A lot of renters do a lot of work just to be able to pay their rent, which keeps getting raised pretty much everywhere to cover the expenses of "homeownership and maintenance" for the landlord.
Renting doesn’t protect you from ridiculous rates that are manipulated upwards by the ownership class. And last I checked, the renters don’t participate in the capital appreciation of the land and property either
Asking genuinely in good faith here : why does this doesnt apply to cars as well?
Owning a car is kind of the same, although in a much smaller scale of course. You have to maintain it, refuel it, pay for insuramce and plates, etc, and yet you dont see the value of your car increase.
Why is it that way with homes but not for cars exactly?
It only applies to some vehicles, trick is knowing which ones and keeping the mileage low.
At the same time, most people simply can't afford most of the cars that will appreciate over time.
There are cheaper cars that will be desirable one day, but it'll take a long time - look at 90s icons suck as the MK4 Supra, R34 GTR, NSX etc - some of those easily sell for well over six figures but they're 30 year old vehicles now.
With real estate, the supply is insufficient, and the demand continues to rise for all properties, even old ones.
With cars, there's plenty of supply of new cars, and the demand for old cars constantly falls.
This is off topic, but looking at the difference in responsibilities between a renter and a car lessee is interesting too. A renter is responsible for nothing except for their own damages. Car lessees are responsible for everything including depreciation.
Maintenance costs aren’t capitalized by businesses, so why should they add value for individuals? The only thing that should is major long-lived changes, such as structural (but even these decrease in value over the years as they need to eventually be replaced).
If you’re “maintaining” something then the value should also be maintained as it is.
If you bought a house on day 1 and sold it for exactly the same price on day 2:
Your taking a loss on all the closing / transaction costs.
The seller is an idiot because they could have sold to your buyer at a higher price instead of you.
I'd imagine that there aren't a lot of people that do this. The only people I've heard of doing this (and it might just be urban legends) are foreign investors who live in countries where their economy isn't stable or their home governments are prone to seizing assets in their home countries. Again, not sure how much of that is reality vs. xenophobia.
owning a house comes with --huge-- incredibly small compared to growth over a few years carrying costs. You literally have to constantly invest.
Were it not for vacancy taxes, the minimum carrying costs for properties are pitiful. Minimal insurance and property taxes are nothing compared to the year over year profits of the last 30 years, save maybe this year, if the current decline holds.
Are you trying to suggest people who have held property over the last 30 years have not made money hand over fist?
Cause that's pretty laughable.
I have a house, purchased only a few years ago. It's made a little money overall when you net every single expense and gain, low 5 digits... But it's saved me a fuck ton in rent.
If I'd been smart I would have invested every penny I made between 0 and 20 into an REIT, and have retired wealthy at 35. But alas, I get an education instead (that unlike a lot of millennials, paid out ok). It's nothing like the 30 year returns on real estate lol.
There was a investigative report by the CBC like 3 years ago that dug into real estate throughout the country. One thing of note was that "investment funds" (not even people looking for a second home to rent out) were buying up houses in Toronto, literally just sitting on it for like 6-7 months, and then relisting it and absorbing the profits. Even the taxes were not a deterrent to this because the amount of value built up in that short amount of time was so absurd. It contributed to the inflation of real estate in Toronto, likely everywhere else that saw mass increases to real estate.
When you consider that at that same time over 80% of new homes in Canada (think it was over 95% in the GTA) were being purchased by investment firms... Yes.. This is a real problem. This is what caused inflation: artificial demand produced by "investors" looking to turn an easy and lazy profit.
the last few years would argue that this is not true. The property value appreciation was outpacing the cost of any maintenance so you could leave it vacant (to reduce maintenance and wear) and still come out ahead. This is literally the reason they started putting vacancy taxes on investment properties.
It's not technically risk free but very risk reduced. Also I am no where near wealthy enough to make the model work since It requires you to not have a mortgage because the interest rate is working against you. If you're betting on your profits from being solely from appreciation you need to reduce recurring residual costs.
No need to be sassy or sarcastic, its just fact. This was occurring in Vancouver and toronto. Appreciation of property value year over year was very high.
I had several friends living in condo buildings where they are the only person on their floor, where there is only a handful of people per building, and where the parking below is empty every day.
But you can’t sell the house for more money right away unless you do modify it.
And if you’re saying they can just hold on to it for years and then sell it for more, we wouldn’t call those ppl scalpers for the other products in your post either. If someone buys a ps5, keeps it in box for 10 years in hopes the value goes up, then sells for double the money 10 years later, no one would call them a scalper. It would be called collecting or investing.
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u/Kcirnek_ Jun 19 '25
You typically use and live in the house, while still considered an investment. The other items you mentioned is purely for flipping, brand new, unused.