Hello, my dudes, my name is Tiffany! Welcome back
to my series, Internet Analysis, where I like to research and discuss things relevant to social
issues and media. Today's topic is: Dystopian Real Estate Content. I've realized recently that
I'm not the only one who likes to just look at random apartment and housing listings, just browse
around. I have been saving up some money for an eventual down payment -- someday, hopefully -- and
even though I'm not even sure where I would like to buy a house, it's just kind of fun to research
and see what's out there, see what might be within my budget, someday. Many of us find it fun to
window shop, see what prices are like in our neighborhood or our city, whether you can actually
imagine yourself moving there, or if you're just dreaming, or maybe you're more-so hate shopping.
'Look how ugly those McMansions are! Who designed this?' But with rising housing costs, and wages
that are definitely not keeping up with inflation, for many, it feels like nothing is realistic or
affordable anymore. And sometimes this window shopping can be more than a little depressing
-- and dare I say, dystopian? While house tours, home DIYs, and room makeovers have dominated
the YouTube scene over the past couple years, I've noticed a spike in content about real estate;
whether it's just simple tours, apartment hunting, or more specific content about how to get
rich working as a real estate agent, or as a real estate investor...
So, in today's video, we're just going to cruise through a potentially
infuriating array of real estate related content, and each of these topics could
be their own hour long deep-dive, but I did not have the energy for that this week;
I just wanted to vent, hope you're up for it! Let's start with ridiculously expensive real
estate. I'm not talking about $1 million or even $2 million homes. we're talking $25,
$50, $100 million dollar properties. Now, some of these properties are stunning, while
others are more the kind of cold, creepy, billionaire weirdness style, but they all remind
us just how massive the wealth and income divides are. In many cities, you've got to spend at least
a million dollars just to get what used to be considered a basic starter home, and you're lucky
if you can get that; but you're telling me that there are really people out here just buying
houses for like, tens of millions of dollars? I think we take it for granted, because we're
surrounded by this content all the time, but it's still very hard to fathom that.
kind of makes me want to grab my pitchfork! So, that brings us to Netflix's hit
show, Selling Sunset; a classic, melodramatic, LA reality show that showcases
the glamorous lives of elite real estate agents, and also the depressing reality of real estate
in big cities. What I find most interesting about Selling Sunset is not the drama, and
it's not even the listings, because honestly, most of them end up looking the same after
a while. Oh, another massive Hollywood Hills compound with indoor/outdoor space and an infinity
pool? I think what's most interesting about the show is how much it proves that real estate is
all about who you know, it's about networking and connections. Some random new real estate agent
is not going to get any of these million-dollar listings but, for example, if you are an
attractive woman, who knows Jason, and the other one, (laughs) you may be lucky enough to be hired
at the Oppenheim group, and start making like, $200,000 per commission! Anyway, we'll talk more
about real estate agents later in this video... If you are into obnoxiously extravagant
and ridiculously expensive real estate, there's more where that comes from! Lots of
real estate agents post videos touring listings, and doing walkthroughs, and the biggest luxury
real estate channel on YouTube is Erik Conover. Let's check out some of these... "Five bedrooms,
six bathrooms, 4,600 square feet interior, 671 square feet exterior, asking $28.5 million."
Just that outdoor space is the same or bigger than the average square-footage of a New York
City apartment! "Living room is about the size of your kind of, let's say, standard three-bedroom
rental apartment, and that's just this living room! You're looking at some of the wealthiest
people in the world. The two top apartments in this building have sold to Michael Dell for
$100 million, and to Bill Ackman for just over $90 million. This is only $28.5, so this
is a steal! Let's say this is 100 square feet, the whole apartment is asking $6,200 a foot that
means that this bathroom alone costs $620,000..." Some parts in this video almost sound satirical,
like they're actually making fun of like, luxury real estate. But then, they're not,
they're framing these things as good things! "Below us, under our feet,
these are thousand-year-old planks of cedar; and this wood is actually
from the island of Yakushima - and it's actually now illegal to harvest wood from the
island, as it's now a world heritage site. So to have these in your apartment,
I can't drive home how rare that is!" Sounds like maybe that rare, precious
cedar shouldn't have been made into flooring? The ultra rich really do live
in completely different worlds. Hold on, let me check in on you: are these dystopian
real estate videos hurting your eyes? Me too! Which brings us to the sponsor of
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if you'd like to check out Warby Parker, you can try five pairs of glasses at home for
free, just click the link in my description! Getting back into it, let's talk about bad house
flips. Flip or Flop? More like Flip and Flop, am I right? Hey, I love HGTV! The process of
renovating and redesigning a space is pretty universally exciting, or at least fun to listen
to in the background; but also, HGTV has helped to normalize and promote a lazier side of house
flipping. Buy a fixer-upper, add some new paint, maybe some other small changes, spend as little as
possible, use cheap materials that look decent but aren't great quality, and bam! Resell the house
for huge profit, and then repeat! But now it's not just the Property Brothers, or any other
famous HGTV hosts, lots of people are getting in on the flipping game; and I know this is
far from new, this has always been going on, but it seems like this has been gaining
steam online a lot in the last few years. "It doesn't really bother me that people my
age are having kids, but it does bother me that people my age are starting to flip houses.
It's not enough for you to just buy a house, you have a buy a house that you don't even want?
(screams / laughs) No way, I'm not there yet..." It feels like everyone seems
qualified to do a house flip, you know? All you need is
that pesky little capital, all you need is daddy's money, or mommy's
money, grandma's money? Use that little bit of cash and buy your first fixer-upper! But let's
be real, there's a lot that goes into renovations, beyond just making aesthetic decisions,
and if profit is your primary motivator, you're probably not gonna do what's best for
the buyer, but rather what's best for yourself. "most you new flippers would spend way
more on this kitchen than you should... we're just painting the cabinets, tossing
the fridge... what would you guys do?" And one of the things I hate the most about
flipping content is, very often we see people remove every unique, interesting, historic piece
of character in a home, they just gut it all, take it away and make it look like the same as
any other house. They go for the Magnolia homes, Target, Chip and Joanna style! Which
obviously is very popular for a lot of people, but it's also SO boring, to see so many flips
essentially turned into the exact same look: gray and white, marble, maybe a few barn doors... These flippers widen their sellers' market by
putting in features that are inoffensive and generally appealing to the mainstream. I get the
strategy, it just makes me sad. I hope it doesn't sound like I think I'm the most interesting,
unique person in the world because... I'm not. Now hey, if this is your style, that's great,
you're probably stoked looking at listings right now! But, if you happen to like a little bit of
color, or some unique features, you probably would have preferred the before. Plus, for any potential
home buyers who actually would like to renovate their own home, you know they want to buy a
fixer-upper, they want to do the work themselves, or hire, you know, a contractor themselves. Many
of these homes are already being bought up by flippers and investors, so I'm worried that we're
gonna run out of homes with character, you know? We- we will never lack new builds, or at least
something built in the last 10-20 years; but, we won't be able to preserve older homes, historic
homes with character, unless they're protected, because at this rate they're all just getting
bought up and Magnolia'd! we have a home character crisis! Think of the children! They'll never
see wainscoting, a fully mirrored 70s basement, or way too much wood paneling! My favorite is
like, this kind of vintage, pink and green, Cosmo Wanda-like bathroom aesthetic, I'm a
sucker for it! What I am a fan of though, are the people who actually want to maintain
the historic elements of different homes so, there are, you know, industries dedicated to
this. And again, if you're living in like, a protected historic home, you do have to actually
stick to certain rules and regulations. Of course, the features can't always be 100% original,
but at least you're trying to maintain the original look or integrity.
though, I can totally understand that this is probably prohibitively
expensive for the average buyer, so... I look at historic houses and I'm
like, oh my god, that looks so cute! But what if like, all the structure is rotting?
Anyway, aside from just aesthetic preferences, sometimes the reno-work on these flips are
just not done well. If the work is shoddy, it can cause major problems. It would suck to
buy a home that claims to be newly renovated, but ends up having a ton of work
that needs to be redone or repaired. By the way, We're In Hell made a really
great video about this house-flipping reality show recently. it's specifically about
flipping into short-term vacation rentals, and how that contributes to
gentrification; great stuff, check it out. Speaking of shitty flips, we've got to get into
the whole Zillow saga. So, Zillow bought up a ton of homes, barely renovated them, and then hugely
increased the price when reselling, allegedly trying to artificially inflate the market. Their
goal was to not only dominate the online house search domain, but also to monopolize much of
buying and selling. Luckily though, it backfired. Zillow "announced that its home buying division
Offers had lost more than $300 million over the last few months. Offers will now be shut down, and
about 2,000 people laid off. Zillow reportedly has about 7,000 homes that it now needs to unload,
many for prices lower than it originally paid." Though I have my schadenfreude about Zillow,
it really sucks that 2,000 people had to lose their jobs because their company was reckless and
greedy. So, Zillow was engaging in what is called 'iBuying', which is basically algorithm-powered
home buying. A source in this article says, "This is an arms race right now, of who
will become the Amazon of real estate." Please no, dystopian! "Enormous companies
with deep pockets and mounds of data, bidding against ordinary people in
an already absurd housing market? It sounds like a nightmare for anyone who
isn't a tech investor!" Yeah, exactly! But, if Zillow has to sell these homes at a loss
now, that's gotta be good for people, right? Right? Sorry, unlikely. "Those 7,000 homes Zillow
is sitting on? Bloomberg reports that they will probably be offloaded to institutional investors
like Blackrock, rather than regular people..." Next up: house hacking! House hacking is a concept
I first heard from YouTube's own Graham Stephan, who also is part of the Oppenheim group, Selling
Sunset. Actually, I don't know if he's still a part of it, at one point he was. But, house
hacking is also extremely popular on TikTok. Basically, if you can scrape together a
minimum down payment, you can buy a house, move in, and then - oh, you've got some empty
rooms? Get some roommates! But wait, the real hack is being able to live rent-free! How? All
you've got to do is overcharge your roommates, and let them pay for the entirety of your
mortgage! Now that's iconic landlord behavior! "How do you even afford this thing? I'm not
paying anything, I'm house hacking." "You live here for FREE?" "She doesn't know
how to house hack! Watch this!" "House hacking? I bought this house and
I'm renting out the extra bedrooms." "I rent it out to you three roommates who each
pay $600 a month." "And your rent covers ALL my mortgage! and gives me some money in my pocket."
"But you don't pay any portion of the rent?" "I live 100% free!" "It's called house hacking."
"So I'm paying you, to live here for free?" "that's right, then eventually I'll
sell the place and make a big profit!" "who taught you how to do this?
Addison did!" "who taught you that? Addison did!" "It's cause
-- it's cause I follow Breyanna." "you're super helpful for a beginner
like me! I'm definitely following you." Why do all of these terrible skits end with
them complimenting their own genius tips? You weirdos! When I first saw these TikToks, I
was like, okay, there's no way that they really paint themselves as the villain that blatantly;
but yes, they do! "Hey, stupid roommate, did you realize that you pay my mortgage so that I can
sit on my ass making TikToks about how rich I am? Sucks to be working class, loser!" And if you want an even better house hack,
you've got to buy a multi-family unit, like a duplex. "If you're smart, you don't wanna
buy this. Instead, you wanna buy this. You see, this is a duplex, so you can live on one side,
rent out the other side... the rent from the second unit will cover most of the mortgage
payment, allowing you to live in the first unit, almost for free! I bought this duplex! I also
bought this duplex! and bought this triplex! and I bought this seven-plex. So now
I can buy this, and this, and these!" Now, this is a really cool hack, because
that means you get to profit from even more working-class people
all at the same time! Eventually, you can buy up dozens of units and
help raise the rents and gentrify like, an entire neighborhood! But don't feel sorry
for your tenants, if they didn't want to pay rent to a cool landlord such as yourself,
they would just buy their own house, duh! By the way, I want to give a shout-out to my
friend, Kelgore, she has a really great series called Owned, where she talks about this kind
of content. Her video about landlord TikTok is perfect - literally, she said
everything better than I could, so I highly recommend watching that
one after this. She also has an episode about a landlord who exploits Section 8 for his
own personal gain, and that one was horrifying. Before I end this section, I just want
to say, I totally understand everyone's desperation to want to be able to buy a home,
but this house-hacking advice is not about getting one major asset for
yourself or your family, to have that security, hopefully; it's about
how to take advantage of real estate loopholes, and how to hoard as many homes as possible,
just for your own profit, even though you are directly exploiting and harming the tenants who
are paying your bills. Live, Laugh, Landlord! Continuing on: I've seen a good bit of content
about tiny, barely livable spaces. Because housing is so expensive, many of us have lowered our
standards for what we want or what we need to be able to survive comfortably. Maybe you used to
dream of owning a house, but now you're like, hey, I'm fine in an apartment; and plus,
if you become more of a minimalist, you don't need that much space, right? And
honestly, those of us who can reliably pay our rent every month are some of
the most fortunate; but you know, we tell ourselves this is fine, this is great,
we do our best with what we can afford. So I wanted to start with this tiny New York
City artist apartment, let's look at it. "Sure, there's some compromise, but uh, it's
worth it. It's 90 square feet. there's no kitchen, but I've created my own little kitchen. little
fridge. The first night I slept in the apartment I had a panic attack. When I woke up there was
a ceiling here, and the wall on every side..." it might be technically functional enough,
but it's not ideal. and having to force yourself to get over claustrophobia in
order to be able to sleep in your bed, where your head is probably a few inches from
the ceiling?? It's a very simple statement, but I just think that it sucks that people
are forced to make these tough decisions in order to be able to afford rent...
A lot of the other videos that I found about tiny apartments were in Tokyo,
which has very expensive real estate. "This place here, we'll call it cozy.
This is the entire room right here, it's only 15 meters squared. Aside from the
lack of hot water, there's no air conditioner... you may have also noticed, there's no bathroom in
here. No shower, no toilet. Speaking of safety, that's another big part. Basically, the building
-- there's a good chance it would not hold up well in an earthquake... I'm pretty sure the bathroom
is down that way. and it looks like yeah, that's the library right there. they have
washrooms on each floor of the library, but the library and the washrooms
are only open until 7pm..." So again, that place is not safe for earthquakes;
no bathroom in the building, let alone your own unit. I don't think that that checks the- the
boxes of being livable. While watching these, I'm really resisting the urge to just be like, oh,
at least they're housed! Because yes, of course, being housed, having shelter, is better than not,
but still, living situations like this - I cannot imagine how uncomfortable or stressful they
might be. And I just feel like people deserve a little bit more comfort; like, more than
just the bare minimum of a roof over your head, in order to live and be well. Is that asking too
much? I feel like it is, I'm like, whoa, whoa, tone it down! In the same video where we're
talking about $50 million dollar mansions, wanting a teeny bit of space or
light or something is a big ask! "Alright, so this is it here. The real
shocker is the room itself... There's the bed, that's it. it's just that, right there,
and this is your shower, with your toilet." "Sorry I instantly got distracted as soon as I
walked into this room -- what is this? I have never seen an apartment like this before, how
does this even... they told me the toilet was in a bit of a tight space... can you move this? ...
but some people just don't need bigger spaces." "But honestly, this bath is everything. So
everything I do, like watching movies or drinking, is done while taking a bath. meals,
movies, everything in the tub." This video is interesting, because the two
students that are shown who live in this building are both architecture students, and it's kind
of interesting that they chose to live here. It almost seems like they saw it as like, a bit of a
challenge, to figure out how to maximize the space and give them inspiration for their studies;
and they do, obviously, see their units as suitable for what they need. I don't think those
two were the worst examples, or like, unlivable, but some of the other examples seemed a little
bit... I don't know, if just for me, like, you know, I would get a little claustrophobic maybe.
But some people are fine with very small living spaces, and they'd rather just kind of sleep, and
then live the rest of their life outside of their home, which is fine. I think the distinction
I'm trying to make is: say, you work minimum wage and *if* you were able to afford a standard
basic apartment with all of the amenities, but you *chose* to live in a smaller, cheaper place,
because that's what you wanted, that's one thing! but the difference between having that choice to
live smaller, or live in a quirky little space, is very different from not having the option, and not
being able to afford a basic, standard apartment. But speaking of, if you're the type of person who
just, you know, you just want a place to crash, let's introduce you to: pod living! Thousands of
young people are giving up traditional housing in favor of living in a pod, a hostel-like living
experience that confines their sleeping quarters to a nook, and a room full of similar nomads;
classic, digital nomads, am I right? Now, of course hostels can be great for traveling, I've
used them before; it's kind of fun, when you're young, especially, but I would find it difficult
to live in a setting like that long-term. let alone while actually working and living
life, versus when you're just kind of traveling, and just need a place to crash. Apparently though,
some of these pod- pod sharers have loved the concept so much, that they've gotten tattoos of
the company's logo! A company would have to pay me literally a lifetime wage, if I were going to
be advertising them on my body forever- and even then, well, probably- probably worth it, actually!
I'm very surprised that more companies haven't invested in the advertising space and billboards
of human skin, but that's kind of another topic. From the articles I read about this, this company
seems to like to brand itself as like, 'the new, fun, millennial way of living'. Millennials
just love freelancing and flexibility, we don't want to be tied down. They love taking
Uber rides and living in pods - NOT because they can't afford a car or their own private housing,
but because they're young and wild and free! and like I mentioned in my Van Life video, the housing
status of these pod residents is debatable. "They could be considered well-off, but they are also,
in a way, homeless by choice." In some markets, I don't think this pod thing would really make
sense to you, but for example, in San Francisco, which is one of the most competitive and expensive
housing markets, a pod bed there costs about $1,400 per month, which is so much cheaper than
any studio or one bedroom that you'd ever be able to find. So, it's like, okay, how much are you
willing to spend to live in a room in an apartment full of roommates; or do you just want your little
pod, your cool bunk bed with your other co-living friends? I think it is fair to call this concept
dystopian; if you are voluntarily living like this, or it's a cool option for you while you're
traveling or living somewhere very short term, that's great; and also, if you do value living
in some kind of a co-living space like this, all the power to you! But, if this is your only
option, because housing is so unaffordable, that's a different story! That's- that's the-
the false illusion of choice - oh I'm choosing to live this way. It's like, no, you can't afford
anything else, so this is- this is the option! For another tangent, this all reminded me of
the recent news scandal about UC Santa Barbara's dorms. Basically, they were designed by
a billionaire who is bankrolling part of the project, and insists that his plans must be
followed 100% or he's not putting up any money; and they're basically made up of a small room
per person. Oh cool, you get your own room! It has a bed, a desk, it has no windows, standard
stuff- oh wait, did you say no windows? Yes, this billionaire believes that fresh air and
natural light are luxuries! It's more efficient to remove the windows and just place a screen that
can mimic light; dystopian, indeed! Why would we ever consider the quality of human life when
developing housing? No, the bottom line and return on investment is far more important! By cutting
simple corners like windows, emergency exits, and hallways wider than one human body, you can
create the most cost-efficient housing per person on a college campus! One of the architects
on the project actually quit because of this, calling the project a social and psychological
experiment, with an unknown impact on the lives and personal development of students. and a lot of
people have reacted to or responded to this. This news is like, a couple months old now, I know.
I'm not saying anything new here. It is definitely possible to build livable and comfortable,
small, efficient spaces, but it is also very easy for efficiency-obsessed buildings to turn
into: let's just shove people into tiny spaces, with nothing more than the bare minimum. And
let's also redefine what the bare minimum is, can we make that lower, can we make it cheaper?
I think, in this situation, especially, we're dealing with a college dorm, we're talking about
students who are already under a great amount of stress; it's a very tumultuous time, students
already suffer from a lot of mental health issues. I can't think of anything worse than confining
myself to be alone in a small, windowless room. And finally, final thoughts! First of all, one
more tangent, of course! While we're on the topic of housing, I've been watching a lot of like, city
planning videos lately. I just want to say, I hate the way that suburbs have been designed and built
across the United States. The sprawl is terrible, it forces us to be car dependent, it makes it very
difficult or impossible to walk or bike anywhere. So after watching these videos, I'm now not only
dreaming of owning a home, someday, somewhere, but also of the perfect walkable, bikeable,
safe-for-people community with like, a little locally-owned coffee shop, and a bakery,
in a residential area, a little mixed-use community. Does that exist in the US?
If so, I probably can't afford it, so, oh we're back to square one. Secondly, the
housing market just seems fake, and I'm tired of it! All of this just seems like fake
numbers, and fake valuations; money isn't real, time isn't real, so... I'm not going to pretend
to understand how the housing market actually functions, more than just a general, surface-level
understanding. But it just seems ludicrous and harmful to society for houses to increase in value
by like, 50% or 100% in a year or two, when the normal rate is like, 2%. Seems pretty fucked
to me. Third, housing is a human right! There are more than enough homes to house everyone,
but that is not the aim of the housing market. Housing has been commodified, so it caters to
people like these investors, who get to hoard as much property as they can, leverage their debts
against each other, get tax-free cash out of it, and then they continue to make bank, from
essentially just playing with money, while renters are forced to pay them more every year! There's
no way to consume real estate content, anything about the housing market, without getting to this
point and just being angry - well, unless you're the capitalist who wants to like, profit from
it, then I guess you're like, stoked about it? And that brings my last point: yes, we all have
no choice but to make some money, so that we can survive under capitalism; but I would say like,
at least try to not make your money by directly exploiting people's basic needs, such as housing.
It's funny, because so much of this content is directed toward like, broke people, young people,
and instead of having class solidarity, and trying to work together to address these issues for the
betterment of us all, young people are being sold a very individualistic, very capitalist narrative.
You know, if you can't beat them, join them! Don't complain about rising housing costs; directly
contribute to, and profit from, that problem! And by the way, in writing this, I almost
changed this entire concept to just focus on: wanna-be investors on TikTok, happy capitalists,
and the cult of passive income. So I will save all of that for a future video;
it'll kind of be like these guys: "So I thought I was doing a lot, I had 60
rental properties and about $10 million in real estate owned... but wait one minute. 220
houses, $25 million. 1500 units, $45 million. 4288 units, $335 million dollars. (BOOM!)" That video hurts! Those guys are so dorky, but they think they're so cool! I mean, nobody
tell them - actually, tell them! (laughs) So finally, I want to give a shout-out to my
Patrons! If you want to support my work and come see some bonus content, you can do that there;
very much appreciate you guys! Extra big thank you to these Patrons: kaesi luck, vivianolodon.com,
Geoff, uwu face, Jaden, Mardi Schmeichel, Abby Hayden, and Rebecca Devillier. And
one last thank you to today's sponsor, Warby Parker! If you need some glasses, click
the link in the description, do a home try-on, take care of your eyes! Stay tuned for
more Internet Analysis videos! kthanksbye!
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She's a dope YouTuber. Thanks for sharing.
I love her videos and loved watching this last night. Fits in well with this sub
I lover her internet analysis videos!