Supply is a problem and I agree about existing density-blocking laws. However this is not an either/or situation. Market effects on pricing are aggregate, not annectdotal. Taking private equity out of the market would certainly lower demand. Plenty of housing are sitting empty or underoccupied right now because of speculation.
The effect of zoning laws dwarfs the effect of private equity, to the point that focusing on the latter is absolutely just making a scapegoat to avoid fixing the actual problem.
People just love to blame private equity because they want to eat their cake and have it too (own a single-family house in the middle of a city, for a price they can afford) and can’t bear to face the reality that that is fundamentally impossible as a matter of geometry.
It’s real fucking simple, people: if 10 families want to live in the same acre of land, they don’t all get to each own a single-family house on a one-acre lot! One of them gets to (for a huge price), and the rest get physically displaced. The only way for something else to happen is for the law to change so that more housing units can be built on that acre, but the spatially-inevitable consequence of that is that each family doesn’t get their own house with a 1-acre yard.
You fundamentally cannot have it both ways, but people don’t want to accept that so they blame private equity instead.
I’m not defending private equity in the slightest, mind you! By all means, fucking murder them all if you want; IDGAF. I’m just saying y’all are gonna be all surprised_pikachu.jpg when it turns out to do fuck-all to solve the actual problem.
Edit: the irrational downvotes on my comments only help prove my point. People just can’t deal with reality, so they childishly lash out instead.
If you have a 1 km² (one square kilometer, = 1 million square meters) area. And the law dictates that only single-family houses can be built on it, with a minimum lot size of 500 m² each, then assuming 4 people per house, you can build 2000 houses in that area or house around 8000 people.
If you allow multi-family houses. Such as i live in one in Austria. Close to the city. The house has a lot size of about 1000 m² (with a big park in the middle), and 25 people live in it. If you build houses like that, you can house around 25000 people. More than triple!
Institutional investors have tended to cluster their purchases, resulting in more concentrated investments in certain neighborhoods in a handful of markets, including Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, Charlotte, and Tampa. The 2024 GAO report found that they own 25% of single-family rental homes in Atlanta and 21% of those in Jacksonville. Researchers have found that mega landlords may have contributed to the rise in housing costs, particularly in areas where they’re heavily concentrated.
The best proof you can come up with is that mega landlords “may have contributed?” It can’t even state it definitively or quantify how much?
Forgive me if I’m not persuaded.
Meanwhile, I actually live in one of the cities you mentioned, so let me give you some real perspective: even if we assumed that every single one of the 25% of homes owned by institutional investors were being kept vacant for some stupid reason – which, to be clear, they are not – transferring ownership to owner-occupants would only increase the amount of housing available by 33%. In contrast, even just the relatively minor reform of allowing ADUs on all single-family properties would increase it by up to 100%. Rezoning the R1 properties (rich people’s mansions on minimum 2-acre lots) to R4 (“normal” middle-class housing on minimum 9000 sq. ft. lots) would increase it by up to 900% in those formerly R1 areas. And those two zoning changes still remain single-family! If we actually abolished it, we’re talking about thousands of percent increases.
So having read that, which idea do you think actually would have a bigger effect: abolishing institutional real estate investors or zoning reform?
There isn’t a single person here saying that zoning laws don’t need to be changed. The only person here with their undies in a bunch is you, who just can’t seem to accept the fact that ending corporate ownership of single family homes would increase the housing supply and reduce prices. “But it doesn’t do it as much as this other thing!!” Wtf dude what are you even arguing for
Supply is a problem and I agree about existing density-blocking laws. However this is not an either/or situation. Market effects on pricing are aggregate, not annectdotal. Taking private equity out of the market would certainly lower demand. Plenty of housing are sitting empty or underoccupied right now because of speculation.
And plenty of units are converted rentals that leverage the borrowing power of the owner to upcharge the tenant.
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The effect of zoning laws dwarfs the effect of private equity, to the point that focusing on the latter is absolutely just making a scapegoat to avoid fixing the actual problem.
People just love to blame private equity because they want to eat their cake and have it too (own a single-family house in the middle of a city, for a price they can afford) and can’t bear to face the reality that that is fundamentally impossible as a matter of geometry.
It’s real fucking simple, people: if 10 families want to live in the same acre of land, they don’t all get to each own a single-family house on a one-acre lot! One of them gets to (for a huge price), and the rest get physically displaced. The only way for something else to happen is for the law to change so that more housing units can be built on that acre, but the spatially-inevitable consequence of that is that each family doesn’t get their own house with a 1-acre yard.
You fundamentally cannot have it both ways, but people don’t want to accept that so they blame private equity instead.
I’m not defending private equity in the slightest, mind you! By all means, fucking murder them all if you want; IDGAF. I’m just saying y’all are gonna be all surprised_pikachu.jpg when it turns out to do fuck-all to solve the actual problem.
Edit: the irrational downvotes on my comments only help prove my point. People just can’t deal with reality, so they childishly lash out instead.
thank you for your comment. just to add to it:
If you have a 1 km² (one square kilometer, = 1 million square meters) area. And the law dictates that only single-family houses can be built on it, with a minimum lot size of 500 m² each, then assuming 4 people per house, you can build 2000 houses in that area or house around 8000 people.
If you allow multi-family houses. Such as i live in one in Austria. Close to the city. The house has a lot size of about 1000 m² (with a big park in the middle), and 25 people live in it. If you build houses like that, you can house around 25000 people. More than triple!
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-ban-wall-street-buying-houses-not-solution-home-prices-2026-1
The best proof you can come up with is that mega landlords “may have contributed?” It can’t even state it definitively or quantify how much?
Forgive me if I’m not persuaded.
Meanwhile, I actually live in one of the cities you mentioned, so let me give you some real perspective: even if we assumed that every single one of the 25% of homes owned by institutional investors were being kept vacant for some stupid reason – which, to be clear, they are not – transferring ownership to owner-occupants would only increase the amount of housing available by 33%. In contrast, even just the relatively minor reform of allowing ADUs on all single-family properties would increase it by up to 100%. Rezoning the R1 properties (rich people’s mansions on minimum 2-acre lots) to R4 (“normal” middle-class housing on minimum 9000 sq. ft. lots) would increase it by up to 900% in those formerly R1 areas. And those two zoning changes still remain single-family! If we actually abolished it, we’re talking about thousands of percent increases.
So having read that, which idea do you think actually would have a bigger effect: abolishing institutional real estate investors or zoning reform?
There isn’t a single person here saying that zoning laws don’t need to be changed. The only person here with their undies in a bunch is you, who just can’t seem to accept the fact that ending corporate ownership of single family homes would increase the housing supply and reduce prices. “But it doesn’t do it as much as this other thing!!” Wtf dude what are you even arguing for
Just so you’re aware, downvotes have never proven someone’s point.