Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by David Youngberg
“Single-family home prices are up nearly 50 percent since the start of the pandemic, a massive increase in just four years. Even though institutional investors own less than 2 percent of the rented single-family homes, many Americans blame private equity firms for skyrocketing prices, prompting bills designed to ban Wall Street from owning single-family homes. It’s an unfortunate reaction based in an erroneous understanding of this dysfunctional market. The recent surge in private equity’s interest in housing is a symptom of a market broken by Byzantine zoning, lot size, and parking laws. Housing is expensive because cities force developers to waste land. Housing is expensive because building affordable housing is illegal, and Wall Street investment is the natural result of these higher prices. Private equity firms not only wouldn’t be involved if land-use restrictions weren’t ratcheting up prices, they wouldn’t be needed.” (06/27/24)
https://www.aier.org/article/investors-make-houses-more-affordable-not-less/