All Encompassing Mortgage and Real Estate Thread

[Gil Bang 25827]

So, today I learned that CA is recognizing out-of-state licenses for military spouses.  

I'm pro-military.  My son is an Apache pilot, and he's currently deployed to a dangerous place.  I'm in favor of recognizing spouse's licenses for a lot of things.  

Cosmetology?  Sure.  Hair in CA is just like hair in Tennessee. 

Nursing?  Sure.  Medicine is medicine. 

But Real Estate?  No fucking way.  Every state does it differently than every other state.   I've got a metric shit-ton of REO experience, and I've off-loaded shit in many states.   CA is like no other animal. 

[Neonmoon 38127]

2 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

So, today I learned that CA is recognizing out-of-state licenses for military spouses.  

I'm pro-military.  My son is an Apache pilot, and he's currently deployed to a dangerous place.  I'm in favor of recognizing spouse's licenses for a lot of things.  

Cosmetology?  Sure.  Hair in CA is just like hair in Tennessee. 

Nursing?  Sure.  Medicine is medicine. 

But Real Estate?  No fucking way.  Every state does it differently than every other state.   I've got a metric shit-ton of REO experience, and I've off-loaded shit in many states.   CA is like no other animal. 

Hot take alert: All licenses should be national. There is no material difference for each state for any profession, even legal. I am licensed in 5 states. It’s all the same shit. Legal might be the only one with an argument, but you can learn that shit over the weekend. Different state licenses are just another way for local governments to shake people down for bullshit fees. /end rant 

[Gil Bang 25827]

1 minute ago, Neonmoon said:

Hot take alert: All licenses should be national. There is no material difference for each state for any profession, even legal. I am licensed in 5 states. It’s all the same shit. Legal might be the only one with an argument, but you can learn that shit over the weekend. Different state licenses are just another way for local governments to shake people down for bullshit fees. /end rant 

So, I think I've established a little credibility here that I have a clue what I'm doing.

 

Then I help my son with his purchase in N.C.    Oh shit, talk about bizarro world.    The BUYER pays the SELLER a NON REFUNDABLE FEE of SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS for the pleasure of INSPECTING THE FUCKING HOUSE?

Yeah, there's a material difference. 

[Pato del Muerto 52215]

Seems like you picked it up quickly 

[Neonmoon 38127]

2 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Seems like you picked it up quickly 

Exactly 

[blacklab 11836]

relators in California: 215,477

population of California: 39.24 million

so 215k/39.2M = .54% of the population are relators

57,155 military spouses in California

if they are relators at the same rate as the general population 

.54% * 57,155 = 313 additional real estate agents.

so a .14% increase in the number of agents.

Better get out your pitchfork and get up to the state capital. Fuck those spouses and fuck the people in the military. How dare they trample on the rights of active agents in California. All 215,477 agents might as well find another line of work. 313 new agents in California. You're fucked Gil. They should have to go to 23 hours of training and take a 10 question multiple question test like you did or they should get the fuck out of the business.

[Pato del Muerto 52215]

Are you spelling it that way as a bit?

[Wulaw Horn 18921]

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

Hot take alert: All licenses should be national. There is no material difference for each state for any profession, even legal. I am licensed in 5 states. It’s all the same shit. Legal might be the only one with an argument, but you can learn that shit over the weekend. Different state licenses are just another way for local governments to shake people down for bullshit fees. /end rant 

Legal would seem like a pretty bad idea in a lot of cases, and you can already get admitted for one at a time with a local counsel. But the local counsel is required. 
Conceptually I agree with you I think. But, I’m loath to give more control to the feds, usually. That said the CFpB is already run I g roughest through most of that shit, so it’s not like the feds aren’t already massively involved. 

[UT_OB1 2198]

23 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Are you spelling it that way as a bit?

Typo?  Synapse misfire?  Old age (I do it a lot with names) 
 

What is a “relator”?

A relator is the party who seeks relief from a Texas appellate court in an original proceeding. Relator is not pronounced the same way as realtor (i.e., a person who helps buy and sell real estate). Relator is pronounced ree-LAY-tor, with the emphasis on the second syllable. In an original proceeding, there is no appellant or appellee. The respondent is the person whose actions are being complained of by the relator. The respondent is generally a trial court judge. In an original proceeding, the opposing party in the trial court is called the real “party in interest” in the appellate court.

[Neonmoon 38127]

7 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Legal would seem like a pretty bad idea in a lot of cases, and you can already get admitted for one at a time with a local counsel. But the local counsel is required. 
Conceptually I agree with you I think. But, I’m loath to give more control to the feds, usually. That said the CFpB is already run I g roughest through most of that shit, so it’s not like the feds aren’t already massively involved. 

Doesn’t have to be federal. Just a national licensing system. NMLS works. One license. One fee. All 50 states. 

My wife is a therapist and has the same stupid issue. Needs a different license in every state. No difference in mental health between states. 

I will concede Legal, but to be honest the material differences can be learned in rather quickly too. Legal is only really an issue in a couple states like Louisiana because their laws are made by dirty swamp people that can’t read. 

[Wulaw Horn 18921]

4 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Doesn’t have to be federal. Just a national licensing system. NMLS works. One license. One fee. All 50 states. 

My wife is a therapist and has the same stupid issue. Needs a different license in every state. No difference in mental health between states. 

I will concede Legal, but to be honest the material differences can be learned in rather quickly too. Legal is only really an issue in a couple states like Louisiana because their laws are made by dirty swamp people that can’t read. 

There are way too many licenses in all states for all occupations as well probably. I would be game for a complete overhaul of how we do it- but devil is in the details. 
getting licensed in a couple other places now and you are definitely right it’s pretty pointless- especially more fingerprints and shit like that which doesn’t even have anything to do with peculiarities of state law. 

[UTPhil2006 3785]

21 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

We’re down 24 bips on mbs market at one time today and now only down 2. Getting better. 

[Gatorubet 29967]

13 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

There is no material difference for each state for any profession, even legal. I am licensed in 5 states. It’s all the same shit. Legal might be the only one with an argument, but you can learn that shit over the weekend. 

As a Louisiana lawyer who took the common law curriculum in law school, I beg to differ. We used to be wildly different, but after the UCC adoption, some of that went away. We still have a form of forced heirship - and you don’t even wanna know about lesion beyond moiety…

[Neonmoon 38127]

3 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

As a Louisiana lawyer who took the common law curriculum in law school, I beg to differ. We used to be wildly different, but after the UCC adoption, some of that went away. We still have a form of forced heirship - and you don’t even wanna know about lesion beyond moiety…

I'm not going to lie, I literally thought of you when I typed that. I was like, I know Gator is going to come tell I'm full of shit. It was worth it. 

[Incredulity 11384]

3 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

and you don’t even wanna know about lesion beyond moiety…

Lesion can be claimed only by the seller and only in sales of corporeal immovables

[Gatorubet 29967]

31 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

I'm not going to lie, I literally thought of you when I typed that. I was like, I know Gator is going to come tell I'm full of shit. It was worth it. 

No generic Statute of Frauds and no Rule Against Perpetuity per se either.  And get this: appellate courts have review of fact as well as law, so you can appeal a judgment, and the appellate court can read the transcript and decide the other party should’ve won. 

And we do not recognize precedent as you know it - and absolutely do NOT follow stare decisis.    We weird buddy. 

[Incredulity 11384]

Frank Abagnale made Louisiana law his bitch...allegedly

 

[Gatorubet 29967]

2 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Lesion can be claimed only by the seller and only in sales of corporeal immovables

Before the Civil War, Louisiana was the only state to deem their slaves immovable (common law ‘real property’ ) property rather than movable (personal property).  Meaning, slaves were more like real estate.  We were odd, are odd, and will continue to be odd.   Don’t make me file a reconventional demand asserting a stipulation pour autrui!!!

[Dbeasy 14917]

19 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

So, today I learned that CA is recognizing out-of-state licenses for military spouses.  

I'm pro-military.  My son is an Apache pilot, and he's currently deployed to a dangerous place.  I'm in favor of recognizing spouse's licenses for a lot of things.  

Cosmetology?  Sure.  Hair in CA is just like hair in Tennessee. 

[Gil Bang 25827]

16 hours ago, blacklab said:

relators in California: 215,477

population of California: 39.24 million

so 215k/39.2M = .54% of the population are relators

57,155 military spouses in California

if they are relators at the same rate as the general population 

.54% * 57,155 = 313 additional real estate agents.

so a .14% increase in the number of agents.

Better get out your pitchfork and get up to the state capital. Fuck those spouses and fuck the people in the military. How dare they trample on the rights of active agents in California. All 215,477 agents might as well find another line of work. 313 new agents in California. You're fucked Gil. They should have to go to 23 hours of training and take a 10 question multiple question test like you did or they should get the fuck out of the business.

434,401 licensees in CA per the California Department of Real Estate

 

And I'm not worried about them taking business from any of the 434,401 that are here.  I'm worried about some innocent party getting fucked because their agent didn't know what the fuck they were doing.   And I'm guessing that there's a very good chance that a military spouse is going to have a lot of military clients; likely a majority of military clients.

So you think I'm shitting on the military, when actually I'm doing the opposite.  I'm looking out for them.   And FWIW, I hold a MRP designation, and participate in "Military on the Move", in which I rebate  25% of my commission to any active or veteran that I do business with.  I also have a title company and escrow that discounts their fees for military and vets also. 

Edited January 4 by Gil Bang

[BearSchlong 8069]

So, I think I've established a little credibility here that I have a clue what I'm doing.
 
Then I help my son with his purchase in N.C.    Oh shit, talk about bizarro world.    The BUYER pays the SELLER a NON REFUNDABLE FEE of SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS for the pleasure of INSPECTING THE FUCKING HOUSE?
Yeah, there's a material difference. 

Fuck NC. My son was out a few $K for the same stupid law. I have a degree in RE and was apoplectic when I discovered that situation.

[Neonmoon 38127]

Condo HOA just fucked me hard. Won’t provide a budget with 10% for reserves. Said the next vote is in July and will take it up then. If I was the owner, I would be pissssed. 

[Gil Bang 25827]

there are so many fucked up HOA out there.

[UTPhil2006 3785]

Jobs came in “high” this morning 

[UT_OB1 2198]

1 hour ago, UTPhil2006 said:

Jobs came in “high” this morning 

That means I’m going to get a 4.x 30 yr on the ReFi we’re doing on my rental, right? 😀

[UTPhil2006 3785]

12 minutes ago, UT_OB1 said:

That means I’m going to get a 4.x 30 yr on the ReFi we’re doing on my rental, right? 😀

Absolutely. You don’t mind 10 points origination right?

[UT_OB1 2198]

54 minutes ago, UTPhil2006 said:

Absolutely. You don’t mind 10 points origination right?

Sure, as long as I can pay in zjs

[Wulaw Horn 18921]

For the 10th month on a row maybe jobs were revised downward (almost 100k) 

that makes in the last year 500k worth of downward revisions to job reports and no upward revisions. Lots of really bizarre and unlikely stuff in the jobs report. The market digested it and said- the headline numbers are bullshit nothing really good going on with number. Something like mbs up 30 from the low point of the day when the headlines were announced before the market digested it. 

[StassneyHorn 6499]

15 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

For the 10th month on a row maybe jobs were revised downward (almost 100k) 

 

I've already shown you this is wrong dude

[StassneyHorn 6499]

On 12/8/2023 at 9:11 PM, StassneyHorn said:

July initial job numbers were 187k, revised downwards to 157k, then revised upwards to 236k. July is not 10 months ago.

Through September, when the 2 month revisions have been completed, our economy is still 403k jobs net over expectations YTD, with 285k of that happening in January. In the last 6 months we're at a 116k net gain over expectations YTD.

The Chicken Little downward revisions don't mean shit when they still beat expectations.

 

[Storm the Field 5266]

Wulaw wants his recession and wants it now, damnit!

[StassneyHorn 6499]

25 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

For the 10th month on a row maybe jobs were revised downward (almost 100k) 

Jesus Christ this isn't even right, either. It's 71k downwards. Not close to 100k. That's a 40% exaggeration.

Who the hell trusts you with numbers?

[Pato del Muerto 52215]

Well it’s only 29% of the exaggerated total!

[Neonmoon 38127]

1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Something like mbs up 30 from the low point of the day when the headlines were announced before the market digested it. 

[Francisco 2.0 32289]

Investment firm buys 264 homes in Las Vegas in one day:

 

https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/housing/swapping-homes-like-stocks-wall-street-backed-firm-buys-264-valley-homes-in-a-day-2976037/

 

Quote

A Wall Street-backed corporate landlord bought hundreds of Clark County homes in a staggering one-off residential sale in summer 2023.

Miami-based investment firm Starwood Capital Group sold 264 homes in Clark County for $98 million to Dallas-based Invitation Homes (NYSE: INVH), according to Clark County property records.

The deal, made in three separate transactions, closed on July 18, property records show. The largest sale was $57.5 million for 155 homes, the second was $26.3 million for 70 homes and the third was $14.1 million for 39.

 

Quote

The majority of the homes sold are in the city of Las Vegas (94), followed by the city of North Las Vegas with 77. The price range for each home ranged from around $292,000 to $694,000, with the average price at $371,514.

The sale is part of a much larger deal between Starwood Capital and Invitation Homes, a $650 million swap for a portfolio of close to 1,900 single-family rental homes, with the vast majority being in the Sun Belt, including in Texas, Florida, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

 

Quote

Wall Street-backed hedge funds, corporate landlords and cash rich investors have been buying up single-family homes across the country as far back as 2009, which experts say means fewer houses on the market for families to purchase. That also could lead to higher rental prices and fewer affordable homes in regions like the Las Vegas Valley. A MetLife Investment Management study shows these companies could own close to 40 percent of all U.S. houses by 2030.

Concerning the $98 million sale, an Invitation Homes representative said the purchase was part of a “larger portfolio acquisition across multiple markets,” but declined to comment further on the deal. As of the third quarter of 2023, the company had bought 2,291 homes for $854 million during the year, which includes the 264 homes in the Las Vegas Valley, according to its latest earnings report. Starwood Capital declined to comment on the sale

 

Spoiler

Noah Herrera, a real estate agent who has worked in the Las Vegas Valley for nearly 30 years, said Wall Street-backed hedge funds and large corporate landlords first got involved in the housing market after the Great Recession in 2008-09 when real estate values bottomed out across the country.

Herrera said he worked with a few corporate landlords during the initial buying phase in 2008-09, and they told him they would resell what they bought in five years. But these landlords never put these houses back on the market, he said.

He said what scares him the most about corporate America getting involved in residential real estate is what are known as “rental-backed securities,” where companies like Invitation are selling to investors. The product has a lot of similarities to mortgage-backed securities, one of the downfalls of the housing market during the 2008-09 crash.

“They’ve turned these homes into collateralized rental obligations. They’ve collateralized them and what they’re doing is swapping homes like stocks for one another.”

How many homes does Invitation own?

Rutgers University researcher Eric Seymour, who compiled data in conjunction with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, said Invitation Homes currently owns about 3,500 homes in Clark County, a number that has jumped since 2019 when they owned less than 3,100 homes. That makes it the second largest owner of single-family rental homes in Clark County.

Progress Residential — the largest corporate landlord in Clark County — owns more than 3,700 homes, more than double their portfolio in 2019.

Seymour said Starwood recently purchased some properties from Scottsdale, Arizona-based Progress Residential, which builds and owns more than 85,000 single-family rental homes across 30 metros. He added this is par for the course in today’s real estate market, as massive multibillion-dollar companies are swapping housing stock like stocks.

“Large single-family landlords like Invitation and Progress first acquired inventory following the foreclosure crisis, when they bought homes at discounted prices,” he said. “They’ve since grown primarily through acquisitions of competitor firms. As these companies settled in as landlords, they’ve also made bulk deals with competitor firms to grow or shed their presence in particular markets. They are essentially trading with each other to enhance the performance of their overall inventory.”

UNLV’s Lied Center for Real Estate Director Shawn McCoy estimates that investors (anyone who has bought more than 10 homes in the past five years) own approximately 15 percent of all the single-family homes in Clark County, a number that has been rising steadily since the Great Recession.

But to Mark Pingle, a professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Reno, this swap might not be the best rate of return on the company’s investment. On average, each home sold for roughly $370,000 and many of the rentals listed on Invitation Homes’ website average around $2,600, which gives the companies a low rate of return on their investment at about 5 percent.

“They must be thinking the prices of those houses, long term, will go up,” Pingle said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s a great financial deal.”

But since people need a place to live, ultimately the economist believes the revenue is relatively safe.

Although corporate landlords are exchanging hundreds of homes at a time, Pingle said he is not concerned about what the companies are doing and believes it’s “a drop in the bucket,” as there are more than a quarter of a million homes in Clark County. He also doesn’t believe there is a risk of a monopoly just yet, as there are many competing companies in the area.

“To me, what you’ll tend to see is more people living in, instead of single-family homes, you’ll see a higher percentage living in apartment buildings,” Pingle said, noting there will be a decline in home ownership.

Political movement?

Politicians and housing advocates across the country point to the growing corporate ownership of American homes as the reason for inflated home prices and rental rates across a number of major cities and counties in the U.S., including Clark County.

U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nevada, who represents Nevada’s 4th Congressional District including North Las Vegas, where the majority of corporate owned single-family rental homes in Clark County reside, said one of the biggest concerns he hears from constituents is the high cost of rent and access to affordable housing.

Horsford reintroduced legislation early in 2023, called the Housing Oversight and Mitigating Exploitation (HOME) Act, noting that “large institutional speculators” are buying up America’s housing market at an alarming rate. The bill aims to help protect Americans by creating institutional oversight in the housing market, such as allowing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate corporate landlord purchases and stamp out market manipulation.

“I continue to call for federal investigations into whether corporate landlords have artificially inflated rent and property costs or have systematically targeted certain communities of color, single mothers, or retirees,” Horsford said in a statement to the Review-Journal. “These bulk sales are evidence that once an out-of-state corporate speculator purchases a home, it is unlikely to resurface on the housing market for everyday working families, artificially lowering our already dire supply of housing in Southern Nevada.”

Estimates from the National Low Income Housing Coalition are that Clark County is already short more than 80,000 affordable housing units, a number that has been rising for years.

Horsford said under the Republican majority in the House this year, they only had one hearing for the housing subcommittee which he sits on.

“If we are to address this issue that is impacting so many Nevadans, we have to spend more time discussing the facts,” he said. “In the last Congress, under Chairwoman Maxine Waters, the Financial Services Committee had a hearing on this topic. Progress Residential and Invitation Homes were included in the research conducted by the committee and showed that these companies had elevated fees, higher than average evictions, and were more likely to cost burden their lower-income rentals.”

Another bill was also introduced in December 2023 by Democrats U.S. Rep. Adam Smith of Washington and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon in both houses of Congress called the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act of 2023. This bill would tackle the problem by banning hedge fund investors from owning large numbers of homes by establishing a $20,000 federal tax penalty per single family owned in excess of 100.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is currently polling third behind President Joe Biden and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National poll, said he is not sure why this has not already become a major campaign platform given its overall impact on the American real estate market, and does expect housing to become a big ticket item in the 2024 presidential election.

Both the White House and Trump’s media team did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

“Honestly, I don’t know why this isn’t a more prominent issue among national politicians,” Kennedy said in a statement. “Possibly, they are reluctant to offend Wall Street and the big institutional buyers. In any event, this is a serious issue for our country, because home ownership is the quintessence of the American Dream and a key to stable communities. When people do not own their own home, they are in a literal sense less invested in their community. They are also economically vulnerable to rent hikes.”

 

[Neonmoon 38127]

The majority of investment homes are owned by Mom & Pop LLC

[Wulaw Horn 18921]

2 hours ago, Storm the Field said:

Wulaw wants his recession and wants it now, damnit!

Wanting got nothing to do with it man. If the job report numbers were actually strong fundamentally the market wouldn’t have read the report and gone on a 30 point rally immediately.

as to the 500k in downward revisions this past year that’s just facts man. Theres something broken in their modeling or reporting or something when you miss the same direction 10 or 11 or 12 months in a row or whatever it’s now up to. I mean/ it doesn’t have to be something fundamentally broken I guess it could be a 1/2100 fluke or whatever 2 to the 11th power is. 

[Incredulity 11384]

7 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

1/2100 fluke or whatever 2 to the 11th power is. 

[StassneyHorn 6499]

1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Theres something broken in their modeling or reporting or something when you miss the same direction 10 or 11 or 12 months in a row or whatever it’s now up to. 

Still doing this after being shown your wrong is a mental issue.

[Incredulity 11384]

22 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

Still doing this after being shown your wrong is a mental issue.

What website do you think this is?

[StassneyHorn 6499]

If I had to do the work, everyone has to look at it

[Captainant 27233]

6 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

The majority of investment homes are owned by Mom & Pop LLC

If Mom & Pop LLC are buying their 25th SFH to let renters pay off and siphon off that wealth, they can fuck right off. It's ridiculous to allow investment firms to buy up perfectly good homes just to drive individual buyers out of the market and convert them into renters.

Ending up in our current state of lolwtf inflated rent and home prices is a consequence of letting homesteads be converted from family property into private equity investment vehicles. It rips away so much stability from families and steals their opportunity to build wealth themselves. 

[We’reTexas 1467]

11 minutes ago, Captainant said:

 

Ending up in our current state of lolwtf inflated rent and home prices is a consequence of letting homesteads be converted from family property into private equity investment vehicles. 

No, it’s a consequence of fifty years of NIMBYist housing policies obstruction. Institutional investment getting into single family housing is a sympton of the supply-demand imbalance, not the cause. 

[Incredulity 11384]

An interesting question is why are large corporations now investing in SFH when they hadn’t previously, at least in the last 50 years.

[Captainant 27233]

8 minutes ago, We’reTexas said:

No, it’s a consequence of fifty years of NIMBYist housing policies obstruction. Institutional investment getting into single family housing is a sympton of the supply-demand imbalance, not the cause. 

I think it's more of a "yes and" than the "or" as you're framing it. If they're buying up homes, then it's necessarily going to drive up prices for everyone by shrinking supply and aggravate the imbalance to further profit off of it. 

5 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

An interesting question is why are large corporations now investing in SFH when they hadn’t previously, at least in the last 50 years.

I'd argue it's because there's less people able to buy a house now than ever, and corporate power and wealth is at an all time high in America. They couldn't before, and now they can

[Neonmoon 38127]

33 minutes ago, Captainant said:

If Mom & Pop LLC are buying their 25th SFH to let renters pay off and siphon off that wealth, they can fuck right off. It's ridiculous to allow investment firms to buy up perfectly good homes just to drive individual buyers out of the market and convert them into renters.

Ending up in our current state of lolwtf inflated rent and home prices is a consequence of letting homesteads be converted from family property into private equity investment vehicles. It rips away so much stability from families and steals their opportunity to build wealth themselves. 

Most people don’t own 25 SFH. Many people own 2, at most 3. I don’t see many 7 home flippers these days, a few during the refi craze. 

There is an about 20 different reasons that created today’s inflated price market. At the bottom of the list is the private equity investment bogeyman.  

[We’reTexas 1467]

2 hours ago, Incredulity said:

An interesting question is why are large corporations now investing in SFH when they hadn’t previously, at least in the last 50 years.

It’s not a very interesting question: Invitation Homes explains it clearly:

Quote

We invest in markets that we expect will exhibit lower new supply, stronger job and household formation growth and superior NOI growth relative to the broader U.S. housing and rental market

We have not been building enough housing. 

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

I think it's more of a "yes and" than the "or" as you're framing it. If they're buying up homes, then it's necessarily going to drive up prices for everyone by shrinking supply and aggravate the imbalance to further profit off of it. 

There certainly is some nuance here. Institutional investors own a negligible (like less than 1%) of SFHs in the US, but have heavily targeted areas where housing affordability is most strained - growing middle class communities, as the INVH prospectus explains quite bluntly.

Would prohibiting such institutional investment be a net positive in those areas, or in general? I am inclined to think so, sure, why not. Would it have a material impact on housing affordability? No, not really. And I press this point because “Blackrock” has become a bogeyman in the housing wars, a convenient scapegoat for both progressives and conservatives to divert blame from the actual culprits: themselves. It’s NIMBYism all the way down. 

Edited January 6 by We’reTexas

[Pato del Muerto 52215]

Isn’t Vegas one of the places that had a ton of vacant inventory after the 2008 stuff?  Is that when the selling company above bought all those properties?

[Texas Jeff 1928]

An interesting question is why are large corporations now investing in SFH when they hadn’t previously, at least in the last 50 years.

Money was cheaper than historic inflation rates. Why not buy something that will probably go up in value faster than you have to pay it back, while having others make the loan payments?

[Incredulity 11384]

13 hours ago, We’reTexas said:

It’s not a very interesting question

It actually is.  Beyond NIMBYism and governmental restrictions on building there are root causes of these mainly financial institutions investing in SFH in Fed policy for the last 20 years.  Zero interest rates have  created a gigantic asset bubble as the capital they create chases returns.  Returns that have been completely eliminated in historically a major asset class the so called, “fixed income”.