Posted on 03/10/2026 8:35:54 AM PDT by millenial4freedom
The Senate will today debate the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. Buried in the sprawling legislation is a section reportedly written by Sen. Elizabeth Warren titled “Homes Are for People, Not Corporations.” It has the backing of the White House and broad support in the Senate. The idea sounds politically appealing. In practice, it could sow the seeds of the next housing crash.
The provision targets large institutional investors that own single-family rental homes. It effectively blocks investors that own more than 350 homes from buying additional single-family houses except under narrow circumstances. Even those purchases must generally be sold to individual buyers within seven years. The Treasury secretary would also have broad discretion to rewrite the regulatory framework governing these investments.
The political message is clear: Washington wants fewer investors in single-family rental housing. That message is already chilling investment.
The irony is that institutional investors represent a tiny share of the housing market. Large institutional investors own roughly six-tenths of one percent of the nation’s single-family housing stock. Yet Congress is poised to treat this small segment as if it were the central cause of the housing shortage.
These investors have done something Washington has struggled to accomplish: deploy private capital to renovate distressed housing and build new rental homes without government subsidy. Many purchased older properties that needed repair and invested tens of thousands of dollars per home to make them livable. Others helped finance the growing build-to-rent sector, which adds newly constructed single-family homes specifically intended for renters.
Driving this capital away will not create more housing. It will reduce investment, deteriorate the housing stock, and shrink supply. It will also be costly for renters living in these homes, whose lives may be uprooted as investors divest.
(Excerpt) Read more at aei.org ...
I don't know if that's true. It seems everytime I turn around some private equity firm or property management company is buying up open housing then renting or selling it for huge amounts. I see it everywhere in my area of the country (Indiana).
I live under the thumb of that evil POS. Yeah this is a darn good accurate with them for me, at least. I understand a lot of people as close to her sphere of influence might be so accepting that as a maxim.
That might be close-minded to some, but I can assure people that it isn’t. It is just accurate.
In my youth, 12-units/acre zoning meant garden apartments.
Nowadays, here in Florida, 12 units/acre zoning means so-called villas.
Only structures above three stories tend to be multi-family.
I used to flip houses. The damage done by corporate purchasing of these types of houses is that it caused many potential flippers to pay too much for what they were getting. Most flippers may be saavy in selling real estate, but not renovations or the business side (underwriting). Others may be saavy in renovations, but not selling or underwriting. Very very few were good at underwriting, but at the end of the day, underwriting is how you actually make money on a flip.
Good underwriting means you know what you have to do to fix the property up, how long it will take, and what you can sell it for after you are done. I have literally known thousands of flippers, and less than 10% can say they never lost money on a property. I was one of those 10%, and I got out of flipping in 2018 because it stopped being profitable. I was seeing houses go at auction for prices that were hundreds of thousands over what they reasonably should have. For most of the flippers, the losses they sustained wiped out their savings.
Yes, I absolutely want to get foreign investment out of our housing market, but getting corporate America out is also important. First, get them out of houses. Next, get them out of Apartments. Real Estate is the best path for most Americans to invest in their own future. Most of the millionaires in our first 200 years became so through real estate. Even Donald Trump made his billions in Real Estate.
When corporations take over those assets, it cuts off the ability of common people to climb out of their financial situation. Corporations make us renters, not owners.
First, there is a difference between building and renting. Builders build and sell - no problem.
It should stop publicly traded corporations from buying housing for the intent of rental income. Individual investors can participate in the creation of new apartments through syndications (basically LLC’s on a single complex where they are an investor). You can do a syndication for building a new complex or buying an old one and fixing it up. Most syndications have an intent to go 3-5 years. After that, they cash out and sell to the next group of investors. Owning apartment complexes is highly illiquid so people want periodic access to their money and they can only do that by selling.
I disagree with the 4th paragraph that “The political message is clear: Washington wants fewer investors in single-family rental housing.” This move means that Washington wants more investors in single-family rental housing ... namely ... regular citizens.
When they say “That message is already chilling investment.” it means institutional investment. Not private investment.
The real estate market has a history of “crashing” about every 7 years. Capitalism allows that. Socialistic policies try to control it, leading to more volatility.
Our formally Capitalistic structure is now polluted with Socialistic elements, making the usual cycle more difficult to predict.
Individual families cannot compete against institutional investors who can easily out bid them and are advantaged by not needing mortgages and having in-house insurance, lawyers, contractors, estimators, realtors etc.
Institutional investors in the housing market therefore should have restraints similar to limitations on monopolies for much the same reasons.
“To build a house much larger isn’t that much more expensive.”
Old saying by builders: “Everybody makes mistakes. Builders live in theirs.
Those are usually CA home owners.
Things have calmed down a bit so it might be a good time to keep looking.
And of course the American Enterprise Institute has no irons in the fire. “Don’t threaten OUR investments! We’re here to protect the little guy.” Lol.
This being true, then nothing the ROAD Act could do would affect the market one way or the other.
I find that hard to believe.
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