I think housing prices have shot up, in part, due to the lack of normal turnover in sales and rental inventory.
The squatters have stayed in place where normally those homes would have been processed in an orderly, normal market cycle.
A big reckoning is about to hit and everyone will be affected. A flood of sales and a glut of rentals will drop prices. All the people who took cash out refi loans because of the low interest rates and high home values are going to wind up under water.
You’re 100% right. I know multiple people who have been sitting on properties that they had intended to sell but haven’t because they need to get the deadbeat tenants first.