Comment by datsci_est_2015
2 days ago
Define "tiny portion of the market", especially "market".
There are many houses in the US. Not all of them are for sale. There's a difference between having a "tiny portion of the market" when you define "the market" as all houses in the US, and "tiny portion of the market" when you define "the market" as the houses that are actively being bought and sold. I would not be surprised if corporate involvement was a significantly higher proportion of the latter rather than the former.
It takes a lot less to put your thumb on the scale of the "liquid" portion of a stock if it is significantly smaller in size than the total stock.
The market meaning all real estate, residential and commercial, and tiny, as in under 3%, with regards to what is owned by the institutional investors. That's probably higher with regards to properties that are or have been on the market in the last ten years or so. From what I can tell, the other ~97% is owned by individuals and smaller funds and mom&pop companies, with fewer than 20 properties involved.
In some dense urban areas, up to 10% of the local residential properties are owned by funds or investors. There's also overlap with investment networks where you're not getting to BlackRock levels, but you'll have a web of companies with mutual interests and a network of private debt and collateral, and these make up around 20% of the whole. For the most part, though, the majority of single family homes are not institutional. Even multi-family units, apartment complexes, and other rental properties are only in the ~10% range of institutional ownership, with the remainder owned by individuals, mom&pops, and small investment networks.
The conjunction of capabilities and incentives in combination with a huge buffer of wealth allows institutional investors to manipulate things in ways that aren't healthy for private home ownership, and the downstream social and economic impacts of being forced to rent, or hold debt that's not properly reflective of the value of the property.
We should impose reasonable policies that serve the interests of the people, and not simply maximize wealth building at the expense of citizens and families that would benefit from home ownership.
To add to this: the "total stock" is also completely different to any other asset in terms of market forces, because it varies widely depending on the buyer in question. People don't shop for "a house" and address the entire available market of houses in the country. They shop for a house in a particular area/city, of a certain value, with certain amenities, in proximity to other things, etc. etc. etc.
In this way houses are virtually unique in terms of financial vehicles and it introduces all manner of complexity and otherwise strange forces into the market. You can't simply treat it like any other commodified asset.