Geez, some of these firms got bailed out during the financial crisis, then turned around and bought up massive amounts of homes in bankruptcy, and now squeezing tenants for higher rents.
No justice, no peace.
Don’t look at the average buyers, look at the marginal buyers, who are setting prices.
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Hi Gregor,
So, there are quite similar issues here in Ireland – not with single family homes specifically – but with the rental sector in general and the solutions being proposed here are mixed bag of rent controls & tax on vacancies to ameliorate the situation.
My own thoughts are that since the problem is a lack of supply because the construction industry isn’t doing it like it used to, I think the answer is go look at recent mass construction programs in countries with developmental economic policies e.g. like MCMV in Brazil (with 12 million units built or bought in 6 years or so) and see how development & the industry was incubated in order for them to be able to produce on a big scale. The factors involved are both ‘push’ & ‘pull’. Financing and other policies explicitly support enlargement of production capacity as part of that.
However it seems to me like incentives in the US Ireland and the UK too (which are obviously all developed countries) are ‘pull’ only with the hope that, as per free market doctrine, everything else will fall into place and producers shall emerge to fill the gaps.
Thing is, that ain’t happening!
Classic CNBC nonsense. The Left performs these bailouts then the Left complains about them..Clever..