Over the last few years, there's been growing concern around institutional buyers (namely "Wall Street") buying up too many single-family houses and then renting them out.
But as we spoke about last year, the number of homes owned in this way is actually quite small. The vast majority of homes are owner occupied. And the second largest share of owners is what you might call "small landlords." That is, people who own somewhere between 1-9 homes.
So if the specific concern is that people are out there buying houses and then renting them out, the more fruitful target would be these small landlords. But nobody seems too fussed by them, which leads me to believe that this is an instance of symbolic politics theory. In other words, it's the association with the big bad Wall Street that people don't like.
Whatever the reason, here's the data on the largest single-family house buyers in the US last year (2024) via SFR Analytics:
Welcome to 2019.
I am currently in transit and catching up on some internet reading and email on my way back to Toronto.
At this time of year it is, of course, common to reminisce (or lament) about what happened over the last year, as well prognosticate what may come.
Over the last few years, I have done a bit of that on the blog. But I clearly didn’t do that this year while in Brazil (and away from any semblance of a workspace).
So here’s what others have been writing and thinking about over the holidays:
- 2018’s tech trends and tribulations in 14 charts. Recode. Link
- 2018 was the year of the YIMBY. CityLab. Link
