> Last month, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Center for Geospatial Solutions published a report showing that corporations now own a remarkable one in 11 residential real-estate parcels in the 500 urban counties with data robust enough to analyze. In some communities, they control more than 20 percent of properties.
They're invoking a false dichotomy. Small scale landlords (i.e. the guy who owns a second home and rents it out) are part of the corporations. From the linked report:
> A corporate investor, also referred to as a nonindividual investor, is a business entity that owns residential property, usually for the purpose of generating income. This broad category ranges from small entities such as family trusts and limited liability corporations (LLCs) to larger outfits like real estate investment trusts (REITs), endowments, and pension funds.
Many/most "ordinary" folks who buy a house to rent fall in this category - they form an LLC or something similar. Many reasons for this. Percentage-wise, my guess is that institutional investors (not just individuals who formed an LLC) are still a relatively small minority, but I don't have the data.
There is a common misconception on HN that it's rich people who mostly buy houses/units to rent out. In my experience, that's just not the case. Everyone is doing it across the board, and just by virtue of there being more non-rich people, they are likely the majority.
Also, higher income folks don't feel a great need to make more money. Median or lower income want to make a lot more, and real estate is actually one of the fewest options available to them (and also really easy to learn/understand). A lot less work than a second job (although some get a second job just to bootstrap the RE purchase process).
Just 3 days ago I spoke to a friend. Engineer (not software). Decent income, but not FAANG level. Non-working spouse and multiple kids. Rents out two houses, and is buying 2 more.
I took an AirBnB course from a guy who has lots of listings on AirBnB. He got there with almost no money down (most of his money was spent on furnishing the place). He was educated, but fairly low income ($50-60K in California). When I took the course he was making over $300K/year net from his AirBnBs.
When I used to listen to the Bigger Pockets podcast, the majority of people who owned 10+ homes to rent had very average incomes (less than a typical non-FAANG engineer).
I've been in the real estate space for a few years now. I don't own other units, but I do invest in them, and am moderately active in a local real estate club. I know how these things work.
If you want to solve this problem, stop pointing fingers at "rich people", and stop allowing multiple ownership for a decade or two.