Lawmakers say investors that scooped up hundreds of thousands of houses to rent out are driving up home prices
Wall Street went on a home-buying spree. Now, more lawmakers want to stop it from ever happening again.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House have sponsored legislation that would force large owners of single-family homes to sell houses to family buyers. A Republican’s bill in the Ohio state legislature aims to drive out institutional owners through heavy taxation.
Lawmakers in Nebraska, California, New York, Minnesota and North Carolina are among those proposing similar laws.
While homeowner associations for years have sought to stop investors from buying and renting out houses in their neighborhoods, the legislative proposals represent a new effort by elected officials to regulate Wall Street’s appetite for single-family homes.
These lawmakers say that investors that have scooped up hundreds of thousands of houses to rent out are contributing to the dearth of homes for sale and driving up home prices. They argue that investor buying has made it harder for first-time buyers to compete with Wall Street-backed investment firms and their all-cash offers.
The Canadian law would have more teeth if it wasn’t so darn easy to set up a Canadian company to buy houses in the first place (please note: this is not from personal experience, I have not done this personally). The law we need progressively taxes corporate-owned houses to the point of making it unprofitable after they own X houses (pick your own value of X).
Laws can protect people or they protect corporations. It should be both, but it never really looks like both, does it?
That would be awesome!
My value for X is 1.