This is a large part of what Obama & company was up to and made sure occurred during and immediately following the Great Recession.

Wall Street firms entered the single-family rental market after the 2008 housing crisis by purchasing foreclosed homes. Since then, their influence has continued to increase and the number of corporate landlords today is significant across the entire U.S. housing system: single-family and multifamily housing, manufactured housing such as mobile homes, subsidized affordable housing and student housing.

Many entities, such as hedge funds, were able to leverage their financial resources to purchase foreclosed homes wholesale.

This was intentional. It was Obama’s giveaway after these companies (and the banks backing them) had been financially decimated through their own idiocy. It was the quid pro quo that allowed Obama to become stupendously rich after leaving office. What a weasel.

And to people who say, “Oh, they only own 3% of the housing market. It’s not a big deal.” They (as most people do not) don’t understand how pricing in the housing market works. Even many people who should comprehend this and who work in the field have no real clue. Particularly and very strongly in the housing market, pricing works on the margins. What a house sold for 10 years ago is irrelevant. What a house sold for even one year ago is irrelevant. What a house like your house sold down the street from that aforementioned house in the recent past is all that fucking matters.

Why people cannot understand this I don’t have the faintest damn idea. Anyway, that means when a hedge fund or vulture capital group buys 4-5 houses (3% or less of the stock) in every neighborhood, it raises the comps. When the comps go up, all the housing in that neighborhood instantly become more valuable. This means the hedge fund vampires and vultures can then raise rent prices. Which they do. It doesn’t take much of this to raise prices in many areas 20-30% more than what they would be without hedge fund parasitism.

And if you think they don’t algorithmically game this out to make the best possible and most fortuitous buys (for them) to cause the prices to rise the most — well, you’re a full-on goddamn idiot. Because they do. Because that’s what I’d do if I were fully evil. And it’s not even hard if you have the green to do it.

A lot of this stuff is truly at about eighth-grade level of understanding the world so I am surprised that more people don’t see it. You can lead a clown to the facts, but you can’t make them think.