As far as I understand, in the USA large corporate ownership of housing is a recent phenomenon, whilst vacancy rates have been trending downwards. Example chart
What is “all the empty and unused housing”? Why are vacancy rates going down if this is pushing the price up?
I agree: if large companies bought up enough housing stock that they were able to let it lie empty to push prices up (and then actually did it) it could cause a big increase in prices/rents, and that would be a big problem. But we just do not see it in the data.
In contrast, we do see that, in the USA, home building has not kept pace with increases in population. This chart plots the ratio of population growth to housing growth. It was about 1.5 in the 70s, meaning that for every 3 people who were born or arrived in the US, 2 houses were started. Nowadays that ratio is around 2.5.
There is a MASSIVE OBVIOUS explanation for huge increases in rent/house prices.
As far as I understand, in the USA large corporate ownership of housing is a recent phenomenon, whilst vacancy rates have been trending downwards. Example chart
What is “all the empty and unused housing”? Why are vacancy rates going down if this is pushing the price up?
I agree: if large companies bought up enough housing stock that they were able to let it lie empty to push prices up (and then actually did it) it could cause a big increase in prices/rents, and that would be a big problem. But we just do not see it in the data.
In contrast, we do see that, in the USA, home building has not kept pace with increases in population. This chart plots the ratio of population growth to housing growth. It was about 1.5 in the 70s, meaning that for every 3 people who were born or arrived in the US, 2 houses were started. Nowadays that ratio is around 2.5.
There is a MASSIVE OBVIOUS explanation for huge increases in rent/house prices.