Corporate investors and the housing affordability crisis: Having wall street as your landlord

Abstract

Given the importance of housing affordability to one's social class standing, one's ability to afford decent, secure housing is not only important on an individual level, but impacts intergenerational im/mobility as well. The purpose of this research is threefold. First, it examines the recent trend in bulk housing purchases by corporate investors who turn those purchases into single family rental properties. In so doing, it discusses the implications for the population in general, but for marginalized population in perticular, that is, persons of color and those inthe lower socioeconomic strata of society. Second, this research examines a closely related housing phenomenon, condominium deconversion, where corporate investors purchase privately owned condominiums in bulk who turn them into rental units. Third, summary analysis and suggestions for future research as well as legislative and policy proposals to offset housing affordability conclude this research.