No kidding – where is the money going to come from to buy up properties? 1,000 houses x $500K / house = $500M. Even assuming they turn around and sell those houses, they still have to come up with the funds to buy the inventory in the first place. If they hope to issue debt to get there, can you imagine what the interest rate on that debt would have to be? I would only begin to consider that debt at somewhere around 25%.
Now, if the federal government gets into this game, we are all in deep doodoo, because the only exit route for that much debt is inflation.