When speculators/investors hoard a significant portion of the housing inventory and turn them into rentals, people are **forced** to rent from these people because they have essentially cornered the market. If the houses provide positive cash flow, then these renters would have been able to afford to buy these homes for their families.
I will try to find the statistics, but believe about 57% of California’s (or San Diego? can’t remember) population consists of renters. IMHO, this is largely due to the protection and subsidy LLs get from Prop 13. If a LL’s property taxes rose with prices, they’d be forced to put their properties on the market during bubbles (because many of these houses would no longer produce positive cash flow). This would help stabilize prices and help prevent the wild swings we see in housing prices.
Yes, I believe society is far better served if regular families were more “entitled” to own their own home rather than have the wealthy feel “entitled” to hoard precious inventory so that they can earn a profit at the expense of working families.
Obviously, that is a subjective belief, and I don’t expect everyone else to share it.
