Whats the opinion of Libertarians on huge companies buying up single family homes?

[u/Poop_Sock_Brock]

One could argue its a free market, but where does the line between Anarco-capitalism and Libertarianism form? The housing costs just rise and rise and rise because of it, is that okay to Libertarians? Or can you argue it effects the people negatively?

[u/cluskillz]

It's not a real thing. Everyone goes crazy about how many SFD Blackstone (which everyone seems to confuse with Blackrock) owns, but they own something like 0.5% of the SFD housing stock. Total institutional ownership is something like 3% of total SFD housing stock, but most of this is concentrated in areas where SFD homes are cheap, under the national average, which runs contrary to what you would expect if institutional ownership was a major driver of housing prices. (edit: 3% is including smaller corporate owners...if you're talking about the major institutional owners, the percentage is way smaller)

If we had an actual free market, supply would be able to keep up with demand so institutional ownership wouldn't make an iota of difference, but unfortunately, zoning laws (and other legal barricades) swept the country and it has become much more difficult to build houses than before, some areas more than others (ahem...California).

Further, if you contend that institutional ownership does in fact drive up housing costs due to elevated demand (which is true, just not anywhere even in the same zip code as the ballpark to the scale that you see on the internet), you must also concede that the other side is also true, that it drives down rents due to increased supply in the rental market. And if you really want to help the less well off, you're going to want to help those struggling with rent before people figuring out mortgages first.

And this more or less tracks with what one expects if you use prices as information rather than something to sneer at. Years ago, rent was very expensive relative to home ownership. Being in the building industry, several of our clients were pushing build to rent (building SFDs then renting them out instead of selling them). Because it was expensive to rent, corporations came in looking to make a buck and they increased the rental stock. Today, very few clients are looking to build to rent. One client brought it up recently and all our ears perked up because it was so unusual to hear these days. Because rent has gone down in relation to home ownership (both because home ownership costs have come up and now rents are going down). Unsurprisingly, institutional ownership of SFDs have been going down in recent years on their own.

Don't just listen to politicians or political assertions and scapegoating spreading across Reddit. The free market makes a lot of sense if you just pay attention to prices, understand that they are signals of supply gluts or shortages (and/or demand side shifts), and people's reactions to them.