patrick.net

Earlier I wrote: The supply of houses in the market is low because we are dealing
with a monopoly. Something like 90% plus of the houses in the USA are owned by
six financial companies.

FreeAmericanDOP says

"That can't be right...

Think of it this way. The housing bubble goes back about 20 years to Alan Greenspan
who deliberately kept interest rates low (based on the Fed minutes).
Greenspan was the Fed chairman at the time.

Approximately 2-4% of single-family homes in the USA are owned by large institutional investors or financial companies (typically defined as entities owning 100+ or 1,000+ properties, such as private equity firms, REITs like Invitation Homes, or major corporate landlords).This figure comes from multiple recent analyses as of 2024-2025:Institutional investors own about 3.8% of the nation's single-family rental properties (Urban Institute, Brookings, and related reports), and since single-family rentals make up roughly 15-18% of all single-family homes, this translates to under 1% of the total stock in some estimates—but focused on larger entities.
Very large investors (1,000+ homes) own around 2.2% of investor-held properties, which themselves comprise ~20% of the ~86 million single-family homes (BatchData and John Burns Research & Consulting reports from 2025).
Overall, large institutional ownership is consistently described as less than 2-4% nationally (Econofact, GAO, and Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies), though higher (up to 10-25%) in specific Sunbelt markets like Atlanta or Charlotte.

Broader "investors" (including small "mom-and-pop" landlords owning 1-10 properties) own about 20% of single-family homes, but these are mostly individuals, not financial companies.Claims of much higher corporate ownership (e.g., 20% by private equity) are debunked as misconceptions confusing total investor activity with large financial institutions. Investor purchases of new sales have risen (25-33% in 2025 quarters), but this is driven mostly by small buyers, and stock ownership changes slowly.

https://x.com/i/grok/share/yHd5zAyHJtLxroy0uI5dacvUR

The big shots have been dumping out of the hotter markets in the Sunbelt for over a year now (despite claims of local non-pro homeloaners and realtors, who are usually several quarters behind reality), selling off in small pieces, though now they are screwed in Tampa.

I'm no friend of big finance (needs to be cut down 3 pegs, not just one) but it's just the ordinary sticky upwards mentality of many Homeloaners. For all their bitchin, many of them didn't take advantage just a little of the greatest stock runup in history and really bet it all on the house appreciating several fold since 1993 to retire on.

Midwest Party, formerly hot markets wallow

At the current rate of 6.2% for conventional 30 year mortgage, prices need to come down at least 20% from peak prices set in 2022.

.......................

Homebuilder Lennar Cuts Prices by 10% as CEO Admits Buyers Face an ‘Affordability Crisis’

https://www.realtor.com/news/real-estate-news/lennar-earnings-price-cut-december-2025/

I like a 6.2% interest rate. Good and normal.

People are too habituated, too addicted, too mentally enslaved to too low interest rates, which creates a debt borrowing frenzy. 5-8% is the healthy range. It could be cut a bit for the reindustrialization, but not too much, either.

There is no rage quitter like a California equity snob quitter. I'm watching Santa Cruz with interest. A place three doors down in Santa Cruz, which is reasonably priced for what it is in California, hasn't sold for six months and it's staged very nicely.

All the above is evidence that the housing market is a monopoly...

Supply and demand does not exist...

"Why don't Americans save? You can always buy a CD here in low rate early 2010s and get a whopping 0.3% return. Doesn't that make you want to put your money to sleep for a year?"

Nothing is going on in the housing market. Sales of existing homes about 4 million. Half a percent lower than last year. Pre-Covid, sales were a touch above 5 million per year. There's still no inventory (about 1.4 million for sale. Pre-Covid, inventory was running about 2 million for sale). Inventory is up a whopping 7.5% from last year...so it only needs to increase another 45% roughly to get back to pre-covid inventory levels. Prices for houses sold up a touch over 1% from last year. 29 months of year over year price increases, but I wouldn't read too much into that considering how anemic the increases have been.

Overall, a whole lot of nothing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/why-were-home-prices-still-climbing-last-month-despite-slowing-sales/ar-AA1SGuyy?pc=HCTS

MolotovCocktail says

Yep. Eventually life changes and reality will overwhelm the ability of stubborn homeloaners to list and de-list, stomp their feet, try to rent, be disappointed with that, and finally accept reality.

They are in the "I'm entitled to peak pricing! Home prices only go up!" phase.

And no, institutional ownership of homes is not a factor; the big boys have been selling off in slices since 2023 and are mostly concentrated in a handful of metro areas. Their total ownership of about 10% is less than "Mom and Pop" landlords (20-30%) and a tiny proportion to house and houseloan owners (over 60%)

The Houseloan owners are the most important segment, they are making big payments that if they stop, the bank will repo "Their" house. Yes I know about property tax, but the big one is the House Loan.