In the first half of 2021, 25% of residential purchases nationwide were by real estate investment firms like Vanguard and Blackrock. This was an unprecedented increase compared to pre-covid. I havn't found numbers more recent yet, but I suspect its only growing. The speculation is that they're inflating the housing market to corner it, leverage first time buyers out of the market and lock them in as permanent renters. Anecdotally, I've been getting 2 or 3 calls a week from random foreign people asking if I'm interested in selling my house. I suspect the real estate investment firms have kicked their program into the telemarketing phase. I am actually interested in selling soonish, as I plan to buy some vacant land and go 'off-grid'. Here in WA, vacant land prices are going up similar to houses (both seem to be about double what they were a few years ago). So either the investment firms are buying those up too, or its a result of the mass exodus from the cities thats been going on recently. It appears to me America is moving toward a 'company store' economy where people will be paying their rent to the same corporate conglomerates that employ them, allowing a situation where no matter how high wages increase, rent will increase accordingly to deprive them of the ability to build savings and any meaningful investment. IOW- wage slaves.
Ah ... you're one of these people who regard financial security as 'greed'. Responsibility is the devil, right?
I think you've got major financial issues here. A "real estate", despite the name, is not an investment (or it shouldn't be in normal circumstances) but a liability. A home deteriorates and ages (nobody cancelled the entropy of mother Nature, ya know) until one day it crumbles like ... an old house (duh). The same as a car but much slower. You don't consider a car an investment now do you? A car loses 20% of it's value when you drive out the car dealer. The only thing why this works with real estate is because the majority of people are too blind ($$$)to see the housing bubble is a Ponzi scheme. Yes, it works while the music plays but when the music stops someone is stuck "chair-less". Good luck with your "house flipping" but beware not to be the last one "standing".
Where did you learn your economics? Property is an APPRECIATING asset. Cars are DEPRECIATING assets. If you're not even aware of that, there's not much we can discuss really. No one is 'stuck' where they haven't chosen to be. There are always plenty of people who don't want the work and obligations of property, and they happily volunteer themselves for precarious housing. For them, precariousness is more comfortable than the hard work of acquiring property. I don't think I've ever "flipped" a house in my life, and have no intentions of ever doing so. All our properties serve very important purposes (food, timber, water, housing, power generation, etc), and are in very strategic separate locations.
Of course, that's the whole point - you've been conditioned (by banksters, realtors and MSM) to believe "housing prices are always gonna rise". No wonder we are in such a turmoil. Unless it's a cathedral, property deteriorates while getting old. Sometime it can appreciate for real reasons, for example if you upgrade your MDF to granite countertops or the trees you planted become some big, gorgeous trees. But other than that, it's just inflation that keeps your house rising in price. Good Lord, I don't want to know what the insurance of your $ 2-3-4-5-6 million house is. Because you certainly need one at that price tag.
Sigh ... 1) I'm 'conditioned' by both reality, and the settled economic science that property is an appreciating asset. 2) You appear to be talking about structures .. which has nothing to do with property. Property is LAND. Whether it has dwellings or other structures on it, or what condition they're in, is entirely beside the point. A collapsing shack on a small urban plot isn't worth millions for its building, it's worth millions for its LAND. 3) I don't insure my buildings. They're either double brick (and thus likely to remain intact in a fire), or replaceable at low cost. None are impacted by flood or hurricane etc. There's no way on earth I'm going to give thousands of dollars per year to an Insurance Agency for something I don't want, and may never need. Those thousands we save on insurances, allow us to buy more land. Once again, all our property holds its worth in its LAND, not its buildings. As is the case in all property bar the insanely overcapitalised (expensive building on cheap land).
