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The housing market has picked up in recent months. Contributing to that is a trend of private equity firms and hedge funds buying up tens of thousands of vacant houses to sell as single-family rental homes. Wall Street has also created a new security by bundling the rent payments of the tenants in those properties. The homes being bought up by investment groups like Blackstone were at one-time available to be purchased outright.
"There is nothing inherently wrong with rental housing, especially when investor-owners maintain it well and treat tenants fairly," says professor Dan Immergluck. "Unfortunately, in most cities in the U.S., tenants have access to few legal protections, are offered only short-term (1-year) leases and are vulnerable to escalating rents. For many families, especially those with children and older households, value stable housing situations where they can raise their kids or retire in security, many rental situations are less than ideal. And at a neighborhood level, rapid declines in homeownership can lead to a loss of social capital from stable residents who are particularly vested in the area. Even the large Wall Street single-family investors who rent out homes look to invest in neighborhoods with relatively high homeownership rates."
