Many of the world’s largest investment firms have launched new funds over the past couple of years aimed at acquiring or building single-family homes to use as rentals. This comes as no surprise considering that the increased cost of buying a home has forced many Americans into being tenants instead of homeowners. Arrived, a young real estate company backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, has just announced its entry into the single-family rental fund space. Arrived currently operates a f
The reason those houses are vacant is because companies bought them and are now pricing them out of the reach of most consumers
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Free market can work in fields where competition is plenty and entering is cheap.
When the amount of “players” in the market is so small they can collude to keep prices high it all falls apart.
No, free market never works, because all people cannot be experts on all subjects at all times.
Because of that, you end up with people dying as “collateral damage” while the free market “corrects itself.” Things like: “Well they should have done their research and known that brand of car has faulty brakes, and went to a different company instead, so it’s kind of their own fault.” Or, “this is just part of the process. Now everyone will know (lol right) that this company makes cars with faulty brakes and stop buying their products,” while completely ignoring that these are fucking people that are dying. That’s not ok.
And what if a company decides to hide things about their product from the public? What happens when that very product ends up giving people mesothelioma, but because that’s an illness that can take decades to manifest after exposure, there’s no clear causal link to the regular consumer. How does the free market correct that one? Or do we just let people suffer and die horrible deaths so that we can keep using the cheaper kind of insulation and save a few bucks?
Sorry but the loss of human lives is not ever acceptable “collateral damage”. Especially not when the loss is 100% unnecessary.
That’s not price regulation though, it’s more about quality control. I’m assuming there’s already laws in place that prevent glaringly faulty products from being sold (…unless the lobbyists start messing with stuff, but regulations wouldn’t really solve that either).
It was more about the “free market keeps prices low” argument. It does if we’re talking about easy-to-access markets, but it falls apart if the entry barrier is so high and the only parties can easily collude.
Do you know that real estate investment exists? A house is an asset, and unless the entire economy crashes (like in 2008), then owning homes (even if empty) will make you easy money. It’s an appreciating asset. I could be wrong, but I also believe it’s very good for laundering money.
Wealthier Chinese nationals have been doing this for years in the US and Canada (look at what Chinese real estate investment has done to the housing market in Vancouver, for example).