What do you know, a world with a
rapidly expanding housing supply in the 1950s and 1960s had numerous and attractive opportunities for "starter homes" for young families. Higher interest rates also instilled some discipline in the market -- higher interest payments for borrowers, yes, but it put downward pressure on asking prices and discouraged investors from investing into real estate on margin as a speculative asset.
The real problem here is not "Dreamcrusher Capital." Private equity doesn't own that much real estate or have that much power in local governments that set zoning and land-use policy. The problem is incumbent homeowners who deliberately suppress housing supply to preserve the value of their homes through scarcity. I live in a pretty posh neighborhood, and basically every home here has a "KEEP THIS **** OUT!!!" sign in front of it decrying a proposed mixed-use, high-density development that would add a few hundred housing units.
Sure, they say it is about "not changing the character of the neighborhood" or "making sure the schools maintain their quality" or other such coded/vaguely racist comments,
but what they are really doing is making sure their investments payoff. If anything, "Dreamcrusher Capital" is the hero here for trying to invest in new housing stock, which would put downwards pressure on prices. But, alas, as typical with our society nowadays, the entrenched interests of the upper-middle class win out and the upper-middle class keeps on thinking it is somehow the stratum of our society that is doing the most suffering and needs the most help.
It’s a fail proof model. Buy up all the housing of your employees… when business goes bad, lay off employees, keep earning, employees then get a stimulus to maintain rent, keep earning. And you can buy it all up with mortgages at 2% or less and astronomical rent rates. Their is next to no risk for those with significant capital, or access to significant capital.
I cannot think of an economy that actually works like this outside of maybe like a "company town" of yore in coal mining West Virginia or oil boom western Texas or something like that.
If you could tell me about five people where their employer literally "owns" (or at least has a lien against) their home when that employer is not a bank, then I would be really impressed.