One thing that so many guests on my podcast say is that just because something has been done before doesn't mean you can't do it again. You just need to approach it from a slightly different angle.
I've thought a lot about that and how it applies to phenomena happening today. One example is private equity invading the American housing market, which began in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis when so many people lost their homes to foreclosure. Small homes that young and newly middle-class people could buy to begin building wealth have vanished. The houses still exist, of course, it's just that they've been bought up by private equity companies who then rent them out. Blackstone is now one of the largest landlords in America.
This is a short piece from October 2018 in Next City explaining the phenomenon. This longer 2019 piece profiles a handful of people who would like to buy a house, but have consistently been priced out by private equity firms and other investors willing to pay straight cash. This 2018 piece from Curbed looks at "the how" of it all. Just how did single-family homes become a magnet for corporate landlords and investors?
The LAist published this long piece just before the covid crisis hit, about what it's like to live in trailers and slum apartments owned by one of California's biggest real estate barons. They also provided a roadmap to how they reported the story.
Back in January 2018, The Intercept published a feature on what it's like to have Wall Street as your landlord. The jumping-off point for the story was a study done by Americans for Financial Reform, and the ACCE Institute.
In early 2017, Bloomberg did a great piece explaining how corporate Wallstreet-backed landlords are more likely to evict tenants. Then there’s this massive piece published in the New York Times Magazine last year that takes a sharp look at a private equity-backed real estate company that owns vast tracts of single-family houses, how they wring money out of the tenants, and what it means for the housing industry and how people achieve the American dream.