Nick Fountain

She says this surprised her.

She still doesn't know exactly why it is, but she pointed us to some other research that she says might help explain it.

Basically, as more renters came into neighborhoods, they changed them.

So that's two different periods Caitlin discovered when housing prices were lower in areas with more institutional ownership.

In one, rents were lower and the other, sale prices were lower.

But Caitlin did find one period in recent history when areas with high concentrations of large investors saw both higher rents and higher sale prices.

Sure, bananas.

Yeah.

Like we said, Caitlin's data stops in 2022.

She says she's working on updating her paper with the more recent data.

All in all, across the dozen years she did study, the only period she found that these big landlords might be making housing more expensive was the most recent, the bananas period.

And I guess the question is, is that a one-off bizarro period in the real estate market?

Or is it our new normal, like today?

In this period we are in now, would stopping institutional investors from buying up properties make housing more affordable or less affordable?

But it does do a few things that aim to discourage the practice.

When people buy homes, the federal government often insures or guarantees or securitizes their mortgage.

And the order directs government agencies to not do that for big investors.

In fact, in the period she studied, large institutional investors bought in cash 83 percent of the time.

By and large, they are not dependent on mortgage financing.

They get money to buy homes from investors.