Evidence Matters: Winter 2023

The Winter 2023 issue of Evidence Matters: Transforming Knowledge into Housing and Community Development Policy, which focuses on the role and influence of institutional investors in the housing market, is now available. This issue highlights the recent entry of institutional investors into the single-family housing market, their effects on renters and prospective homebuyers, and ways to mitigate their potential negative impacts; institutional investor activity in two metropolitan statistical areas: Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington and Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land; and programs and services of nonprofit organizations that are working to preserve affordable housing in Atlanta, Louisville, and Milwaukee.

Key findings:

• Institutional and other large corporate investors own an increasing share of single-family homes, taking properties off the market for individual homebuyers and putting upward pressure on home prices and rents.

• Institutional investors have concentrated their purchases regionally (in the Sun Belt) and in particular neighborhoods (typically low-income, historically nonwhite, and disinvested areas).

• Cash sales have become more prevalent in low-income ZIP Codes.

• Between 2017 and 2021, home prices have appreciated rapidly in ZIP Codes with a large investor presence.

• Several nonprofit organizations are combatting the negative impacts of institutional investors by acquiring and preserving a pool of single-family homes for individual buyers to purchase with the help of lease-to-purchase programs, downpayment assistance, rehabilitation loans, and homebuyer education programs.

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