Released: September 18, 2023

When Wall Street buys most of the homes on your block

Source: Ronda Kaysen & Ella Koeze, NY Times (Paid Registration)

First-time buyers, who overwhelmingly rely on mortgages, were often outmatched by cash buyers at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, when interest rates plummeted below 3 percent and home prices soared. Across the U.S., more than a third of all sales in 2022 were in cash. Many of those houses went to families and individuals, but investors’ paying cash accounted for nearly 10 percent of home purchases that year, according to data from ATTOM, a property data analytics company.

Investors targeted middle-income neighborhoods, many with larger Black and Latino populations.  Advocates of affordable housing argue that the proliferation of single-family rentals traps would-be buyers.

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