Small landlord here, own 10 units/6 properties.
Went from critically unemployed 2008-2013
To
Self employed 2013-2019
To
Property investor starting 2018 and went full time in 2019.
Institutional investors are just a by product of a bigger issue with housing and ever other hard / unique asset, that is inflation from money printing, keeping of rates artificially low.
The american house is by nature scarce, because every major metro doesn't allow as much building as needed,
Government backed loans (same black plague affecting higher ed)
Governent Politics putting into practice laws even after they've been deemed illegal
Government keeping rates low and liquidity flowing when pandemic hits and pumps 10 trillion into the market, giving free PPP money, and EIDL grants to the tunes of hundreds of thousands to millions for even small businesses.
Think about your local successful small corner business, and realize they likely got an extra million dollars put into their bank account tax free this year.
When that many people get that much extra money, at a fixed rate, know that they're going shopping, and rich use money to make money.
Whatever covid took away in rents, it made up for it 100X in stimulus money and inflation of the value of my properties.
Thats the real problem, the government is screwing with people's income and then coming to the rescue with debt and stimmy checks. Putting more and more of America in a position to be dependent on them, so they can ultimately control more of the market.
Same idea as Google giving services away for free until they run all their competitors out of the market and then do as they please.