In this series of posts, we explore what it means for single-family institutions to purchase real estate, the complaints against it, and the arguments on why it’s good for America and the world.
False Narratives
Governor Abbott retweeted the false claim that institutions bought 44% of single-family homes on the market in 2023. Politicians on both sides have cited this statistic as it’s perceived as deeply troubling. Abbott, even with his proclivity towards free markets, pushes this narrative.
People deeply worry about home prices, and many think institutions are pushing prices up. The latest data shows institutions accounted for 0.4% of single-family home purchases in Q2 of 2023.
This is two orders of magnitude lower than the falsely claimed 44%. Imagine being wrong by 100x. It would be like telling a friend you’re going to be 5 minutes late, and then you’re 500 minutes late. You’d have to be over 8 hours late instead of five minutes late. That’s how wrong you’d have to be to match the false narrative around institutional purchasing of homes.
I wish institutions owned more SFR, as institutional ownership and build-to-rent decrease NIMBYism and decrease the cost of housing. But we’re far from there, and people are spreading lies that are being repeated by reputable figures like Abbott.
Bias
I’m biased in writing this.
We’re in the business of selling software to single-family funds, so of course, I’m going to say they’re good. But I didn’t have a real estate tech company six years ago. I wasn’t in real estate in any capacity. We could have started a tech company in any space. There were much easier, less impactful companies we could have started.
Instead, what we’re doing is extraordinarily difficult and ambitious. We started Ender to simplify real estate by being the single source of truth. We started in the single-family institutional space as they possess many of the most glaring pain points.
Institutions
Institutions care about sentiment analysis and NPS scores. Yes, some small landlords undercharge and are amazing to their residents. But that’s the exception, not the rule. The average institutional owner provides a better service at a more competitive price.
In future posts, we’ll examine the investment merits of SFR from the perspectives of small and midsize businesses and institutions.