[LimaBearz]

What gets me is even if the number was significantly smaller the fallout effect is massive. A common argument I've heard defending the practice is "well they didn't buy that many homes, it was just a small portion of total sales" ...implying that its not a big deal.

Lets no argue the truthiness of that statement but look at it as stated. They buy one house within a 10-20 mile radius away from you and they do so aggressively paying 20-30%+ over the pre-bubble price (think early pandemic times when prices were more realistic then they are now)

Well now thats the anchor price on comps for the next guy just looking to sell his house. Rinse and repeat a few times with anchored expectations on an inflated value and we have runaway prices.

[vanilla_nut]

It at least gives me hope that if regulation and profit margins push corporate buyers OUT of the market, we can return to sanity and I can someday own a home.

But given this country's history of regulating giant corporations... more likely we'll just do nothing until homelessness balloons even more and the vast majority of homes are corporate owned. Then we'll have to wait for a VC bubble burst before they start selling all of the homes and tank the market.

[bduerst]

That's because real estate pricing is fixed to nearby inventory. Zillow doesn't have to buy many homes in a neighborhood to inflate the prices of all the homes, it just needs to buy 1 or 2.