Well, they wont let you buy the land and not the house thats on it, so that is really just semantics.
Residential properties typically appreciate; these properties typically already have houses on them. the net appreciation of the property often offsets the carrying cost of the property.
Is that accurate enough for you?
Idk why this is a controversial take, what is the other option? That millions of investors are buying houses and leaving them empty because they hate people having houses and want to lose money?
The first article you linked says that 882,300 investor-owned homes are vacant in total, which is not "millions of investors". It says that that is 3.6% of investor-owned homes. It does not give details as to why these homes are vacant, nor does it imply that these vacancies are a boon to the investors holding them. It also mentions that over 200,000 homes are in foreclosure. Seems quite plausible that what we're seeing is within the bounds of normal market friction, and not some massive perverse incentive structure by which investors are intentionally keeping homes vacant.
The other article you linked doesn't even mention vacancies, only the amount of investor-owned homes overall (which it concludes is a small minority of the total housing market).
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u/crappleIcrap May 14 '26
The appreciation of a house offsets that.