Dutch researchers at the University of Amsterdam and Erasmus released a study entitled “Buy-to-Live vs. Buy-to-Let: The Impact of Real Estate Investors on Housing Costs and Neighborhoods.” The study examined a legal Dutch ban on buy-to-let or rental investments. Researchers studied home prices, sales, and the demographics of residents in areas with this law. “Our results suggest rental investors influence local housing conditions primarily through changing the residential composition of neighborhoods rather than direct house price effects,” the study stated.
The winners here were first-time homebuyers in the middle class. Yet, home sales and prices remained stagnant. Again, we must remember this is an INVENTORY crisis. Mortgage rates in the Netherlands declined from 2008 to 2021, falling to a record low of 1.65%. Rates spiked over the past two years and are now around the 5% range. So like America, those who bought at low rates are less likely to sell now. There are also programs in the Netherlands that enable borrowers to borrow 100% of the property’s value.
“The ban has successfully increased middle-income households’ access to homeownership, at the expense of buy-to-let investors. However, the policy also drove up rents in affected neighborhoods, thereby damaging housing affordability for individuals reliant on private rental housing, undermining some of the intentions of the law,” the study found. It is really as simple as supply and demand – fewer rental properties will push up the prices of rentals on the market. However, less competition enables people to enter the housing market and own their homes, gaining equity, tax breaks, and security.
We see who funded the study. They want to normalize permanent renting as we go toward Agenda 2030 and 15-minute cities. The study mentions gentrification numerous times. Another university-based study also condemned private homeownership in support of the institutions. The University of Oxford produced “Keeping Up with the Blackstones: Institutional Investors and Gentrification,” which is an alarmingly racist study. This particular study found that institutional investors caused rentals and housing prices to rise, but they said that was a benefit because it increased “neighborhood diversity.” Let us be reminded that the majority of the population anywhere is not a minority by definition. The study is skewed completely.
“The reason for increased diversity is that some minorities benefit from the relaxation of borrowing constraints as a result of higher house prices and take out mortgages for home improvement, increasing the attractiveness of their homes; other minorities move in because more rental properties become available as institutional ownership crowds out predominantly white individual home ownership,” researchers at Oxford stated, noting that crowding out predominantly white individuals, and therefore the majority of the population, was a positive result.
Institutions frequently cite diversity as part of their mission statements. Freddie Mac did it when talking about ADUs, and BlackRock consistently talks about providing housing for minorities in the name of diversity. Read between the lines – they simply want to profit on rentals and block the majority from homeownership. This has nothing to do with gentrification or race, which is always something cited as a virtuous plight when in fact it is in itself racist to think someone could not afford a home based on their race. They try to divide us in any way they can. These mega institutions and the studies they fund want to shrink the middle class and divide us into the haves and have-nots.
