The Housing Market Is Broken and Nobody in Washington Will Tell You Why
Home prices are 5.7x annual income — the worst affordability ratio in US history. Institutional investors own 3-12% of single-family homes. Congress got $47M from real estate PACs.
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The median US home price in March 2025 reached $442,000. The median US household income: $78,000. That ratio — home price to annual income — is now 5.7 to 1, the worst affordability reading in American history.
For context: in 1980, at the peak of high interest rates, that ratio was 3.1 to 1. Americans could afford a home in 1980 more easily than they can today.
What Nobody Is Saying Out Loud
Institutional investors now own approximately 3% of all single-family homes in the United States — and in key metros like Atlanta, Phoenix, and Charlotte, that number reaches 8-12%. Companies like Blackstone, Invitation Homes, and American Homes 4 Rent own hundreds of thousands of units.
When corporations are competing for the same housing stock as first-time buyers — with cash offers and no financing contingencies — first-time buyers lose. Every time.
The Political Reality
Institutional investors are major political donors. Congressional members on the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee have received a combined $47 million from real estate investment sector PACs over the past six years.
No federal legislation restricting institutional single-family home ownership has come to a committee vote.
“The people who could fix this,” one housing economist told TrendEdge, “are funded by the people who benefit from it staying broken.”