I’m not sure how the government will prevent private equity or other large investors from buying houses. This is a world-wide problem. Let’s say you bought a rental. You don’t hold it in your name. You form an LLC or corporation and that holds the property. That limits what people can collect to the holdings of the LLC or corporation. That limits any liability for claims to the corporation. Some people have a few rentals. In some cases they’re vacation rentals, which doesn’t directly impact the cost of housing for non-vacationers.

I’m not sure what the legal basis for this is. I’m also not sure how it solves the availability crisis. There is some evidence that landlords in places like New York will hold back inventory to keep rents high, and that software to help landlords estimate rents may serve as a defacto collusion between landlords, but I’m not sure what the concrete evidence is for Blackstone reducing affordability. In fact, this is a global phenomena, with unaffordable housing across Europe and Canada. But there is cheap housing, like the famous 1 euro homes in Italy or Ireland paying people to move to remote towns on their coastal islands. There are just no jobs there. And for all the ranting about left wing socialism, state control of investment decisions is right up there.