I think this a problem in everywhere. Take for instance, Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. Housing is a disaster. The home ownership percentage is so negligible it is a shame. Land and housing price is so high, it is almost impossible for most people to own a house in one life time. I hear the same kind of scenario in many other developing countries.
American companies are working on doing that in the US: buying up the liquid housing, and driving up prices, only to turn around and rent it back to people who could have afforded it if they hadn't driven up prices by trying to monopolize markets.
> American companies are working on doing that in the US
Is that why I have gotten several phone calls over the last few months from people asking if I'm interested in selling my house, many saying they will pay above current market rates and in cash?
I'm not in a big city. I'm in a county with a population density of around 600/mi^2, where the biggest city population is 40k and second biggest is about half that. My house is a little bit outside a town that is only about 10k.
It's about an hour on a good day to commute from here to the nearest big city.
It's not a place I'd expect there to be a lot of interest in speculative house buying...but I'm getting the calls and can't think of what else they might be.
In principle there are a few possibilities - foreigners, pension funds, banks, insurances or other corporations, endowment funds, publicly owned,... although most of these would seem more likely in a place like the US.
It's also conceivable that nobody really knows, that there is no common land registry that really matches the reality 'on the ground', ie the people considering themselves owners and receiving rents. In such a situation it would be very hard to make transactions, hence why it might appear impossible to buy real estate in some areas.
