Landlords of Wall Street

While renting out houses has typically been the province of mom-and-pop landlords, it should come as no surprise that Wall Street wants in. For years, a glut of foreclosures has suppressed home prices even as tighter lending standards and a sluggish economy have kept many buyers away. Banks, meanwhile, still sit on huge “shadow” inventories of foreclosed and abandoned properties, which means fewer places for people to live. The result of all this is a red-hot rental market — primed for speculation.

— MJ’s Josh Harkinson reports that some of the folks who created the subprime mortgage debacle are now scheming to be all of our landlords, whichhhhhhhhhh … will probably not end well, for us. It might end well for them. Things don’t seem to not end well for them.

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