Not For Sale: Why Congress Should Act to Counter the Trend of Massive Corporate Acquisitions of Real Estate

Authors

Stephen George

Abstract

The concept that property ownership is a right of the American people has been a bedrock principle of the United States ever since its founding. Property ownership was regarded by the Founding Fathers as an essential right for the American people to truly be independent and free. Throughout the United States’ history, property ownership has remained a core principle of American society, from being one of the natural rights that set the foundation of the nation, to form the most critical components of the “American Dream” through the 20th century and into the present. However, the prospects of owning property and the American Dream itself are un-der duress recently companies like Black Rock and powerful individuals like Bill Gates making massive acquisitions of houses and land. This trend is problematic because if such entities can swoop into real estate markets and buy up land and homes while the rest of the country struggles to meet that kind of buying potential, the prospects of Americans owning their own property and exercising this “right of free people” is in great jeopardy. Put simply, many Americans are already strug-gling–from loans, oversaturated markets for well-paying jobs, the decline of tradi-tional industries that raised the American people, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. If the current trend of corporations and wealthy business moguls buying up real estate continues, there may hardly be much left for the average American to aspire to in the end. However, if we preemptively act to protect the average Amer-ican and the prospect of owning real property, the American Dream will live on. The goal of this article is to evaluate proposed solutions and seek to offer a viable solution that will protect average Americans seeking the American Dream by pre-serving fair competition and lowering the rising barriers of entry in the real estate and housing markets.

First Page

97

Recommended Citation

Stephen George, Not For Sale: Why Congress Should Act to Counter the Trend of Massive Corporate Acquisitions of Real Estate, 6 Bus. Entrepreneurship & Tax L. Rev. 97 (2022).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/betr/vol6/iss2/7