Housing that is owned by corporations have no price controls. They will charge what the market will bear [1] [2] [3]. Rent increases can and do outpace income increases. Housing owned by corporations is housing that can't be owned by homeowners; when owned by homeowners, they are insulated from rental price increases due to a fixed mortgage.

Your 20% down payment assumption ignore 3-5% down FHA mortgages, accessible to anyone who can fog a mirror (based on their underwriting guidelines). But no mortgage is obtainable if your can't meet the debt to income requirement [4], which most can't because the price of real estate has accelerated so far beyond what wages will support.

Certainly, not everyone wants to be a homeowner. But if you wish to a remain a renter, there is nothing preventing your rent payment from going up until unaffordable, and you end up homeless [5].

[1] https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/about/insights/data-stories... ("Spending 30% of income on rent is the new normal in many US metros")

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/realestate/rent-prices-ho... | https://archive.today/txKrg ("A new Harvard report says 22.4 million households in the United States now spend more than 30 percent of their income in rent, with 12.1 million spending more than 50 percent.")

[3] https://www.npr.org/2024/01/25/1225957874/housing-unaffordab... ("Housing is now unaffordable for a record half of all U.S. renters, study finds")

[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homes-for-sale-affordable-housi... ("Homes "unaffordable" in 99% of nation for average American")

[5] https://www.npr.org/homelessness-affordable-housing-crisis-r... ("Homelessness in the U.S. hit a record high last year as pandemic aid ran out")

> Homelessness in America spiked last year, reaching a record high, according to an annual count that provides a snapshot of one night in January. The report, released today by the department of Housing and Urban development, found more than 650,000 people were living in shelters or outside in tents or cars. That's up a whopping 12% from the year before.

> To advocates, it hardly comes as a surprise.

> "We simply don't have enough homes that people can afford," says Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. "When you combine rapidly rising rent, that it just costs more per month for people to get into a place and keep a place, you get this vicious game of musical chairs."

(was a contract mortgage underwriter for a brief stint a lifetime ago, still very familiar with underwriting guidelines [Fannie, Freddie, FHA, USDA, VA] from a residential mortgage perspective, yet another tool to solve problems with when possible)