If your definition of “solved housing crisis” is “everyone can buy a home,” a ban on corporate ownership could help a little.
If your goal is instead “everyone has a place to live,” no, corporate ownership is not inherently problematic.
Anyway, some of the scenarios we ran into are things like the 2008 mortgage crisis - what happens if you end up in a market where there is a lot of inventory that no one can afford to hold? In my market, it's starting to look like a lot of builders (read: corporations) built too many houses either that weren't what consumers wanted or demand has shrunk (it is a town with a lot of federal jobs that are evaporating at the moment...). So can a builder hold that inventory indefinitely (assuming they can afford that) as a corporation? Likewise, people often don't want to hear this, but landlords do create efficiencies in the market - there are people out there that either don't want to own a home or can't qualify for a mortgage, and a landlord makes it possible to provide housing for those people as a kind of intermediary. We can argue over what it takes to qualify for a mortgage, but that's really a separate issue. We of course get into the issue of vacation homes or even situations like can I as an individual own a place for my business and a home - after all, they are both real estate, so how tight can we make these rules around ownership? Point being - the basic idea is sound, and some states like CA apparently already have laws on the books, but it's a more complicated matter than just one person == one house.
The solution to me is to stop preventing people and companies from building homes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjWs7dqaWfY
Effectively, goverments and nimbyism prevent houses from being built. Even when some laws change to supposedly allow it other laws continue to prevent it. It's got nothing to do with LLCs buying existing houses, it's got to do with not enough houses period.
And the types of cities (dense, highly-desirable urban cities like SF, London, Paris) where the NIMBY people complain most often also happen to be the most common markets for these investors to purchase/own multiple homes.
No, I do not realize this. This is only possible because of limited supply. If the supply was not limited by government and nimbys then it would not be profitable for "corporate entities / investment vehicles / investors owning many properties."
It's also irrelevant, no amount of preventing "corporate entities / investment vehicles / investors owning many properties." will do anything to keep prices low as long as demand is high and supply is low.
Why focus on single family homes? If corporate ownership is as bad as you are framing it then why is it OK for someone who lives in an apartment to be advantage of? Worse still, these entities would still want to invest in real estate so presumably they would invest even more in multi-family properties. If their ownership is what causes unaffordability, are you not making things even worse for people who live in multi-family housing?
Offer me a £500k passive investment that makes the same returns with the same guarantees, and I'll take that over a house.
Except they don't. No other investment comes close for the British middle classes with that sort of extra cash. And the UK government will tax you to the hilt on everything else.
Exacerbating the problem, is that you can get a bank loan for additional properties.
This means heavy handedly forcing local municipalities to change zoning.
A lot of people don't like that.
UK houses are a good investment, in fact the best investment for £500k, and also their price is additionally inflated by 'cheap money' and dual incomes.
Can't quite afford that house that's current 'under offer' at £500k? You might be able to find a bank that will lend you just that little bit more. 5.5x your salary? No problem. Congratulations, the bank has just helped push house prices that little bit higher. In the UK in the 1970s the single income 3x mortgage multiplier was on its last legs. Now it's 4+ times your joint salary. Madness.