Experts told lawmakers that families that needed mortgages were being outbid by private equity landlords with all-cash offers, and that they were jacking up rents, piling on junk fees, neglecting repairs and fueling eviction rates that local officials called destabilizing.

By 2024, it had gotten so bad that Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., demanded a Federal Trade Commission investigation. Ryan warned that private equity firms could control 40% of the single-family rental home market by 2030. (That’s non-apartments, or standalone homes that people rent to live in.)