Private investment firms are already dropping inventory. It's sad to say but housing has become a pump and dump somehow. The unfortunate thing is the people who get rugged will end up being people who bought from them.
I think there's a reasonable argument for local (and responsible) landlords to exist. Not everyone wants to be tied down to a property or have to worry about repairs.
I can kind of get behind like Grandma renting out a house that she spent 30 years paying off so that she isn't starving on social security alone kind of stuff.
maybe like an allowance that an individual could at most have one home they're renting out. there should also be significant controls about the price of rent, maybe tied to the price of home purchases so that renters could not get screwed paying more than they would have had to pay to buy the place.
but in my opinion no corporation should be able to rent homes.
honestly even apartments should be required to have a lease own option that is not significantly different cost than renting.
As a home owner, the cost of "what you'd have to pay to own the home" is extremely variable and to an extent down to dumb luck.
I think it's sufficient to say no individual should be able to rent out more than X number of homes where X is what that individual could reasonably take care of. I'm okay with corporate rentals, particularly in the case of complexes as well.
Basically, I don't think small business or individuals that live in the area that do rentals are the problem. If someone wants to rent out houses as their primary source of income ... sure why not.
It's like anything else though, there needs to be reasonable limits to stop gluttony. I think a limit of "you can have 1 rental property" is way too low though.
I think a better solution would be a progressive property tax that goes up the more properties you own. But since property tax is a local/state tax usually, it would be hard to implement without it just being a new federal tax. Also, shell companies etc
